Over the weekend we reported on the death of Ilya Zhitomirskiy, one of the four co-founders of Diaspora. It was quite tragic, seeing how he was only 22 years old.
Up to this point little was known about Zhitomirskiy’s death, but it now appears that he committed suicide. The Chicago Tribune is reporting that a source colse to Diaspora told CNNMoney that Zhitomirskiy took his own life.
The Tribune confirmed with the San Francisco Police Department a police report that officers responded to the 700 block of Treat Ave. around 8:10 PM Saturday. They were dispatched after receiving calls about a possible suicide. “It appears to be a suicide … however, the medical examiner’s office will make the final decision“, said SFPD Officer Alvie Esparza. It’s likely to be several weeks before we know for certain that Zhitomirskiy did in fact commit suicide. If you’d like to read more about Zhitomirskiy, you can visit FamousDead.com.
If you’re unfamiliar with Zhitomirskiy, he was one of the four co-founders of Diaspora, a free personal web server that implements a distributed social networking service.
Below is a video of the four co-founders discussing Diaspora:
Diaspora: Personally Controlled, Do-It-All, Distributed Open-Source Social Network from daniel grippi on Vimeo.