I would like to dedicate this article to Aaron Swartz, the Hacktivist we lost recently. I might not be able to enlighten all his works and what all he did, but from what all I read on the Internet, he was an Internet activist, a Software developer, Technologist and what not…
First of all I would like to tell that he was an Internet activist who was involved in creation of many technologies. His father was an entrepreneur who founded a software company back in 1980`s which was later discontinued in 1995. As a son from the Internet family, he was interested in computers since childhood. He was a prodigy who had excelled in many of his works and competitions. When he was 14 he won a competition which lead him to a trip in MIT where he met the other programmers almost double his age. There (MIT) he qualified work with a group which created the RSS. He is still known as the key person who was involved in perfecting the RSS feeds which were non-existent since years then. He also served on the RDF (Resource Description Framework) at W3C and also as an author to take up all the feedbacks. He also contributed to the Web Application Framework for which he will be remembered till the Internet is alive on any system.
He went to Stanford University but later after an year he left and then founded a company named Infogami with the funds he got because of his reputation from Y Combinator. Thereafter his startup company Infogami was merged with Reddit and he got an equal share as he had in his company. He created the Web Application Framework and also founded the company Demand Progress. He worked against the SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) but was not against the copyrighting of content. Before the bill for SOPA was passed, he opposed the act stating that “Internet is an open space which should never be capped”. He stated that as far as the copyrights are concerned, the respective sites should be blocked or permanently taken down but a law such as SOPA and PIPA should not be implemented. When the SOPA law was passed, he became very depressed and blogged about his depression related to Internet issues.
He volunteered himself as an active editor of Wikipedia and also was nominated to become the board member of Wikimedia Foundations which he lost but still remained as one of the pro founding people in the Wikipedia.
What caused him to lead his life to death???
He was recently accused of downloading research papers from MIT website without paying the charges for the Journal issued. Those article were found to be worth millions and he was sentenced to 35 years of jail and $1 milion+ in damages from the university. After having his first hearing and letting know of the charges and the years of sentence he had to persue, on 11th Jan 2013 he created suicide hanging himself in his own apartment in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, NY.
As stated by his parents and close ones, including a small part of his obituary
Aaron`s commitment to social justice was profound, and defined his life. He was instrumental to the defeat of an Internet censorship bill; he fought for a more democratic, open and accountable political system; and helped to create, build, and preserve a dizzying range of scholarly projects that extended the scope and accessibility of human knowledge. He used his prodigious skills as a programmer and technologist not to enrich himself but to make the Internet and the world a fairer, better place. His deeply humane writing touched minds and hearts across generations and continents. He earned the friendship of thousands and the respect and support of millions more.
Many other people close to him and who all worked with him took stand to make his death an event not to be disheartened of, but to take their lives ON and OFF the Internet in such a manner that the young legend lead his. He never bowed down to the wrong and never got down for the right.
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