I had never heard of Michael before now, but now that I know what he has worked and strived for I feel very sad for his loss. Just as we need FOSS evangelicals, we need free literature evangelicals such as Michael. I have used Project Gutenberg in the past as a corpus of the English language for various programming projects and later, when I got a tablet, as a form of education and enrichment. His legacy is in his contributions to the public.

Discussed previously [1,2].

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2971971 (gutenberg.org)

[2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2974212 (oreilly.com)

Hopefully Michael Hartl is still alive