Observer, PuffPufffGive, electrician123 anf Reverend J used our newssubmit to tell us that one of the main figures in the Gnutella comminuty seems to have commited suicide.
When Gnutella appeared on the internet, Kan was one of the first that became active in the community that was building up around the software. At that time Gnutella was released by Nullsoft (also developers of WinAmp) and they had to remove it from their parent company AOL/Time Warner.
Because the compay was afraid copyrighted content would be easily swapped with the software. The people of Nullsoft took their hands of the project and Kan was one of the new people that lead the software to it's current success.
San Mateo County Coroner spokeswoman Sue Turner said Kan was found last week at his northern California home. |
"The cause of death was a perforating gunshot wound to the head," Tuner said. "It was a suicide."
A spokeswoman for Kan said he died on June 29 and was cremated on July 5. Further details were being withheld at the request of the family.
Kan helped develop an open source version of the Gnutella protocol, which marked a further step in popularizing the peer-to-peer file-sharing revolution pioneered by the Napster song-swapping service.
Read the entire story on Reuters here. If you want to know what Gnutella looks like currently, try Gnucleus!
Source: Reuters.com
