Gene Kan
Encyclopedia
Gene Kan was a British
-born Chinese American
peer-to-peer
file-sharing programmer
who was among the first programmers to produce an open-source version of the file-sharing application that implemented the Gnutella
protocol. Kan worked together with Spencer Kimball
on the program called "gnubile" licensed under the GNU General Public License
. Kan graduated from the University of California, Berkeley
in 1997 with a major in electrical engineering
and computer science
.
In June 2000, he formed a distributed search engine
known as InfraSearch.com. Netscape
co-founder Marc Andreessen
was an investor in the start-up. InfraSearch was purchased by Sun Microsystems
on March 6, 2001 for $12.5M USD in Sun stock options. The acquisition became part of the JXTA
project at Sun. Kan joined Sun as an employee, and continued to work with the technology.
Kan was relatively well known in internet circles for a testimony he gave in July 2000 at the Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on "Intellectual Property
in the Digital Age". Metallica
drummer Lars Ulrich
, Sony
CEO Fred Ehrlich, and others also gave testimony at the hearing.
On June 29, 2002, he committed suicide
. The cause of death was a single gunshot wound to the head. Kan was 25 years old. Prior to taking his life, Kan updated an electronic copy of his resume hosted on a University of California, Berkeley
server to read "Summary: Sad example of a human being. Specializing in failure." An independent documentary film
was planned for Gene Kan after he died, but it never started production.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
-born Chinese American
Chinese American
Chinese Americans represent Americans of Chinese descent. Chinese Americans constitute one group of overseas Chinese and also a subgroup of East Asian Americans, which is further a subgroup of Asian Americans...
peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads among peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the application...
file-sharing programmer
Programmer
A programmer, computer programmer or coder is someone who writes computer software. The term computer programmer can refer to a specialist in one area of computer programming or to a generalist who writes code for many kinds of software. One who practices or professes a formal approach to...
who was among the first programmers to produce an open-source version of the file-sharing application that implemented the Gnutella
Gnutella
Gnutella is a large peer-to-peer network which, at the time of its creation, was the first decentralized peer-to-peer network of its kind, leading to other, later networks adopting the model...
protocol. Kan worked together with Spencer Kimball
Spencer Kimball
Spencer Kimball is a computer programmer most notable for his early work on the GNU Image Manipulation Program .In 1995, while students at the University of California at Berkeley, Kimball and his classmate Peter Mattis developed the first version of The GIMP as a class project...
on the program called "gnubile" licensed under the GNU General Public License
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
. Kan graduated from the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
in 1997 with a major in electrical engineering
Electrical engineering
Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...
and computer science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
.
In June 2000, he formed a distributed search engine
Distributed search engine
A distributed search engine is a search engine where there is no central server. Unlike traditional centralized search engines, work such as crawling, data mining, indexing, and query processing is distributed among several peers in decentralized manner where there is no single point of control.-...
known as InfraSearch.com. Netscape
Netscape
Netscape Communications is a US computer services company, best known for Netscape Navigator, its web browser. When it was an independent company, its headquarters were in Mountain View, California...
co-founder Marc Andreessen
Marc Andreessen
Marc Andreessen is an American entrepreneur, investor, software engineer, and multi-millionaire best known as co-author of Mosaic, the first widely-used web browser, and co-founder of Netscape Communications Corporation. He founded and later sold the software company Opsware to Hewlett-Packard...
was an investor in the start-up. InfraSearch was purchased by Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
on March 6, 2001 for $12.5M USD in Sun stock options. The acquisition became part of the JXTA
JXTA
JXTA is an open source peer-to-peer protocol specification begun by Sun Microsystems in 2001. The JXTA protocols are defined as a set of XML messages which allow any device connected to a network to exchange messages and collaborate independently of the underlying network topology.As JXTA is based...
project at Sun. Kan joined Sun as an employee, and continued to work with the technology.
Kan was relatively well known in internet circles for a testimony he gave in July 2000 at the Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on "Intellectual Property
Intellectual property
Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...
in the Digital Age". Metallica
Metallica
Metallica is an American heavy metal band from Los Angeles, California. Formed in 1981 when James Hetfield responded to an advertisement that drummer Lars Ulrich had posted in a local newspaper. The current line-up features long-time lead guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo ...
drummer Lars Ulrich
Lars Ulrich
Lars Ulrich is a Danish drummer, and one of the founding members of the American thrash metal band Metallica. He was born in Gentofte, Denmark to an upper-middle class family. A tennis player in his youth, Ulrich moved to Los Angeles, California at age sixteen to pursue his training; though rather...
, Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
CEO Fred Ehrlich, and others also gave testimony at the hearing.
On June 29, 2002, he committed suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
. The cause of death was a single gunshot wound to the head. Kan was 25 years old. Prior to taking his life, Kan updated an electronic copy of his resume hosted on a University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
server to read "Summary: Sad example of a human being. Specializing in failure." An independent documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
was planned for Gene Kan after he died, but it never started production.