Michael Hart is dead. Long live Project Gutenberg.

Michael was the founder of Project Gutenberg, and typed the first ever "e-book" into a computer via a Teletype machine way back on July 4th 1971. That "book" was the Declaration of Independence of the United States from Great Britain. and Michael died on September 6th 2011, aged 64. According to his obituary in the Economist:

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This weeks edition of the Economist contains a long article on the suddenly hot topic of "Open Data". The subhead sums up the issue like this:

In several countries more official data are being issued in raw form so that anybody can use them. This forces bureaucrats and creative types to interact in new ways.

and the article points out that:

More on Britain and America's "First Geeks"