With great sadness and shock I wanted to pass along the news that long-time Community Developer @bonienl has passed away last week. IRL Ronald van den Berg was a friend and colleague who I've known and worked with since 2010.  Over the years we shared many emails and video calls. Mostly our discussions were technical but there were plenty of stories and some laughs as well.

From a description he wrote himself:

I started working with Unraid back in 2010 because of the need to store my ever growing movie collection. Unraid was recommended to me by a friend and very soon I was convinced it was the right solution for me.

From the very beginning I was interested to give the user experience of the Unraid GUI a better look and feel. Dynamix was born and became integrated in Unraid, and from that day, so am I on the continuous quest to help making Unraid a better product.

I am currently living in The Netherlands in a place called Almere. This part of the country used to be sea but is turned into land. It shows the Dutch spirit that anything is possible and the same feeling I have with Unraid and its future.

As you all know, Ronald was extremely diligent, always eager to help, and always friendly. He will be dearly missed.

If you want to leave a note, please use this topic to do so. I will send a link to his family.

-tom mortensen

my condolences

Very sad to see. My condolences to his family.

RIP Ronald. You were always a joy to work and interact with. You are missed.

RIP Bonienl My condolences to the family...

rip for sure, you did such good work helping the unraid community. best wishes to the family and friends

My condolences to his family and friends. He will be missed... 😢

Vale Bonienl

I was shocked when I first heard the news, as Ronald's time on Earth was far too short.

I always had great respect for Ronald and while we argued a fair amount (even Tiffany mentioned that we sounded like an old married couple), we only argued due to the mutual respect we had for each other and our respective "babies" in the Unraid universe. Even though only parents are allowed to criticize their own babies, we each accepted the other's critiques / suggestions after the obligatory half-hearted argument.

His contributions here were immense and uncountable and he will be missed.

While I unfortunately didn't get to know him very well outside of Unraid, I could tell that he was somebody whom I would've counted as a friend had we ever met. His intelligence, his diligence, and his devotion, and the odd glimpse of his humour are rare traits which did combine to make him a unique individual.

RIP Ronald.

Very sad news. It was a joy to collaborate with you over these past years, and thank you for everything you did for this community.

Unraid would not be the same without you.

Rest in peace, Ronald.

RIP bonienl

My condolences

I followed your contributions to unRaid over the years and have probably every one of your add-ons. You will be missed But every once in a while we will still spot your name in the code there somewhere. RIP

RIP Ronald.

It was a pleasure working with you and your insight into the inner workings of GUI and backgroud services.

You brought so many enhancements like movable dashboard.

You will be missed.

RIP.

This is very sad, this community has lost a great resource he help me out several times.

My condolences and prayers for his loved ones.

Rest in peace, Ronald. Your work brought joy and light to many lives. You will be dearly missed.

RIP

Sad news indeed. He will be sorely missed. ☹️

I'm shocked regarding this news. Rest In Peace. Many'll miss you and thanks your work and your own being..

Edited November 21, 2025Nov 21 by gyto6

RIP and my condolences to his family

Dang... late to the news on this. bonienl was a pillar in the unraid community. Rest in Peace sir...

what a regret

Edited November 22, 2025Nov 22 by gyto6

Im deeply saddened to hear about Ronald's passing. Though we never met in person, I'd worked with him and spoken with him regularly and always valued our conversations. He was always helpful, knowledgeable and generous with his time. The Unraid community has lost someone irreplaceable and he'll be genuinely missed.

My thoughts are with his family and everyone who knew him

So sorry to the family and Unraid family for your loss.

RIP Ronald. Condolences to all his friends and family.

What a loss for the unraid community, I've been using unraid for a decade easily, @bonienl has helped me on countless occasions and not to mention the amount of his plugins that have and still do use. A Legend has left us.