Gnutella pioneer Gene Kan dies Kan, 25, rose to prominence online as one of the most articulate spokesmen for the Gnutella file-swapping community at the height of the Internet's love affair with peer-to-peer software. Kan died June 29. He was cremated Friday, according to friends. Details of his death were not released by his family. A soft-spoken man with a talent for coining phrases that cut neatly through technical complexities, Kan fell into the limelight almost accidentally. Shortly after the release of Gnutella by America Online employee Justin Frankel, Kan and several friends set up a portal site intended to serve as an information hub for Gnutella developers. Kan helped write an early version of Gnutella designed to work on the Unix ( news - web sites) operating system, and he and his partners wanted to help bring together fragmenting efforts to extend the original technology. With interest in file swapping running high, the site drew journalists as well as developers, and Kan quickly became an unofficial ambassador between the non-technical world and peer-to-peer coders. ----- he was probably murdered by the RIAA
+ As someone who has used Gnutella quite often, and loves it very much, I admired Gene's innovation. The Open Source community will sorely miss him
I remember this guy. No one that developed with gnutella (nullsoft, developers of clients, tools, etc. and the next-generation protocol which he supposedly "hijacked") liked him because he seemed to crave attention in the media and it seemed like he was trying to take credit for something he didn't do: make gnutella. Who the hell made him a spokesperson? But maybe they were just jealous. It feels like I have been rambling, so I'll stop now. A big for his death.
I just edited this post to delete what I wrote after I changed my mind about posting. Why do I always have to post before I edit? go on with your business
