Gene Kan

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Gnutella Developer Gene Kan, 25, Commits Suicide
By REUTERS

Filed at 7:58 p.m. ET

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Gene Kan, one of the key programmers behind the
popular file-sharing technology known as Gnutella, has died in an apparent
suicide, officials said on Tuesday. He was 25.

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.

The Gnutella computer code emerged as Napster's legal problems mounted and
its millions of users were looking for new ways to swap songs for free on
the Internet.

Kan and a few fellow programmers did not create Gnutella, but tweaked the
Gnutella protocol so it could be replicated by other programmers around the
world, unleashing massive music, video and software file-sharing.

Kan and his group brought Gnutella into the limelight after an early
version of the program was released briefly on the Web by an employee of
America Online.

Kan, who came to be known as the unofficial spokesman for Gnutella, often
said the technology differed from Napster because it had no company to sue
or central computer to shut down.

Unlike Napster, which allowed people to trade songs through centralized
computer servers, Gnutella simply transfers files from one personal
computer to another -- making it much more difficult to monitor.

In June 2000, Kan started California-based InfraSearch Inc., a peer-to-peer
search engine technology company, that eventually attracted high-profile
investors such as Netscape alumni Marc Andreessen and Mike Homer.

InfraSearch was acquired by Sun Microsystems in March 2001. Kan also joined
the company at that time to work on Sun's peer-to-peer project known as
Project JXTA. More recently he had been working on advanced development
projects around distributed computing.

``Gene contributed much to the industry, specifically in the peer-to-peer
space,'' Sun said in the statement. ``Gene brought new ideas to the
organization and stretched our thinking. Gene was a trusted friend and
colleague, and we will miss him greatly.''

Kan graduated from the University of California, Berkeley's College of
Engineering, in 1997 with degrees in electrical engineering and computer
science.

===

>From Gene Kan's website (cached)

Gold coloured CD
New version of AOL
Coaster or frisbee? 28 Jan 1999

Capitalism rules!
Power is too expensive.
Oops. Socialism rules! 30 May 2001

American Way:
Purchase, consume, then discard.
Liquidate our Earth. 30 May 2001

The epic struggle
between hot matter and cold
Our hero: Luke Warm. 3 Jun 2001

Paid music downloads
Great idea! Just one problem:
Kids don't have Visa. 7 Jun 2001

The two Denalis:
Environmental preserve
and catastrophe 30 Jul 2001

Welcome to the 'Net
SirCam infections are free
All else is defunct 30 Jul 2001

The United States
will have no revolutions
while there are sofas 16 Aug 2001


Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org



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