[mastazi]

(I am European and moved to Australia 4 years ago) - while I agree with you that the story did not have the same cultural resonance outside of the US, I would say that most tech people would know who Aaron Swartz was (although among the generally public hardly anyone would have a clue).

[zephod]

Intuitively I'd agree, but I was surprised at how many people/friends/colleagues didn't know what I was talking about when The Internet's Own Boy was released. If they weren't readers of Hacker News they almost certainly didn't pick up on the story. Again - anecdotal.

[xixixao]

HN = what HN calls tech scene. Then you realize that most programmers don't read HN. They have never heard of Rust (and possibly Aaron). As my friend said, reading HN is the least broad professional development you can do, with minimum amount of effort. But most simply don't.