Felipe Rodríguez
From Hack Story
Felipe Rodriguez Svensson died on October 6, 2015.
Together with Rop Gonggrijp het started XS4all, the first public internet provider of The Netherlands. Felipe used money from his restaurant Centra, a Spanish restaurant smack in the middle of the Amsterdam Red Light district. He inherited the restaurant from his parents when he was 18.
Together with Marleen Stikker he started DDS [De Digitale Stad], a free and open on-line community in the vein of The Well, but based on the idea of a city map: DDS had a metro [a MOO], a post office [mail service], a city hall ???[politics], a news stand [digital newspapers], houses [web sites], squares etc.
He was very important in the whole Scientology vs XS4all / CoS s the internet affair. Scientology raided the XS4all offices in Sept 1995 over alleged copyrigh infringement. Felipe decided to fight them; I (Karin Spaink) started the same website with a different provider. Together, we beat them every step of the way, and a few days before the utch Supreme Court was to rule in our favour, Cos dropped the case (that was in 2003).
With Maurice Wessling and me he founded Bits of Freedom, the first Dutch digital rights organisation. He funded it, too, to a large degree. After he moved to Australia in 1998, he started EFF AU.
In 2002 he tuned out to have multiple sclerosis. He met the love of his life, got married, and was terribly happy. He died last Tuesday.
He really put his heart into internet.[1]
