Developer of peer-to-peer file sharing software GNUTELLA found shot dead.

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.

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.

From bayarea.com

Posted on Tue, Jul. 09, 2002

Pioneer of music-swapping site Gnutella dies

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Gene Kan, one of the pioneering developers of the file-sharing technology called Gnutella that took music swapping beyond the realm of Napster, has died. He was 25.

Kan died as a result of an accident, according to a statement released Monday by his employer, Sun Microsystems Inc. At the request of his family, no further details of his June 29 death were being released, Sun officials said.

He was among the first to develop an open source version of the Gnutella protocol -- a small bit of computer code used by a distributed network of PCs for massive file-sharing duties.

Gnutella came along as Shawn Fanning's Napster program became mired in lawsuits with 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 AP in 2000. After that interview, Kan quickly became the ad-hoc spokesman for Gnutella's development during file-swapping debates surrounding Napster.

Kan lived in a Belmont home with other software developers during Gnutella's early days. There living room was strewn with desktop and laptop computers networked with high-speed cables as they tested early incarnations of Gnutella.

The group didn't invent Gnutella from scratch, Kan and company merely brought it into focus after an early version of a program appeared briefly on the Web site of Nullsoft, a subsidiary of America Online. The Gnutella code was only available briefly, but that was long enough for Kan and other developers to download it.

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 told the AP in an interview.

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.

In June 2000, Kan started Burlingame-based InfraSearch Inc., a peer-to-peer search engine technology company that he co-founded. It attracted high-profile investors such as Netscape alumni Marc Andreessen and Mike Homer. Most recently, Kan worked on advanced projects like JXTA at Sun Labs, pushing the envelope in distributed computing.

JXTA is an open source set of computing instructions that allows various devices connected on a network, from cell phones and wireless Palm Pilots and PCs, to communicate in peer-to-peer fashion.

``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.''

A memorial fund is being established in Kan's name at the University of California, Berkeley's College of Engineering, where Kan graduated in 1997 with degrees in electrical engineering and computer science.

No public services are planned.

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