Aaron Swartz has, according to his family he committed suicide. The 26-year-old was primarily known for the development of the first rss protocol, and was early involved in the development of Reddit. It is still unclear why Swartz committed suicide.
An uncle of Swartz has compared The Tech let you know that Swartz on Friday committed suicide, for which there is no possible motive was given. Swartz was only 26 years old, but it was when he was 14 was already known when he contributed to the development of the first rss protocol. Later he became involved with Reddit. Swartz was also known as ‘internetactivist’, where he among other things, a campaign against the sopa – and pipa-law introduced.
In 2011, Swartz charged for downloading of documents from the wetenschapsdatabase Jstor, with the intent to distribute. The database includes many scientific publications, but asks money for access. The case against Swartz was still going on, so there is speculation that the incident has something to do with the suicide.