Michael Hart, the founder of Project Gutenberg, has died at his home in Urbana, Illinois at the age of 64. The project he started back in 1971 lives on, however, producing quality public domain texts now readable on devices that could only have been imagined when Project Gutenberg began.
On July 4, 1971, Hart tried out a new idea of his: typing the text of the Declaration of Independence on a computer at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He made the text available to other computer users, and then to other network users, and he soon began entering more texts.
He won't be building any more stereos from discarded parts, but Hart's own workâ€â€and the passion he showed for books and learningâ€â€live on after his death. His funeral takes place in Champaign, IL on Monday, September 12, 2011.
