Aaron Swartz committed suicide yesterday (Jan 11, 2013).

The Open Library wouldn’t exist without him. He wrote the backbone of the system you see today, hired the team that built the first version of the website.

He founded Demand Progress, which launched the campaign against the Internet censorship bills (SOPA/PIPA), coauthored the RSS 1.0 specification, cofounded the online news site Reddit, among many other good things.

His death is a great loss to all of us. May his soul rest in peace.