Internet Prodigy Aaron Swartz Commits Suicide

A huge name in the Internet world has killed himself, reports MIT newspaper the Tech. Aaron Swartz, 26, helped build Reddit, Creative Commons, and Demand Progress, co-authored the widely used RSS format at age 14, and "worked tirelessly to develop and popularize standards for free and open information sharing," writes Violet Blue at ZDNet. Or as friend Cory Doctorow puts it at Boing Boing, he was a "a full-time, uncompromising, reckless and delightful shit-disturber."

Swartz was facing serious jail time on federal charges that he hacked into the MIT archives and stole millions of academic articles in order to make them public. He also had written publicly of his struggles with depression. The tributes are beginning to flow, but Doctorow's piece at Boing Boing is the must-read. See it here. (More Aaron Swartz stories.)