[keithvan]

As a result of Swartz's conspiracy to release JSTOR articles to the public, it led to the company making many articles free for public for viewing. A lot of good has come about from what Swartz did, even if the morality of his illegal actions are under dispute. There has been a lot of recent criticism against academic journals and their publishing companies whose business model is keeping all science and research behind gated walls and away from the public. Even if the research was funded with public money!

[jkn]

it led to the company making many articles free for public for viewing

That is a nice result indeed, do you have a reference?

[_delirium]

They've decided to make pre-1923 articles from American journals, and pre-1870 articles elsewhere, available publicly (w/o any subscription or even a free account needed): http://about.jstor.org/service/early-journal-content-0

Their original FAQ on it used to have a question about whether this was related to the "Swartz situation", where the answer could be paraphrased as "no but sort of yes", basically that they had been planning it all along but may have moved up some initiatives in response to the publicity. Doesn't seem that their current FAQ has that question anymore.

[Jun8]

It's not the morality but the legality of his actions that are being disputed, sometimes these disagree widely as many comments here explain.