Sad news has come. A good friend, and one of the great IT minds in Malawi, Mangaliso Jere has passed away. As my friend Mike McKay wrote, Mangaliso "was probably the most prolific Malawian blogger in the world, and he is being mourned and missed by many." We are all greatly saddened that he is no longer with us.

In his blog, Mangaliso left behind an impressive, amazing, and unique collection of thoughts on IT development in Malawi. I have referenced his writing many times in my work. When I heard he had passed away, I wondered, what happens when a blogger dies? Is their blog deleted after a certain time by the hosting company? What can we do to make sure that great electronic works like Mangaliso's are preserved alive on the internet even though the author is no longer able to maintain them?

Reading Blogger.com's terms of service didn't help much. Although, the terms mention nothing about rights to content or hosting after the death of the author, they do not explicitly say anything about the blog being deleted if the author fails to login or post content during any period of time. This was encouraging, but not convincing.

I did some research and found these postings: (#1, #2, #3 ) in the blogger.com user forums. They strongly suggest that blogger.com will leave Mangaliso's blog, and the blog's of other authors who have passed away, untouched for as long as they possibly can.

This is good news. I was impressed to learn that it seems blogger.com is going to leave the content posted. There are no guarantees, however, and perhaps its up to us, Mangaliso's IT friends, to find a more sure way of preserving his work (mirroring or hard copies).

Our regards to Mangaliso's family.