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Bruce Bastian, WordPerfect Co-Creator, Dies At 76


Longtime Slashdot reader regoli shares an obituary from the Wall Street Journal: When Alan Ashton was a computer-science professor at Brigham Young University in the mid-1970s, the director of the school's marching band knocked on his door and said he wanted to use a computer to choreograph the ban...

Between the time he and Ashton released what would later be known as WordPerfect to the public in 1980 and when they sold the company for $1.4 billion in 1994, Bastian told his wife, four sons and his Mormon community that he was gay and leaving both his marriage and the church. When he died, June 16, at the age of 76 from complications associated with pulmonary fibrosis, he had been living a different life: A longtime advocate for LGBTQ rights, Bastian was married to a man, and had found a way to maintain relationships with his family, who remained dedicated members of the church that rejected his sexual orientation. Other publications remembering Bruce Bastian include: The New York Times, The Salt Lake Tribune, University of Utah, and Human Rights Campaign.

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