Dan Kohn

Dan Kohn (November 20, 1972 – November 1, 2020) was an American serial entrepreneur and nonprofit executive who led the Linux Foundation's Public Health initiative.[1] He was formerly the executive director at Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), which sustains and integrates open source cloud software including Kubernetes and Fluentd, through 2020.[2][3] The first company he founded, NetMarket, conducted the first secure commercial transaction on the web in 1994.[4]

Dan Kohn
Kohn in 2016
Born(1972-11-20)November 20, 1972
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
DiedNovember 1, 2020(2020-11-01) (aged 47)
New York City, New York, U.S.
EducationPhillips Exeter Academy
Alma materSwarthmore College (B.S.)
Known forFirst secure commercial transaction on the web
Spouse(s)Julie Pullen
Children2
Websitewww.dankohn.com

Early life and education

Kohn was born in Philadelphia on November 20, 1972.[5] He studied at Phillips Exeter Academy,[6] and graduated with a bachelor's degree from Swarthmore College in 1994.[7]

Career

The Linux Foundation and CNCF

As Executive Director of CNCF, Kohn helped expand CNCF membership to include all of the largest public cloud and enterprise software companies.[8] He led the efforts to create a conformance standard for Kubernetes and a Kubernetes Certified Service Provider program, both of which launched in 2017 with broad support from numerous companies across the cloud industry.[9][10] During Kohn's tenure at CNCF, he oversaw the growth of KubeCon (the foundation's primary event) from 500 attendees in 2015 to over 12,000 at the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2019 in San Diego, CA.[11]

Kohn was previously the Chief Operating Officer of the Linux Foundation[12] and helped launch the Linux Foundation's Core Infrastructure Initiative, a project created after Heartbleed to fund and support free and open-source software projects that are critical to the functioning of the Internet. More recently, he helped create their open source best practices badge.[13][14]

As General Manager of LF Public Health, Kohn helped "public health authorities use open source software to fight COVID-19 and other epidemics."[15]

NetMarket

Kohn co-founded and was CEO of NetMarket, an online marketplace. On August 11, 1994, NetMarket sold Ten Summoner's Tales, a CD by Sting, to Phil Brandenberger of Philadelphia using a credit card over the Internet. The New York Times described this as "...the first retail transaction on the Internet using a readily available version of powerful data encryption software designed to guarantee privacy." The encryption used in the transaction was provided by the Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) program, incorporated into the X Mosaic browser.[16][17]

Other work

Kohn worked as CTO at Spreemo, a healthcare marketplace, and at Shopbeam, a shoppable ads startup. Earlier, he worked as Vice President, Strategy at Teledesic, the satellite-based "Internet-in-the-Sky" funded by Craig McCaw and Bill Gates[18][19] and then became a general partner at Skymoon Ventures.[6]

Kohn co-authored RFC 3023, XML Media Types, which defined how XML and MIME interoperate and is the origin of the widely used +suffix in MIME types.[20] He also contributed two chapters to The Bogleheads' Guide to Retirement Planning.[21][22]

Personal life

Kohn was married to climate scientist Julie Pullen. Pullen and Kohn had two sons.[23]

Death

Kohn died of complications from colon cancer in New York City on November 1, 2020, at age 47.[24]

References
  1. "Priyanka Sharma takes over the leadership of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation". TechCrunch. Retrieved June 8, 2020.
  2. "CNCF Names Kohn as Executive Director". Light Reading. June 3, 2016. Archived from the original on November 10, 2016. Retrieved December 16, 2017.
  3. Darrow, Barb (August 9, 2017). "Amazon Joins Google, Goldman Sachs, and Twitter in This Cloud Foundation". Fortune. Archived from the original on October 23, 2017. Retrieved December 16, 2017.
  4. Gilbert, Alorie. "E-commerce turns 10". CNET. Retrieved June 8, 2020.
  5. "Daniel KOHN Obituary - New York, NY". Dignity Memorial. Retrieved November 3, 2020.
  6. "Dan Kohn". LinkedIn. Retrieved December 16, 2017.
  7. Behrens, Eric (December 16, 2009). "www.SWARTHMORE.edu". Swarthmore College. Retrieved November 3, 2020.
  8. Krazit, Tom (December 6, 2017). "Alibaba, Baidu step up support for cloud-native tech as CloudNativeCon kicks off". GeekWire. Archived from the original on December 7, 2017. Retrieved December 16, 2017.
  9. Miller, Ron (November 13, 2017). "36 companies agree to a Kubernetes certification standard". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on December 23, 2017. Retrieved December 16, 2017.
  10. Meyer, Dan (September 11, 2017). "CNCF Looks to Bridge Gap in Kubernetes Skills and Support". SDxCentral. Archived from the original on December 29, 2017. Retrieved December 16, 2017.
  11. "Predictions 2020: Infrastructure and Ops Trends to Watch in 2020". DevOps.com. December 24, 2019. Retrieved January 22, 2020.
  12. Lohr, Steve; O'Brien, Kevin J. (October 23, 2007). "Microsoft Is Yielding in European Antitrust Fight". New York Times. Archived from the original on June 5, 2015. Retrieved December 16, 2017.
  13. Bhartiya, Swapnil (May 3, 2016). "CII's Best Practices badge program is making open source projects more secure". CIO. Archived from the original on July 14, 2016. Retrieved December 16, 2017.
  14. "Core Infrastructure Initiative Best Practices Badge". Github. Archived from the original on April 9, 2017. Retrieved December 16, 2017.
  15. "Priyanka Sharma takes over the leadership of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation". TechCrunch. Retrieved June 8, 2020.
  16. Lewis, Peter H. (August 12, 1994). "Attention Shoppers: Internet Is Open". New York Times. Archived from the original on September 3, 2017. Retrieved December 16, 2017.
  17. Grothaus, Michael (November 26, 2015). "You'll Never Guess What the First Thing Ever Sold on the Internet Was". Fast Company. Archived from the original on February 15, 2017. Retrieved December 16, 2017.
  18. Brzezinski, Matthew (February 20, 1997). "Teledesic's 'Internet in the Sky' May Use Soviet-Made Missiles". Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on December 29, 2017. Retrieved December 30, 2015.
  19. Kohn, Daniel M. (November 1997). "Providing global broadband Internet access using low-earth-orbit satellites". Computer Networks and ISDN Systems. 29 (15): 1763–1768. doi:10.1016/S0169-7552(97)00108-6. ISSN 0169-7552.
  20. "XML Media Types, RFC 3023". Internet Engineering Task Force. January 2001. Archived from the original on December 15, 2017. Retrieved December 16, 2017.
  21. Larimore, Taylor; Lindauer, Mel, eds. (February 22, 2011). The Bogleheads' Guide to Retirement Planning. Wiley. ISBN 978-0470919019.
  22. "Bogleheads' Guide to Retirement Planning". Bogleheads Wiki. Archived from the original on August 14, 2017. Retrieved December 16, 2017.
  23. "Dr. Julie Pullen". Dr. Julie Pullen. Retrieved November 3, 2020.
  24. "An Open Source Leader Is Gone, a Remembrance of Dan Kohn". The New Stack. November 2, 2020. Retrieved November 2, 2020.
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