Remember Aaron Swartz

As a Chinese developer, I have not talked with Aaron Swartz.

But I have been using Markdown and RSS for years.

I love everything that he brought us.

We miss him and honor him!

Aaron Swartz first came into my radar when he helped me understand Kademlia about 6-8 years ago (or thereabouts… it was a long time ago). We never continued communication since - something I have now come to regret. Later, I started doing more work in python, and I came across a nifty little library for web dev, called web.py. It was created by none other than Aaron.

I remember talking to my partner about Aaron, wondering what he was up to just a few days before the tragedy. His brilliance is quite understated. Upon remembering him, I realized the impact he has on our (at least mine) lives. I use Markdown and RSS daily and web.py is my go-to python web library. He works on little things like RSS and MD, but they are little things permeates our lives and matter the most.

It’s a shame he’s gone so soon. Too bad for Planet Earth and the world I guess.

Aaron, your passing on leaves the world less free. As a blogger who resides in the Philippines, I am saddened by your untimely demise. As your legacy lives in us, may we unlock the world to the realities that not all of those who access the net are rich and are capable and powerful, many are poor who needs the same information and accessibility. You will be remembered!

Dr. Wends

I, like many, had heard of Aaron, admired his achievements and bemoaned his bullying by the powers that be. On behalf of every free thinking person thank you for your courage, insight, passion and progressive thinking. We understand the things you have done to protect the semblance of freedom we enjoy today. And I will also say thank you on behalf of all the thoughtless lemmings, and evil-doers who have also benefited from your accomplishments but don’t even have the capacity to understand or appreciate everything you have done.

You paid with you life. The ultimate sacrifice. Thank you is not enough.

May your friends and family find peace.

To add an image:I never met you, Aaron, but as someone of many more years and absolutely no understanding of how computing works, I have regularly felt the presence of spirits like yours—those who are marshaling technology to make our world a more just one. From all I read today about your gifts, you were one of those spirits indeed, a nerd who would change the world not by commoditizing your genius but rather by sharing it freely with all. And it seems you were already walking that talk. Good for you. Good for the rest of us.

Only 48 hours after your flight and I already I feel the presence of your absence. We are what we have lost.

I did not know Aaron personally but I am quite familiar with two of his projects. Reddit of course, and the less known web.py framework. I use the latter on many of my website related projects and can appreciate the philosophy behind it. A philosophy he shared, one for minimal, well working and robust tools for writing software. His mindset is one of a dying breed of programmers/hackers and it’s a tragedy that he was lost. But through this website and framework his great contributions to the Reddit community and the open source software community alike he will live on. My regards to the family and friends of Aaron.

Aaron contacted me a few years ago, enthusiastic about a website I’d put together featuring a worker-run newspaper from the 1840s. At the time the site was unfinished and long neglected: so neglected, in fact, that a few days after his message, it was taken down because I hadn’t paid the hosting company. Which I learned about from Aaron, who sent me this on the day the site went offline:

“Hey, Rajeev – what can I do to get voiceofindustry back online? I tried asking GoDaddy if I could pay your hosting fee, but they said not without your phone pin.”

So, before contacting me about the site being down, he had already tried to get it back up, at his own expense. This level of kindness and support was typical of Aaron, who not only encouraged me to resume the project, but played a major role in its completion: when the original issues of the paper were lost, he helped recover them; when I had trouble finding articles that were incorrectly cited, he read through the paper to help locate them. He helped fix technical problems on the original site, and suggested developers to work with when we decided to redesign it last year. When the project was finally done, he was excited about the new site, and sad that he couldn’t make it to the launch event (though of course, he helped get the word out for it).

All of this was, of course, a tiny corner of the universe that was Aaron’s activism. But his interest and support helped me to recover my own interest in justice issues, and for that I will remain grateful. I’m sad that I never got to thank him in person.

Thank you, Aaron Swartz.

I have a grandson just like Aaron. Another one of God’s Roman Candles? Incandescent but timed to perfection, just as God designed them.

With love, Aaron.

I do not know Aaron, I have never met him but from everything I am reading that his friends and family have posted, I can see that he was one of a kind and had a huge heart and that he had the mind to change the world. I would like to thank him for everything he did and give him a hug for everything he stood for and stood against. Thank you Aaron, RIP. I wish peace to your friends and family as well.

I am so sorry about this. It is true about prosecutorial overreach in this case, and unfortunate that our society is so repressive. Aaron’s situation has brought attention to these issues and I do hope it will help to bring about change. I admire Aaron’s life and I send warm wishes to his family.

I have seldom felt so much immediate love for someone I never met. Tears fill my eyes. Aaron was the visionary pure hearted genius prankster our world needed to have a good look at itself. Oh how I wish he could have worked his magic for a long lifetime! Oh Aaron - Thanks for all you gave to all of us! May your spirit rise to the highest realms of love!

J.H Hull

I’m only a normal woman, and also quite aged. I’m an european, and here we all know how freedom is important, and we associate freedom with USA, from the Pilgrim Fathers sail to find a new country of freedom. And now? I cannot stand this change in America’s approach to individuals and their freedom! I don’t use Facebook or twitter, so I’m going with mail, sorry

As we all know Aaron Swartz died recently and I’m must say the the Hacker community has taken a huge hit. Aaron not only co-created RSS at the age of 14, He co-founded reddit, saved the internet from being restricted and has done some much more!

This man is a inspiration for all. I’ve always hoped that I could be a bigger gear in the gears that turn this world and this man was a perfect example of that. The amount of amazing things he completed at 26 is amazing and there is so much more he could have done.

I may not have personally know this man but I wish I did because, boy, He has changed the world and well he is my inspiration and role model. It is so sad to see some one of his epicness, awesomeness and greatness leave us!

My heart goes out to his relatives and friends.

R.I.P Aaron Swartz, You may not have know it but you’ve changed the world!

Yours Truly,

Very rarely the world is blessed with people like Aaron and the world is at a loss now. May God bless Aaron’s soul and strength to people close to him in this difficult times.

I never had the chance to meet or talk to you, but I found about you a couple years ago and sent you an email to tell you how inspiring were you to me as a young technology enthusiast. It just breaks my heart knowing that a person like you is dead and I never had the chance to shake your hand and thank you.

I deeply feel sad about You. Before It was happen to Alan Turing. Now , It’s #Aaron. R.I.P. :( the world is dangerous for free thinkers. :(

Best Regards

While never knowing Aaron, his commitment to freedom and openness helped educate and show me a better way. Thank you Aaron. You were unfairly treated for doing the right thing & your talents will be appreciated and missed by more people than you can ever possibly imagine. You made a difference. rip.

My sincere condolences go to his family and friends, It is a deeply sad.

I did not know Aaron Swartz before his campaign against SOPA. I have never met him in person and I did not know much about him either. Yet I am very saddened by what has happened.

Every technologist would agree that Aaron is the role model, whom most of us are striving to become one day. His works reflect dedication and talent at the highest degree. He has achieved so much in so little time and he has bestowed us with so many things; Things that we will never be able to pay you back.

We will always remember you.

Thank you, Aaron Swartz.

With Aaron, ideas became bigger, more important, more precise, and more human. If we’d meet for coffee he showed up in a hoodie and a big grin that could break out like an ocean wave in the middle of farmland. He broke through the surface–he couldn’t help it–of those he met. He cared so much. He cared so much.

Never met Aaron, but followed the “Demand Progress” initiative from overseas with more than usual interest. Especially the part related to ‘Kill Switch’ and other Internet related censorship actions. Any US decision on this could affect Europe as well. The majority of our politicians are afraid not to follow “Big Brother USA” and take e.g. Internet censorship for granted.

Enough…

Please accept my most heartfelt sympathies for your loss. I’ll say kaddish for Aaron in dear remembrance.

Mark W. Brouwer ~ The Netherlands

Aaron was the hero of our times. May his vision of open and free knowledge will illuminate our minds and coming generations always…..

Dear grieving friends and family,

I have been deeply moved and reminded once again about the devastating effects of depression. The web of life has been diminished by the sudden and tragic departure of your beloved boy.

I hold you all in my thoughts and prayers as you begin to navigate this rough terrain of acceptance. As the shock wears off and you begin to heal be kind and patient with yourselves. Avail yourselves to the love that surrounds.

I pray that Aaron’s pain is fading away in the loving arms of the Creator.

That, primarily is my experience of Aaron. Seeing my friends similarly electrified, energised, inspired, challenged, focussed, redirected or moved after speaking with him. Sometimes, honestly, it seemed like they were high on his genius, on the inspiration, clarity, fun and ideas that flowed from him and in those interactions.

Hours before Aaron died another brilliant man wrote to me in a rush of excitement about the new ideas he had from conversations with Aaron and Taren. Reeling in shock at the news, a bright young woman told me how Aaron had pushed her hard, helping her strengthen and clarify plans for the important organisation she is building.

Aaron’s genius, generosity and legacy, are well recorded here, and across the public record. His acheivements are mammoth, and out of scale with our ideas of what one young man can do.

I find myself thinking about the less recordable: the fires of ideas those conversations sparked. The ways my friends are better, wiser, and have done more good in the world because of conversations and friendships with Aaron. The way that experience has clearly been a common one: dozens, hundreds, thousands changed in ways small and large by his openness, passion, generosity and incredible brilliance.

And the way that ripples ever outward, each of them sharing the ideas, the learning, the wisdom and the stories from those conversations with countless others. And those people sharing them again. Each of us a little better for it.

Dear, Aaron Swartz is a hero.Though he is gone but his dream will exist and will make the world a better place. I’m sorry for your lose.It’s also our lose. Best wishes with lots of love.

Dear Aaron.

I didn’t know about you until yesterday. Regretfully I can only apologize for that ignorance in my mind to myself. But perhaps I can also do the following. Because what I came to realize, while reading about your remarkable work in the US and connecting the dots to how things have played out for internet freedom here in Europe, was that I share something with you. I have done so for a long time. I share your passion. Your passion for a more equal and just world without corruption and the same foul power struggles that led you to see no other way out. My soul is your soul in this very regard. I will not stop fighting for social, economic and intellectual emancipation, and you will not be forgotten. It is a bit weird, ironic or perhaps paradoxical, but I feel a little less alone. And a lot more affirmed of my convictions.

//J from Germany

RIP Aaron Swartz (26), you are a victim of a downright Orwellian USA with an out of control justice system that has blood on its hands.

Dear Susan & Robert, Please do accept my condolences. I am Aaron’s colleague at ThoughtWorks. Though we have never met, I have been deeply moved by his work & have been incessantly talking to people about this case rife with injustice & victimisation. I even wrote about it here: http://inagardencalledlife.blogspot.com/2012/12/barbaric-american-judicial-system.html I tried reaching out to Aaron hoping he would want to discuss things but I presume he was busy & doubted whether a faceless stranger could be of use to him. I am shattered in the realisation that I couldn’t help him. I am sorry for your loss, for our loss. So full of vitality & goodness was his life that death was perhaps not something anyone associated with him. His was a life that had the soul to feed the many many inspired lives that will not make his death in vain. Your son has done you proud and is a son that every mother & father would cherish to have reborn in their family. I pray for his soul. I pray for your strength.

                     Anand

Dear Aaron, We never met but your work has touched my life and millions of others, helping to make our world a better place. The world has lost one of the most intelligent, creative and caring people in your passing and I fear it will be a more unjust place without you. I am sadden and appalled to read of the injustice of the charges brought against you, and to think that your death could have been prevented. Thank you for being a truly amazing and inspirational person who fought passionately for the rights of others. My thoughts and prayers are with your friends & family. May you find peace. A friend

The University where I belong to doesn’t have a constant subscription of leading scientific journals, and just like in the real world, only a few elitist research groups have exclusive access. It’s so frustrating that most of the time, I can’t access science journal articles that I desperately need for my research because they are outrageously overpriced. Out of desperation, I sometimes send an email to the contributing author and plead for a free copy while trying to explain my financial predicament and also remarking that I come from a third world country and I really want to do research. Aaron Swartz’s vision of absolute free online academic content could have not only helped me but also all the other desperate graduate students in my country. Actually, his enormous efforts in battling SOPA and PIPA have already helped us, the third world students who cannot afford the staple academic textbooks whose prices are equivalent to 2 weeks or even a month of a regular student allowance.

When I heard about Aaron’s death, I was reminded of my reaction when Neil committed suicide in the movie Dead Poets Society. I remember that I was so shocked that my mouth was literally hanging open during that scene and I said to myself , OMG why did he do that? He was the leader of the revolution!
But I later realized that when a person is horribly forced to stop doing what he is meant to be doing, he is good as dead.

Aaron Swartz is a rare soul, for it is extremely rare for someone in a generation marred by looming injustices and disguised evils to stand up and to initiate radical change. Thank you very much Aaron. I may not have met you personally but your legacy resonates in me. Now, you are truly free.

Aaron was always working on things I knew were important - things I meant to do some day. He was always doing a better job than I would have done. He was fearless. He was a hero. He was too young.

Humanity lost a great mind, but he will always be remembered, since he joined the ranks of immortals, as in the words of Rumi below.

Yaman Cakiroglu

I died as a mineral and became a plant, I died as plant and rose to animal, I died as animal and I was Man. Why should I fear? When was I less by dying? Yet once more I shall die as Man, to soar With angels blessed; but even from angel hood I must pass on: all except God doth perish. When I have sacrificed my angel-soul, I shall become what no mind e’er conceived. Oh, let me not exist! for Non-existence Proclaims in organ tones, To Him we shall return.

Rumi

It is imperative that Aaron’s premature death serve as an impetus to action conducive to the emergence of the future he envisioned—one of unimpeded access to that knowledge which is our inheritance from antecedent generations.

I had the pleasure of meeting Aaron not too long ago when he gave a talk in Atlanta about his part in the fight against SOPA. I’m not sure quite what I was expecting, but I was certainly surprised when the quiet, approachable guy on the edge of everyone’s attention walked up to the front of the room and sat down in front of his laptop and a pair of computer speakers.

What followed was not the polished, confident talk from a person who enjoys bending other peoples beliefs to suit their own. Instead, what I heard was a humble, first person account of how some techies and an online petition managed to kick start a movement that eventually dominated the scheme put forth and backed by professional politicians.

It was a story of how the common peoples refusal to accept something they truly believed was wrong managed to achieve the impossible, overthrow Goliath, and overturn a government bill.

I left the room inspired. Here was someone that not only recognized the injustice going on in the world - which, sadly I feel, is rare enough these days - but he had actually done something about it! He had made a difference, and so could I.

That night I thought about all the ways I could help make a difference. Writing software, articles, even just signing online petitions - no matter how small the contribution, at least I would be helping make a difference. And if I did my part, maybe one day I could also overthrow Goliath.

Sadly though, my part in this story picks up a few months later, yesterday, when I lazily rolled out of bed, scanned the headlines on my phone, and saw that my idol Aaron Swartz was dead.

Would Aaron be with us now if I had signed a petition or two, or written a post about how wrong it was for him to be perused with felony charges for a victimless crime? Probably not. If I and everyone who knew of him had done so? Possibly, but again, probably not. No one will ever know for sure.

But what I do know is this; if everyone in this world was like Aaron Swartz, if everyone fought against what they believe to be wrong with the uncompromising idealism that Aaron had, a government persecution of the likes he was facing would have been stopped dead in its tracks before it even got off the ground.

Online petitions would have been made and signed with fury, people everywhere would stop what they were doing, march into the streets, and demand some common sense from the organization that ultimately represents the will of our society. Because, as Aaron understood all too well, the government, in the end, answers to us.

But first we have to speak.

So while it may be easy to blame the government for Aaron’s death, I would urge you to go further, as I believe Aaron would have done. I urge you to act, as Aaron would have acted, and do not accept government actions that go against what we all believe is right!

I am not going to tell you what I think you should do next - except to follow, and act, on your own beliefs. I did not know Aaron well, but I know he would have done that much at least. So lets keep his memory and spirit alive, and use our lives to make the world a better place - the way he did with his.

I first read about you when the JSTOR incident was reported, and after that I lost touch with what was happening. I am so sorry, I could not do anything for you. This will always hunt me. But your fight will continue, that I can promise ! Sorry Aaron !

Firstly, I would like to give my condolences to Aaron’s family and partner.

As many around the world mourn the loss of Aaron Swartz, I look at the faces of many friends and colleagues whom have spent the last year working with him here at ThoughtWorks. Each remembering having lunch with Aaron, attending his talks, supporting his work, and advocating for him personally.

I remember having brief discussions with Aaron a few weeks back about the similar work our teams were doing to increase the impacts online social activists could effect on information policy. He was few in words but passionate nonetheless. We spoke about how important it was to make our platforms as open as possible, how information transparency should be pervasive through the Internet, public policy, and obviously with respect to academia and the government.

At no point during these brief and short interactions, did Aaron ever give off an air of arrogance or authority. He only spoke as someone who wholeheartedly believed in his ideals and was willing to share them with whomever would listen.

Today, while looking at all these sad faces and hearing of these kind yet newly painful memories, I regret that I had the ability to speak with Aaron more, but never took the opportunity to do so. I don’t feel this way because I could brag about sitting near the “legendary” Aaron Swartz who helped put an end to SOPA, aided in the creation of the RSS specification and Reddit, and so much more. But, more so because he was a genuinely passionate and humble person that fully applied his knowledge and abilities in various ways to improve the lives of others. And that, is how I will remember Aaron Swartz.

I remember reading the story last year and in all honesty it seemed like one of those “American” lawsuites that would blow over but now seeing what the ultimate result of it has been, I can say without pause that there is something fundamentally WRONG with the US justice system. That being said, with respects to his family and his partner, for whatever it is worth from a small island in the middle of the Caribbean, I offer my condolences.

We can never say why we make the choices we do sometimes but for now, my heart goes out to you who must grieve as your love for him scars your hearts for this disconnect.

My deepest heartfelt condolences to Aaron’s family and friends I never met Aaron Swartz, and never knew him personally, however i realized through news that Aaron Swartz was a kind of specie out of this world. Young, Brave, curious as every genius man must be, full of passion . Aaron, your bright light will be sorely missed in this world. A huge loss for the humanity, peace be with your immediate family and friends.

Eric Duran.

To Susan, Robert and Family

So sorry for your lost. If we could turn back time for just a minute. Though we never knew Aaron….we are saddened to hear of your loss. No parent should bury their child first. The world has lost a dear heart and a great soul. Our love and condolence to all the Family and Loved One.

My 21 year old uni student brother Jordan , Shireen, Matt (my husband) and our 5 year old son Noah. Perth WA Australia

I knew Aaron during the time he had taken a shine to Wikipedia. We met in Boston at Hacking Days prior to the 2006 Wikimania conference in Cambridge. There, at MIT, we spent a few days running through the strengths and weaknesses of MediaWiki. Here he was, vacuuming up the technical aspects of what ran Wikipedia, and trying to keep up in his own mind with the millions of ways this flavor of “open” could be improved, strengthened, and deepened. Some of us went out for drinks, and he tagged along, quietly following the conversational points, but he was clearly not in his element, and underaged.

Later at an infamous party, he was part of a game of pitchmanship, in which Samuel “SJ” Klein, me, Benjamin “Mako” Hill, and Aaron tried to sell our idea to Mitch Kapor, Brewster Khale, and Ross Mayfield. We didn’t win, but Aaron delivered our bit in spectacular fashion, and to uproarious laughter.

What I will remember most clearly about Aaron is the multiplicity of his mind. I don’t think he ever had one thought about anything. He had a half dozen. And another half dozen he didn’t mention. What evolved in his thinking beyond the brief time I knew him was that he began to recognize in more detail the root of corporate, political and social structures which were relevant to his chosen areas of activism. He wrote his famous statements about the Wikimedia Foundation and learned a lot in the process of running for the Board. He tackled politics head on. He began constructing an ethos that he would push forward the rest of his life. Would that we could have had the benefit of decades more of his thinking.

As a lawyer, I am disgusted by the overreaching and utter lack of prosecutorial discretion addressed fully by Lessig. At the time the charges were announced, I read them in detail, and had handicapped the outcome as being predictable: a slap on the wrist, some contrition, some minor plea to satisfy a batting average, and we would all move on. It hadn’t occurred to me that he would become ensnared in a tar pit, and that it would drag him under. Cooler heads will prevail, I thought. Eventually the prosecutors will relax, I thought.

Now he is gone. Much too soon. His star will always be burning brightly in my mind.

Aaron Schwartz’s death this week reminded me of Alan Turnings in that both were bright lights shot down by archaic laws, and prosecutors who will probably never be a fraction of what they destroyed. It just breaks my heart that that wonderful 14 year old kid I met is now dead.

All the best

I’m catalan. I love freedom. I belive that the world isn’t free like us need. Aaron fighted for a real free world how much clever persons in history. We will need Aaron’s in our way and today we losed one.

Anna from Catalonia (the next state in Europe, and one of oldest nations of Mediterranean sea)

I have never personally met him, but that does not diminish the gratitude I have for his work. In maintaining the freedom of the World Wide Web, he helped to preserve, for now, what is possibly the greatest tool for preserving our great Republic.

May he rest in peace, but let us never forget who drove him to this point. The United States Government’s relentless persecution of a patriot, the hallmark of our tyrannical regime, is the reason he is no longer with us.

This is the reason we must keep fighting. His untimely death shall not be in vain. The best way to celebrate his legacy, is to fight to preserve it.

Rest In Peace, Aaron Swartz. Be assured that your life was not in vain.

My deepest condolences to the family and friends of Aaron Swartz. Such a brilliant mind and so young with so much more to give to this world – I’m sorry you had so much pain. Rest in peace, you will not be forgotten!

A man I did not know has touched me by his generosity and work for the good of others. His life and death have moved me to do more myself. My condolences to his family and friends.

It is extremely sad and shocking to hear about Aaron’s demise. May his soul rest in eternal peace and may God give patience to the grieving family and loved ones. Aaron Swartz. His contributions will always be remembered and I hope and pray for many “Aarons” to follow suit.

Aaron reached out to me online when I was 13 (making him, I think, 14 or so at the time) after I posted online about not being allowed into a Linux conference because of my age. We corresponded sporadically after that, and I soon joined the club, which I’m finding out today was an awfully large club, of people who found inspiration in Aaron’s amazing mind.

I don’t know whether it was difficult for him to do this or not, but he seemed to have no shame in saying “I don’t care who you are or how important the world thinks you are. What I think matters, and I can contribute too.” He didn’t care that 13-year-olds “aren’t supposed to” be emailing Stanford law professors, as though that’s some kind of inevitable law of the universe. At his best, he wasn’t content to leave things to “the experts” and he didn’t let the internal filters and self-doubts that we all feel keep him from action. You could call it arrogance, but it wasn’t malicious or self-promoting as arrogance is wont to be. It was simply pure chutzpah, born of kindness and a genuine desire to help, which he had in droves. He was someone who would see a problem, say, as Sorkin once put it, “I want to be a part of this,” and would throw himself out there to contribute with whatever skills he could. That attitude could, and did, get him into trouble, but it also gave us all a chance to know him and learn from him.

Indeed, I just looked up something Aaron wrote to me as part of a blog comment way back in 2001, and he knew this back then too: “Thankfully, in the hacker community, things are much different. It’s wonderful to know that online (in many communities, at least) folks can ignore so many of those things which stop us in the physical world. And this kindness carries over into the real-world as well.” His kindness and his work proved this to be true for so many of us. He taught me not to let self-doubt, hierarchy, and expectations stand in the way of putting myself out there or getting involved in something because it never seemed to stop him. Thank you Aaron.

I worked on David Segal’s campaign for congress. Aaron and I both had the dubious honor of being in on the campaign’s ground floor, but I never got to meet him until the last week of the campaign when he came and worked full-time with us doing messaging or targeting or god knows what with the executive staff.

During that week Aaron stayed at my house once or twice when he wasn’t working so late that he fell asleep at the office beneath a trash bag he had ripped up and fashioned into a blanket. We never really talked until the night we lost and were all in a dark neighborhood bar celebrating and mourning. We made David give a speech on a pool table. It was the only night of the campaign I didn’t drink too much.

Either I told Aaron I was a socialist or someone else did. I don’t remember. I guess everybody on the campaign knew I was a socialist. Maybe it happened when I introduced him to my friend Jesse who is also a socialist and a computer guy. (I figured they would hit it off since they were both smart computer guys.) Anyway, when I was introducing him to Jesse, he said, “Good, we need socialists.” It felt special because I had heard all these legends about Aaron from David and here was this dude who did more when he was 14 than I’ll ever do in my life validating this worldview that’s a defining feature of my consciousness. It was a cool moment.

I first became aware of him in 2002 when I attended O’Reilly’s Emerging Technology conference in San Jose. At the time, he was a 14-year-old in an oversized t-shirt, milling about behind Larry Lessig, Molly Van Houweling and Lisa Rein in a conference room at the launch of Creative Commons. At first I was confused by his presence; I had thought that he was somebody’s kid who was just hanging around and tagging along. But then sometime during the presentation, he got up and took the mike, and started talking authoritatively about some aspect of Creative Commons. I was astounded – he spoke with the authority and confidence of an experienced adult.

It was undoubtedly his advanced intellect that set him apart from most of his peers. Aaron expressed the sense that he didn’t fit into the world around him early on. From the earliest days when I became aware of him, I remember him writing about not fitting in at school through his blog called Schoolyard Subversion.

Most of that blog doesn’t seem to be available on the Web now, but one archived page is.

“My name is Aaron Swartz,” he wrote. “I’m a 9th grader at the North Shore Country Day School. In the summer of 2000, I finally realized that school wasn’t working. I decided to do something about it.”

“It’s time for a change. The rebellion is coming. I’ve decided to join the war and fight to change my school. I’m tired of outdated teaching practices where the students don’t learn anything. I’m tired of constantly being prepared for more preparation. I want something new, something worthwhile, something better.”

I don’t know what happened at the school, ultimately, but I do know that Aaron ended up being homeschooled, and that he spent his time at home on his computer learning about the technologies of the Internet and the Web. He told me that he loved the Web because it was a portal to knowledge and connected him to anyone he wanted to connect with.

He argued on his Web page that educators should encourage children to pursue subjects that interested them, rather than being forced to learn random facts.

At the time that I interviewed him, Aaron was 15 years-old and working to create Web standards as part of a working group as part of the W3C. He told me that he first started programming at the age of 8 or 9, and that he became interested in XML and RDF because he was interested in news syndication.

How did he learn XML? I asked him.

“A lot of it has been looking at tutorials on the Net and just talking to other people and looking at examples and things, and some books, and a lot from friends and things, and from the library. When I was first getting into XML, there weren’t any books, so I had to use the Web.”

I loosely kept in touch with Aaron over the years and congratulated him when I read about Conde Nast acquiring reddit. I would sometimes e-mail him after reading something on his blog that I thought was particularly brilliantly written, and he would respond back with a few lines.

The idea of changing the world is obviously something that animated the narrative arc of Aaron’s life. As my former Wired.com editor Kevin Poulsen put it so aptly today, “Worthy important causes will surface without a champion equal to their measure. Technological problems will go unsolved, or be solved a little less brilliantly than they might have been. And that’s just what we know. The world is robbed of a half-century of all the things we can’t even imagine Aaron would have accomplished with the remainder of his life.”

Intelligent, driven, insatiably curious, and fiercely passionate. That’s how I’ll remember him. He was the reason I joined Demand Progress. He’s the reason I stood up and believed I could make a difference. He touched my life. He changed my life.

I’ll see you on the other side, Aaron. Thank you, for everything.

I did not know Aaron, but tonight, iPhone in hand, I cannot help but read the eulogies and realize the impact this young man had made. I mourn with your friends and family tonight, Aaron. Thank you for being an advocate for what we believe in and I am sorry to learn of your life and loss. Peace be with your immediate family and friends.

Aaron, you were a rarity amongst humanity. Brave, full of passion and ever curious. Your bright light will be sorely missed in this world.

Richard Feynman. Buckminster Fuller. I never met them. But fate was kind enough to cross our paths. You were only 14 when we met and already more brilliant than what most of humanity has to offer.

Your willingness to jump in and help others set you apart in a league of your own. It was extraordinary. Inspirational.

Sleep well my brother and forgive me my neglect.

I understand that it is important to recognize Aaron’s utter brilliance and contributions to the Internet and so many worthy causes. It is. Thank you to those who are highlighting all of the amazing things he did. But to be honest, I didn’t know and admire him for those things. I just knew and admired Aaron. I had some understanding of the fact that he was a hero of the Internet world and beyond. But to me he was t-shirted, funny, warm, loyal, long-haired, Rock Band-addicted, and good at heart. He was Aaron.

Aaron Swartz was a really brilliant an brave human being. This is a big loss for all the humanity. I am so sorry…

I never met aaron. Yet, somehow, his work touched me as a developer and as a person. I use Markdown for my projects, and without his input, my work would look nothing like what it does today.

Sapere aude

R.I.P. Aaron Swartz.

The news labels him as merely the co-founder of Reddit. What they forget, is he was a fiery young man spearheading the internet freedom movement.

Demand Progress, whether one likes them or not, almost singlehandedly defeated the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), the Protect-IP Act (PIPA), and the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA).

Without the internet, the liberty movement is severely crippled. Without a free and open internet, you wouldn’t be reading this. Without a free internet, my organization, PANDA, wouldn’t exist. If not for Aaron and DP, those bills may just have killed it.

I have never personally met him, but that does not diminish the gratitude I have for his work. In maintaining the freedom of the World Wide Web, he helped to preserve, for now, what is possibly the greatest tool for preserving our great Republic.

May he rest in peace, but let us never forget who drove him to this point. The United States Government’s relentless persecution of a patriot, the hallmark of our tyrannical regime, is the reason he is no longer with us.

This is the reason we must keep fighting. His untimely death shall not be in vain. The best way to celebrate his legacy, is to fight to preserve it.

Rest In Peace, Aaron Swartz. Be assured that your life was not in vain.

“So many people knew Aaron as a programmer, an activist, and a visionary. I never did. To me, Aaron was “Taren’s boyfriend,” the funny, unassuming guy she’d bring along to berry-picking or swimming when we lived in DC. It turned out that Aaron was one of the most accomplished people I’d ever met–though I only pieced it together after I recognized his photo in a news article. And even after that, it was a struggle to remember that the guy who was so good at swinging on the swimming quarry’s Tarzan ropes was a co-founder of Reddit, or that the guy who mentioned he’d done some work on ethics was one of the most important voices for Internet freedom. I’ve never known anyone who wore so much accomplishment so lightly. And reading about him again these last days, I’ve gotten the sense that that selflessness was at the heart of who Aaron was.”

I am so sorry for your loss — cross that. The WORLD’S loss. This is so heartbreaking.

I spent a few hours reading through his entire blog and quoting some of the most notable things that he’s written. They’re now featured on the Quotesome front page, and if you hit next you’ll keep getting a new quote by him: http://www.quoteso.me/quotes/224770 I felt so compelled to do this because I think the news is presenting a lame, watered-down version of Aaron (he was right about the news and media). He was so much more. He was complex and multifaceted… I am heartbroken to hear about his loss. R.I.P.

Aaron you were a TRUE HERO. My thoughts an prayers go out to all your family and friends. May God raise up more coragous people like you.

Last year Aaron invited me to an event in New York City. I was one of the people he checked in with once or twice a year, to talk XML or journalism and activism. It was good to see him and to meet Taren. They were so obviously a great match and great friends to one another. As the night wound down I asked him what he was working on. I’ve asked hundreds of people the same question. It’s usually a sure-fire way to get a long, drawn-out answer, with footnotes. But Aaron answered differently. He looked thoughtful and said: “I don’t know. What should I be doing?”

Lord if I knew. He was always up to something, projects both ridiculous and sublime (I transferred a domain to him after that night, since he thought he might have use for it). But even more than his native talents it was that constant openness of spirit, that willingness to apply his prodigious talents with abandon, that set him apart. How could you do anything but admire the man?

It was wonderful to know Aaron. I share your anger at the wasteful, needless prosecution that was such a burden to him. He dedicated his life to fairness. To be treated so unfairly was an awful injustice.

To his family, to Taren—thank you for sharing him with the rest of us. He had so many friends and supporters who grieve his death. Please think of us as friends to and supporters of you, as well, and call on us if we can help.

I got the news last night from a friend of mine, who, along with Aaron, myself and several others, founded Chicago Force (Chicago’s Star Wars fan club) this month, 14 years ago. For the first few months, we only knew Aaron from his online persona “Jedi_of_Pi”. He’d offered to help build the website for the club, which was a big deal in 1999. After I chatted with him on AOL a few times, it was pretty obvious that he knew what he was talking about. For a while, we really knew nothing about him, because, for some reason, he could never make it to our meetings. Finally, one of the other members of our website team had to have a sit-down planning session with Aaron and she went to meet with him. We were all shocked when she reported to us that Aaron was only 12 years old!! As she mentioned today, when we were remembering Aaron, that even at age 12 he had more scope and vision than any of the veteran developers she’s worked with, since. I had probably chatted with him for several hours over those months…mostly about Star Wars and ideas for the website, but had no idea that he could possibly be so young.

Aaron was finally able to make it to some of our events and meetings, thanks to his kind parents driving him into the city from the burbs. Such a brilliant, disciplined, well-spoken guy with a great sense of humor, who probably knew as much about Star Wars mythology and trivia as he did about programming computers.

By the time the excitement from The Phantom Menace had died down in Y2K, Aaron was on to (much) bigger projects, and unfortunately for us, he didn’t have the time to continue on as our Webmaster, so he politely stepped down. Since then, we have always been thankful for his generous volunteerism and for sharing for the love of that galaxy we all had in common.

In the years after, anytime Aaron would show up in the news, a CF member would usually post an article that would wow us all. I personally have a lot of respect for what Aaron was working toward. No one in Chicago Force who knew Aaron has any doubt that he could have been like one of the “Accidental Billionaires” if he had chosen, but instead he decided to be one of the accidental heroes that come along, not so often….taking on evil empires and championing freedom.

Aaron, you’ll be missed. May the Force be with you…Always.

Like most who leave a big mark, Aaron was a rare kind - an activist, inventor and thinker; shaping a better internet, intervening in big issues, nudging the edges of the future in a better way.

I had the privilege to be a colleague of Aaron’s briefly at ThoughtWorks. He left a vast impression on all who met him. One true regret of mine is never having had the opportunity to work with him, or to get to know him better than casually during that time. I don’t have to tell you how Aaron’s ideas and actions inspired - others can and have done that better and more eloquently than me.

At this point, I simply wanted to express how my heart goes out to his family and loved ones. As someone who’s lost someone so young in similar circumstances (my brother took his life at 29), I know how devastating it can be to lose someone so suddenly and so tragically. I know that it might feel like it won’t ever get better. My sole advice is to simply cherish the time you had, and focus on the happy memories and not this last tragic moment. It will be hard, and painful, but it will get better.

Let him live fondly in your memory, as I know he will.

My strongest condolences.

Last morning, I got message from a friend on Whatsapp. “Aaron Swartz committed suicide?” I was like “Are you kidding me? We met on Wed. and he said see you tomorrow when I got off the train!”. To confirm this, I texted Brian and googled Aaron’s full name. Wikipedia says “Aaron H. Swartz (November 8, 1986 – January 11, 2013)”. But I still could not believe it, I grabbed my computer, found twitter timeline and HN news has been flooded by RIP Aaron and memorial blogs this whole morning. I read some of them and suddenly realized: yes, this skinny white smart guy is dead.

I don’t know Aaron much in person, although I’ve seen him almost everyday in the past four months. It doesn’t like a guy worked with you, it’s more like an icon in your office who had been loved and admired by people all over the world. However, it’s very delightful to listen or read his words. Aaron had a great sense on phrasing sentense with humor, I follow him on twitter and subscribe his blog. I read about his life and thoughts, his anger and frustration, of course a lot of profound inspirations.

Last time I spoke to him was on the train back from an event with others. We six were talking about buying nonprofits and shutting them down, about building a robot to punch people in faces when they break build, about should or should not believe in science, about one insightful webmaster should buy all the DNSs with any possible variance , for example, purpose.org, purpose.com, purpose.net, popurse.. We stopped the DNS topic after a bit, but Aaron himself was still entertainted by this joke, “doulbe-purpose, multipurpose..” Somehow, he was a complete adult and forever kid at the same time.

I got lucky to work with him, in general. He had a lot of friends who are campaigners gave us numerous help. I really appreciate him and his massive impact on the community who want to make the world better and better.

R.I.P Aaron.We miss you.

I don’t profess to have known Aaron but I know in his own way hr has touched my life and those of my children in more ways than one - to Aaron’s parents my heart goes put as the grief of losing a child no matter what the age is the worst pain anyone can bear , to his siblings and to rarebit , I lost my brother to suicide almost 20 years ago this month . I still remember him every day and miss him every day too , keep him alive , talk , reminise , laugh , remember his brilliance and his silliness , carry on what he left behind , this is a way to help the huge hole you feel right now . The online community we have been taught a wide lesson that our leaders are also people too with frailties and yes even faults with all their brilliance , as someone who others think strong I know personally how easy it is as a depressed person to feel like death is the only way out when even a day before ypu were talking about the future , this is a disease of the mind and we need to understand that it can be a very very dangerous monster indeed . Aaron wherever you maybe my heart goes put to you , the pain is over , the suffering is over , be at peace knowing you left the world in hands who remember ypu and will continue your work #muchlove

I did not know Aaron, but as a mother of one like him, I am grief-stricken. He was my child’s rock star.

People may not realize, but being prodigious—especially in a field where few people even speak your language (code), is very hard, and seeing this ending is heart breaking. I wish I had written to Aaron to tell him how he affected not just the big picture, but even individuals. He gave my son context in this world. His memory will stay in our family always. I will make sure it does.

MIT will not be on our list when our son comes of age to share his gifts with the world.

Aloha and peace from Maui.

With so many memories running through my head of the amazing, brilliant, funny, kind and passionate Aaron Swartz, one that stands out in particular is of him and Taren sitting out in the sunlight on our Rev. House deck reading out loud to each other. With smiles and passion on their faces, occasionally they would pause to discuss a particular probing question or insight. It was beautiful and deeply inspiring to watch these two brilliant minds and the tenderness they shared for each other. I remember thinking how inspired I was by both of their deeply curious, probing, loving and justice seeking natures and the clear love and affection they shared for one another. And I always will be.

I didn’t know Aaron. My sincere condolences go to his family and friends. What a wonderful person Aaron must have been! And what a loss his tragic death means to all people who believe that freedom shall never be taken for granted. The U.S. government’s case against Aaron will be closed. The government has lost it forever, that is for sure now and the only consolation.

We never met in this lifetime, Aaron. But I know we share the same Spirit of freedom and oneness that motivated your life purpose and ideals. Rest in peace, Aaron. Long live your spirit!

His Webpy project helped our company a lot. He was kind and always helpful and ready to help. We thank him at Socialsoft and will miss his strong presence in the open source world. May Aaron rest in peace

Alla prova dei fatti vedremo se il Governo degli Stati Uniti e il suo Presidente, mr. Barak Obama, vorrà rendere giustizia nei confronti dei suoi cittadini migliori quale sicuramente è stato Aaron Swartz. Amo gli Stati Uniti e voglio pensare che un cittadino libero sia almeno in uno stato al mondo tutelato.

Mi spiace molto che questa prova ha voluto un sacrificio così grande e insopportabile per la sua famiglia.

In Italia chi possiede genio è perseguitato dalla mafia e qualche volta perfino dallo stato: per favore date un segnale univoco e indelebile nei cuori che continuano a sperare nel bene in tutto il mondo: identificate chi ha stretto il cappio intorno al collo di Aaron Swartz.

I met Aaron once…didn’t take long to realize he was a brilliant and determined spirit. At the beginning of the summer last year both of my parents were hospitalized simultaneously, forcing me to focus more on online activism rather than direct action.

Some of my first activity was standing with DemandProgress to fight for Internet freedom. That particular organization will always hold a special place in my heart & mind.

Aside from that…having battled depression for most of my life, I feel a deep sense of connectivity to Aaron and his struggles.

While we all acknowledge that the world is worse off having lost this young man, the legacy he leaves should inspire us all to fight for the truth we so desperately need and stand up for what we believe in.

Thank you Aaron Swartz…you accomplished more in 26 years than some accomplish in a lifetime!

I’ve never met Aaron, and I didn’t know him personally. However, his death is tragic and unfortunate. His life ended too soon. But I still thank Aaron for all of the work he did. The Internet will never be the same with out him.

I met Aaron in 2010 when I was an organizer on a Senate primary challenge in my homestate. I was only 23, and it was the first (and only) time I was a field staffer instead of a volunteer or intern. Aaron came to my office on E-day to see the way we were using Activate, because he was working on a proprietary autodialer for progressive organizations (I think). I was really down about the job I was doing, and was taking every minor failure personally. Aaron observed my instructing a shift of vols on how to use Activate, and was incredibly sweet and kind and told me that I was doing a great job helping my vols with a complicated technology.Even though we ended up losing, I still remember that encouragement, and what a sweet, shy young man he seemed to be.

I hesitate to act as if Aaron and I were friends when we only met the one time. I doubt if I’d never seen him again that I would have actively missed him. But knowing that he’s left the world, and in such heartbreaking circumstances, I now doubt I’ll stop thinking about him for awhile. My thoughts and prayers are with those who did know him, and who will undoubted have a hard time getting through the coming days and weeks without him.

Aaron has chosen to leave, that is his choice and as such it must be respected. But let’s also point out that despair is only a few steps away from freedom. The deepest possible despair needs to be faced in order to truly break free. It is incredibly sad, when someone so bright (too bright for this world?) leaves much too early.

Let his life be an inspiriration to us all to keep fighting, to keep building a better world, where free expression and open standards become the norm for everyone. I think Quinn Norton said it best in her tweet: “Make the world that wouldn’t have killed him, please”. Let’s.

To be so committed to the ideals of information sharing, open education and positive social change; and to make those goals the focus of your life’s work is something which I respect and admire very much. Aaron’s legacy will, I hope, be as great or greater than his achievements; my thoughts are with all of those who knew and loved him in this most difficult time.

I wish i did.

He was a source of inspiration.

He did great things.

He touched alot of people.

I never knew him.

But o so much i wish i did.

Requiescat in pace ♥

Hi Aaron,

I wish I had the opportunity to know you before you left us. In the words of George Bernard Shaw,

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

You were one of the brightest & most unreasonable men we had. With your sad & tragic passing, it is up to us to carry on your work and do our part.

May the tears

in our collective eyes

help energize us

to clear our collective minds

to see injustice better &

to try to make progress in this world

for the limited time we have.

Goodbye, Aaron.

I have had the opportunity of meeting and working with Aaron on several occasions in my work with non profit, political organizations. He was a brilliant man and a kind and tender soul. On a couple of occasions I was able to share a beer or two with him and discuss various issues and his fervor for freedom of information would always shine through. He will be missed, not just as an advocate and force for transparency, but for his humanity and for just who he was. Rest in Peace Aaron, may you continue to inspire and hold a mark we should work to achieve.

I, too, have a boy, who is now 13, a brilliant child. He does not think in a typical fashion. He sees injustice in what many accept as normal and has a unique view of the world.

He is a visual artist, thoughtful and sensitive; he is here with me now, asleep and bound to wake up early, drawing, creating, living, and loving. When I think of my boy, I can only imagine, Aaron’s fear and pain, then I weep for him, and I pray.

I am deeply touched by the many contributions and friendships Aaron made in his so very short life. He seemed to represent the best in humanity, as he put himself out there boldly and brilliantly to challenge the forces that many of us accept as givens. Sensitive people who dare to chart their own paths will find powerful friends as well as foes. No foe, however, can defeat the spirit of such a beautiful soul like Aaron. I grieve for what he must have had to live through in the past few years and am so sorry for his partner, family, and friends. It is now up to us to take over from where he left off. I will try to do my part.

Aaron reminds me of the “cosmos” flowers that stand strong and tall and proud and beautiful in the gardens that they grace.

I have a confession to make. I don’t honestly, truly like many people. I liked Aaron from the minute I met him. We might see each other only once a year, sometimes twice, but he always felt like a treasured cousin or nephew that was family and that I would only get to see at holidays. And then a topic of substance would come up and off his mind would go. When I think of being with him I see him smiling. And I see myself smiling.

The thing I find myself full of now is thinking he had to deal with all of the great change we are living through, with the unfairness, the complexity, the corruption, love, beauty, pain, all so young. We live in a time of great change. At any time, at all times, it can feel bleak and hopeless and unwinnable and unjust. And it usually is. And inside of all that is the positive change, the thing that excites and engages us all. And the change is beautiful and BIG and, when you squint just the right way, it is so obvious as to not be missed. I thank god that I am dealing with all of this at fifty. This might have crushed the thirty-five year old me, who had so much support. It would have ground the twenty-five year old me into powder rather quickly.

Aaron threw himself into so much so soon. He had to. He had no choice. I console myself with the thought that what has happened to him defines the struggle for me. I know what the big story is. I can see the change. I also know there will be so many more difficulties and casualties between now and the next thing and it will be important and beautiful and necessary. I wish I could have helped Aaron squint a little more.

Elliot Noss

this is a picture of a shirt we (Tucows) had made shortly after Aaron was arrested. we sold them online to raise a bit of money, but mostly they were a way of showing the absurdity of the prosecution/persecution

I remember it. Someone was talking about Aaron in a vague sense of awe: “He works for ThoughtWorks! What does he do all day?” “Nothing, probably. People with a public persona do not work in professional services.”

I was wrong. Really wrong. He didn’t just work. He did it well. He didn’t just work well. He was incredibly humble about it. He didn’t just work well and with mountains of humbleness. His work inspired me.

I was not first inspired by Aaron because of his work with DemandProgress or RSS or Reddit. His actions to free law from the confines of a pay wall imprisonment was not the trigger. I did not admire Aaron because of his efforts to free publicly funded scientific knowledge locked away as securely as a burned books of Alexandria. It began, for me, when I heard from his team about his passion and incredible drive that was making a difference every single day. Aaron was a builder; he created things to solve problems. And he attacked problems with a passion that every single person in this world deserves to have about something. He took it further than that, though. Despite his renown and early success, he was down in the trenches day in and day out. Because he cared. Because he loved.

I am lucky to have had someone like Aaron to aspire to be like. Not necessarily his goals and ideals (though I am very much aligned with those) but his general passion for the gargantuan tasks that he set out to accomplish. You. Me. Everyone. We all cannot reach that level of drive that Aaron naturally had. But we can reach. And we can appreciate. A passion that will not cease. A love which ignore boundaries and barriers. A life that never stops surprising.

Aaron, you are missed.

Though I never met Aaron, I believe all of us who value freedom of expression and the ability to share information around the world instantly via the internet, owe him a huge debt of gratitude. A hacker with a conscience extraordinaire, a brilliant, compassionate young man who fought for the rights of all those who believe in information freedom and network neutrality: We love you Aaron, and you will be sorely missed.

dear aaron,

we have never met, but I feel deeply connected with you. I know that we shared the same spirit of freedom in which there is no guilt, no hate and no fear. I share the pain of all the people that grieve for you. we all share our grieve and the precious memories we have of you and your free spirit. you were my brother, and in my heart, you will remain my brother forever.

COW- Campaign for an Open World.

A philosophy with which he lived and made his all the efforts to make this world one. An unforgettable techie and a visionary… RIP RSS..!! :’-(

Aaron was truly a brilliant visionary. Not just in tech…but in the way the world should be. Kind, compassionate and caring for others more than himself, he will be missed by all who knew him and even those who only knew of him. The world will be a far different place without him…

I first met Aaron at Foo Camp. He was a teenager then, and even then, he stood out compared to the people there, people at the highest levels of the technology industry.

His death is deeply shameful, and should forever mark the careers of the people who bullied him into suicide. His crime was basically to photocopy obscure academic articles, not to make a profit, but to make the point that rent-seeking “publishers” shouldn’t be granted a monopoly to charge for access to other people’s research that the public has already paid for.

His passing should also be a warning to all of us that we now live in a security state where anybody can be targeted by an ambitious prosecutor, for any reason, or no reason at all, beyond his or her own advancement to higher power.

If you can be faced with 50 years in federal prison for “stealing” academic papers, you can be thrown in jail for anything. Nobody is safe.

I never knew Aaron, but from what I read about him he seems like an amazing person. He did not seem to be afraid of much, and his writing suggested great insight. More than that, I like the support he gave women.

In Aaron Swartz was the embodiment of the future for the information age and its freedoms we hold so dear. The Internet was our mutual home and I feel even if I never met him in person that I lost someone from my tribe.

He was and will be an inspiration to carry on our fight to keep the internet free, wild and borderless. His courage, vision and work has left permanent impression and standards online

May Aaron Rest in Peace & Pixels

With Rebellious Joy Birgitta Jonsdottir Member of the Icelandic Parliament & chairperson of the International Modern Media Institution

I won’t pretend that I have been a follower of Aaron’s for years and that I scoped out brilliance before it came to the mainstream, because that simply is not the case. But I have been reading every obituary there is to read online, and I feel a loss already. Smart’s are easy to come by, but an extraordinary human being accompanying the smart’s is almost impossible to find, and it seems like Aaron was one of those men that are almost impossible to find, yet, fortunately for us, are found.

What a loss. Let’s make sure it was not in vain.

As a fellow startup founder driven by social justice principles, Aaron was someone I looked to both as a peer and as an example.

We were in touch off and on for several years. Though we’d emailed a bit previously, I first met Aaron around 2007, when we met up to talk about book data, digital libraries, open civic data, and spidering/scraping strategies. He was incredibly smart and principled, and I was struck by his ability to dive so deep into new areas.

When he sold Reddit, I gave him advice based on what I’d learned from selling BookFinder.com. And when I was about to leave BookFinder.com, I very explicitly used Aaron as a model of what it could look like for a startup founder to do tech-driven social justice work after exiting.

The projects Aaron worked on impact my life every single day:

• open data feeds using RSS
• news and opinions on Reddit
• a simple way to write via Markdown
• book data for my reading list from the Open Library
• secure web browsing in Chrome via HTTPS Everywhere
• a way to share and reuse content using Creative Commons
• a more censorship-free Internet thanks to Demand Progress

Aaron was a hero of the open net. We’re all poorer for his absence.

I didn’t know Aaron, and hadn’t heard of him til I read the article. So sad to lose a young person, who should’ve had his whole life ahead of him. He sounds like he was a fine, young man, with strong convictions. It’s sad he was pushed emotionally over the edge. I wish the government or some corporations could have found some jobs for him to do, as I’m sure they would’ve benefited from his expertise. I’m sure he was dreading being in the justice system in the past agonizing year and a half. I agree the punishment didn’t fit the “crime”, as he didn’t have any victims- some were just inconvenienced or embarrassed that they didn’t have security precautions in place. RIP, Aaron. So sorry this was the only way you saw to become totally free and find peace. As someone who normally searched and examined multiple options, you must have been bearing an unbearable load. I hope our justice system learns to use discretion in certain cases, and encourages entities to use responsible security features/precautions, to prevent abuse of their data.

I was sad to hear of the passing of Aaron Swartz. He had long been an inspirational figure to me, especially when I was younger. When I was 13 and had just started releasing open source software, I read an article about Aaron and is involvement with the RSS spec at age 14 and I thought to myself “I wonder if I could do something like that?”. To me, he represented what I aspired to be, a kid playing with and being respected by the big kids. Aaron accomplished quite a lot in his short life and I can only hope to accomplish a small fraction of what he did by the time I’m 26.

Rest in Peace, Aaron.

We met briefly. Your intellect and curiosity was standout. Your light has gone out but your memory lives on.

This is about a boy called Aaron When fourteen he helped play a part In writing some of the code that makes the web start

When Twenty he made some of the most popular sites like Reddit When Twenty Two he downloaded most of the knowledge tree Hoping to set it free

He got caught Aaron distraught Killed himself at twenty six

And the corporations sighed in relief One more hacker threat neutralized We got lot more to be realized

We own the cops , lawyers and the news In the meantime, lets be nice for public relationship views And send some roses to Aaron’s mom

Oh, Aaron. I remember meeting him, after reading some of his writing, and being surprised to find the person behind the mental voice, introverted and thoughtful and a little awkward, in contrast to the boldness of his blog.

I considered him a friend, though I wish I’d known him better; I remember talking to him, often in a smaller gathering of nerds after some conference or event, about copyright, the open web, Wikipedia, social structures, and usually about some problem or another that existed in the world. And unlike almost anyone else, a short time later Aaron would have founded an organization or taken on some big project or pulled some crazy stunt to try to fix that problem, because that’s just what he did. And sometimes he succeeded.

What a huge loss.

I liked Aaron when I first met him, but it much longer before I was no longer intimidated by the intellectual shadow he cast from ten inches below me.

He was so fiercely brilliant that you’d only realize how young he was when you saw it in writing. And then you’d forget four sentences into the next conversation. When we were colleagues, we went to dinner. I picked the place, and it turned out there was nothing on the menu he could eat. But we stayed for three hours to talk about how to rebuild organizations, how to disrupt mass atrocities without weaponry, and what the world could look like in three decades, if people like us could make it so. I left with more ideas than I had had in a month. We were supposed to meet again, over dinner, in the weeks ahead. I couldn’t wait. I liked, Aaron, certainly. But I also liked the person Aaron helped me be. When I’ve talked to friends and my change family today, I keep coming back to a part of a poem called In Flanders Fields by a Canadian named John McCrae. It was about World War I, which no doubt would have offended Aaron, but there are a few verses that speak to us:

We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie, In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high.

Aaron, the people that love you will be holding the torch high. But damn do we wish you were still here to walk with us.