Here's what another great free software project leader Ton Roosendaal said about his experience with cancer, the lessons he learned, and the implications on leadership continuity of free software projects, in his 2020 BlenderCon closing address.

Richard Stallman has certainly been successful inspiring Ton and others to do great work and carry the flame! I hope he has access to excellent healthcare, and is as lucky as Ton.

Can we just take a moment to appreciate Ton Roosendaal:

https://www.reddit.com/r/blender/comments/jlaxaf/can_we_just...

"Money doesn't interest me" - Ton Roosendaal interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJEWOTZnFeg

BlenderCon 2020 closing address transcript:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24951703

DonHopkins on Oct 31, 2020 | parent | context | favorite | on: Can we just take a moment to appreciate Ton Roosen...

It's well worth watching and discussing the entire video, including Ton's introduction and close, bracketing all the amazing contributions by blender artists and developers:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24951550

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEjmbsiflMU

I think he saved the important personal news to discuss at the end, so it didn't distract from the virtual conference's focus on Blender itself, its community, and developers.

Ton is an unstoppable lucky force of nature: First he survived a vicious ceiling attack, now he survived leukemia!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJwG-qt-sgk&ab_channel=Blend...

In the introduction, Ton says that it has been a year of introspection and renewal, and describes how the Blender organization has been restructured.

That's followed by a series of mind blowing videos by a diverse worldwide bunch of talented Blender artists and developers.

In his closing statement, Ton tells what has happened to him in the past months, explains his change of perspective, and the implication and changes at the Blender Foundation.

Ton Roosendaal's BCON2020 Blender Conference closing address transcript:

https://youtu.be/uEjmbsiflMU?t=5427

I think it is a quite common effect in films.

Imagine, you are standing in the middle of a waterfall.

It is noisy, it is messy, it is colorful, it is wet.

You see everything is falling down.

Suddenly stops, the jets are coming down.

You see a bit of splashes.

You are standing there in the darkness.

On a black mirror.

That's how it feels when the doctor tells you that you have leukemia.

On February 24th, this year I was urgently hospitalized because I was developing bruises all over my body.

I started to bleed on my mouth.

The doctor said go to the hospital. Ton, we have to examine you.

At midnight I got the infamous bad news delivery by the doctor that I have acute leukemia of the quite rare kind.

It is called APL, which is not very common, but it is very lethal.

So usually you don't survive two weeks with this, unless, of course, the treatment works.

So that's what happened.

They immediately gave me blood transfusions and chemotherapy, and luckily after a few days I was recovering.

So I quickly moved from the critical phase to the phase of that you may get cured.

Four weeks later I was released from the hospital.

I was strong enough to join the rest of the world in the ... lockdown, staying at home.

After five weeks I had my first bone marrow test, which was extremely good.

And cancer was in remission, the doctor said. We are going to take you to the next phase, to cure you fully.

And that's called the maintenance phase.

Maintenance, right?

Then he said, well ... actually it is 7 months of treatments in which you have to be four months in hospital.

Not full time. But imagine in the afternoon you go to the hospital, they hook you up with the bag of poison, you wait three hours, you get sick, you go home, go to bed, in the morning you feel a little bit better.

And in the afternoon you go back to the hospital.

They hook you up, and you get sick again.

That's for 4 weeks, and then you get 4 weeks to recover, another 4 weeks getting sick, and 4 weeks to recover, another 4 weeks to get sick, another 4 weeks to recover, another 4 weeks to get sick!

It was last Friday, the last of the chemotherapy.

And this morning I went to the doctor again to discuss the tests I had.

And luckily my blood is fantastic, the bone marrow is looking really good, I could be declared cured.

But there was one little test they are still waiting, is the DNA test, which will take another 2 weeks to get.

But the doctor said I shouldn't worry about that.

I'm recovering extremely well.

So basically I've got my life back

So ...

And oh, how much I would have loved to sit together, today, at the conference with everyone because there would have been a conference and we would have thrown an enormous party not this year.

So I'm telling you this because this whole experience has had a profound impact on me, on my personality, on my life of course, plus I had time to think.

And I learned a couple of lessons.

First, getting cancer and surviving it it is not a fight. It is not something you win, something you lose.

You only need one thing. A little bit of discipline of course, to take care of yourself, eat well, do some exercises.

But what you need is luck.

And I was lucky.

I was lucky that science found the right treatment for me.

This is only 15 years old. This treatment for people with this kind of leukemia.

I was lucky to have family, friends around me to stand by.

I was lucky to have a team here in the company to stand by and to have.

Francesco Siddi to replace me for 8 months, doing fantastic job on it.

So I was lucky to live in the Netherlands, where there is a universal health care for everyone.

So there was not a moment that I had to worry about what would the treatment cost, and the doctors didn't have a moment to think other than what can we do for Ton, to help him, to cure him, and to make it as good and easy as possible for him.

So next time if you see people having cancer, don't wish them strength, or in Dutch "sterkte", just say good luck, and I wish you well, or a good day, a good evening.

Other things that I learned was that I want to start taking better care of myself, and I want to, I have a feeling that I was sacrificing myself too much.

So I want to put myself more forward, and also take care better of myself in a way that I can pay myself a little bit better. So I can afford a little house outside of Amsterdam with a garden.

I also mentioned last year that at some moment I have to step aside from Blender, for the future, to allow other people to come in.

And the process is been sped up, but not so much that I want to step down, but to get very strong people around me to help making Blender strong, and keep it strong, and move on, and step forward.

Because the main thing I learned was that I was really really not ready to let that go.

I couldn't let go of Blender, because that' s my life' s work.

Blender is life, right.

Blender is a community.

It is a team of people here.

It is everybody who is contributing.

It's the developers.

The bug fixers.

It is the people that make add-ons.

It is even the people who complain, or the people use Maya and don't like Blender.

It is the forum trolls.

And even the people who want to have the game engine back.

So all of them are the people I love.

And all of them I feel like is my family.

And I would never let go of that family.

So, enough drama, right?

I want to end with a little more happy note.

As you all know 2020 is not very nice.

It is a year that we are going to forget.

But the happy message is that 2020 didn't get me down, and I want to spread that positive vibe with everyone.

So please take care of yourself, take care of each other, and a little bit of Blender.

And I see you next year in Amsterdam, or somewhere else.

Bye Bye!