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Most Influential People In Open Source (Community Edition)

November 1st, 2009 Leave a comment Go to comments

After reading “Most Influential People In Open Source” and completely disagree, I decided to conduct my own research.

Please read the post mentioned above. Then, write 3 names, in order of importance, of the most influential people in Open Source. Please include one short sentence for each to justify your choice.

I will compile the results later this week.

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  1. November 2nd, 2009 at 20:01 | #1

    Linus Torvalds
    Tom O’Reilly
    Alan Cox

    Why I picked these three: these guys are PAYING ATTENTION, and when they are riled up about something, people PAY ATTENTION to them!

    Why I didn’t pick Richard Stallman: because I see him as being the most influential person in Free Software

    Why I didn’t pick myself: I’m too humble ;-)

  2. November 8th, 2009 at 17:30 | #2

    Linus Torvalds, for making open source a real choice;
    Mark Shuttleworth, for making a open source project usable by the masses;
    Dries Buytaert, for creating an open source model that involves both developers and users with the same enthusiasm.

    No mention for Richard Stallman, because of his negative influence that actually prevents people from using open source rather than encouraging it.

  3. Brian Ritchie
    November 9th, 2009 at 00:20 | #3

    Mark Shuttleworth – Making Linux something for the masses when before it was reserved for the ultra geek

    Brian Aker – For his contributions towards MySQL and the Drizzle project

    Linus Torvalds – For the same reason as Giuseppe Maxia

    and I second Maxia’s quote on Stallman. He alienated a huge portion of the audience of open source with his views and opinions. I respect them but don’t agree with it.

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