Aaron Swartz

Programmer, activist, and co-creator of the open internet. He lived from 1986 to 2013. He helped develop RSS 1.0 as a teenager, contributed to the Creative Commons licensing framework, co-founded Reddit after its merger with his company Infogami, and worked with John Gruber on early Markdown syntax.

Swartz was a true believer in open access to knowledge. His activism, including the mass download of JSTOR articles, led to a federal indictment carrying a potential 35-year prison sentence. He died in 2013 at age 26, before the trial.

Connections

• John Gruber - collaborator on Markdown
• Markdown - his conceptual contribution to the syntax, with html2text as related tooling
• File over App - his broader conviction: open formats and open access as first principles

Sources

• Daring Fireball: Markdown - Gruber’s acknowledgement of Swartz in the Markdown credits (2026-04-05)