Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz dies at age 26.

Real talk. I didn’t know about Aaron Swartz before today, but even a cursory examination of his life casts the dude as pretty cool. Swartz didn’t just co-found Reddit. In an act of digital righteousness that cuts close to home, he liberated 4.8 million documents from that gated golden tower of academia, JSTOR. Shine on, dude.

The Verge:

Aaron Swartz, the 26-year-old who helped build internet institutions like Reddit and Creative Commons, committed suicide in New York yesterday. The news was confirmed by MIT newspaper The Tech, which received word from both Swartz’s uncle and attorney. In addition to his work with Reddit, Swartz also co-authored the very first RSS specification and was involved as an activist through his work as founder of Demand Progress. In 2011 he was charged with stealing 4.8 million documents from the online digital library JSTOR, which just a few days ago announced that it would be offering limited free access to its library. You can read Cory Doctorow’s obituary here.