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Posted on 07/09/2002 7:02:30 PM PDT by bonesmccoy
Tech Pioneer's Death Called Suicide
Tue Jul 9, 7:48 PM ET
By RON HARRIS, Associated Press Writer
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A pioneer of the technology that took Internet file-sharing far beyond Napster ( news - web sites), Gene Kan became something of an unofficial spokesman for one of the hottest software developments to survive the Internet boom.
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Sue Turner of the San Mateo County medical examiner's office said Kan's body was found July 2 at his home in Belmont, about 20 miles south of San Francisco. Turner said that the death would likely be ruled a suicide.
A peer-to-peer network is one where each computer can share files and often peripheral devices with other computers. There is no central server that can interrupt communications between all of the peer computers on the network.
The Gnutella ( news - web sites) protocol — a set of computer instructions for a peered network — was first posted on the Internet by Nullsoft, a software company owned by AOL Time Warner. Kan got his hands on a downloaded version of Gnutella and began, along with other developers, to fashion it into a user-friendly interface with various improvements on the performance of the software.
Kan quickly became the outspoken, lead proponent for the further development of Gnutella-based applications.
Gnutella came along as Shawn Fanning's Napster program became mired in lawsuits by the recording industry. Kan and a small clutch of developers honed the Gnutella protocol so that programmers around the world could make their own home-brewed computer applications — each speaking the same language and capable of pointing users to shared music, video and software files.
The main difference between the Gnutella network and other file-sharing programs was a crucial one. Gnutella has no company to sue or central servers to shut down with a court injunction.
"There is no head to the Gnutella dragon," Kan told The Associated Press in 2000. After that interview, Kan quickly became the ad hoc spokesman for Gnutella's development during file-swapping debates surrounding Napster.
Kan acknowledged that some unauthorized files were being traded via the Gnutella network.
"How users make use of it, I hate to say it's not our problem, but it really isn't," Kan said.
The simple Gnutella protocol spawned a legion of file-sharing programs that remain popular today. The programs LimeWire, BearShare and Phex all make use of the Gnutella engine.
"Gene was really good at communicating the technical merits of the peer-to-peer approach," said author and entrepreneur Cory Doctorow, who took part in many panel discussions with Kan.
Doctorow said Kan's personality recently began to take on a tone of depression and described his colleague as "dour."
In June 2000, Kan co-founded Burlingame-based InfraSearch Inc., a peer-to-peer search engine technology company.
A statement released Monday by his employer, Sun Microsystems Inc., said Kan died as the result of an accident and that no further details of his death were being released at the request of his family.
Sun spokeswoman Carrie Motamedi said Kan had been working on advanced computing projects for Sun.
"Clearly everyone feels that we've lost a valued employee and trusted friend and colleague that we'll miss greatly," Motamedi said.
Freudian slip?
Something got him down,way down.
But the pointy-haired managers are the sort of folks who think you can tuck a mushroom cloud back into the bomb casing...
He was young, smart, and driven. Depression is not uncommon among the exceedingly intelligent. (Meanwhile, I wouldn't be surprised if he saw himself as a failure.)
It's clear, however, that details as to what may have pushed him over the edge have been omitted.
Good grief, what next.
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