Aaron Swartz

Aaron Hillel Swartz (November 8, 1986 – January 11, 2013), also known as AaronSw, was an American computer programmer, entrepreneur, writer, political organizer, and Internet hacktivist. As a programmer, Swartz helped develop the web feed format RSS; the technical architecture for Creative Commons, an organization dedicated to creating copyright licenses; and the Python website framework web.py. Swartz helped define the syntax of the lightweight markup language format Markdown, and was a co-owner of the social news aggregation website Reddit until it was fully sold in 2006 and contributed to its development until he left the company in 2007. He is often credited as a martyr and a prodigy, and much of his work focused on civic awareness and progressive activism.