Unsung Heroes of Open Source Software? 601
Yaztromo asks: "Sometimes, as an Open Source Software developer, I wonder if anyone out there is actually noticing the contributions I make to the software they're running. This got me thinking today -- how many Open Source Software packages am I running without knowing or applauding those who toiled in the background to developed them? We all know about personalities like Richard M. Stallman and Linus Torvalds, but there are a lot of unsung heroes of Open Source out there whose names may not be on the tips of everyones tongues. But perhaps they should be. They may be wizard coders, or amazing project administrators, or they provide fantastic support. Maybe they do all three, and more. Or maybe they're the person in your organization who pushed an Open Source solution in the face of an entrenched closed-source solution, and won. Or the one who printed up a whole spindle of Knoppix CD's and handed them out at a user group meeting.
So here's you chance: who is your favorite unsung hero of Open Source Software, and why?"
cjk input (Score:1, Interesting)
Calm down! (Score:2, Interesting)
p.s. yfi
Sometimes it's the evangelists. (Score:5, Interesting)
That incident has always symbolised the entire Open Source movement to me -- distributed thinking and determination coming up with a powerful solution, despite all the naysayers' opinions.
In the KDE world... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure what really defines a hero; in fact most of our "heros" in the F/OSS community probably aren't those who have contributed the most. More often they're just the guys that are stark-raving-mad and don't want anyone to miss the circus.
The USSG at Indiana University (Score:1, Interesting)
Playing Cards (Score:2, Interesting)
Sourceforge (Score:5, Interesting)
It gave coders the resources they needed to get multi-coder open-source projects to the public.
It gave the public the resources they needed to find the solutions they need and interact with the coders.
I wish they'd had this sooner. (Score:5, Interesting)
When he lost his sight to diabetes, I acted as his caregiver and "seeing eye person." I helped him write software tools and subroutines for general use in Project Voyager. I watched him move bytes around absolute memory addresses in FORTRAN 77, although the language was supposed to prevent this. He was, as Jerry Pournelle once wrote, "the sane genius." He died in 1988, but he's still one of the greats in my book and in that of everybody who knew him.
Re:Darl McBride / Second this (Score:3, Interesting)
Thanks, Darl...you make Linux what it is
D. Richard Hipp For SQLite (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Russ Nelson (Score:2, Interesting)
Good work, Russ!
(some of us old guys remember)
Re:Donald Becker (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:too much freedom? (Score:2, Interesting)
Not really answering your question , but .. (Score:3, Interesting)
The authors (or the maintainors) never left their names in the body of literature or text. We can only guess at the people who created those ancient texts from other sources. The reasoning for doing that [i guess] was that, the work if it can, will survive because of its own ability and the fame for that work is same as fame for its author.
It is perhaps the same thing that prompts us to contribute to the OSS - so that we can feel that at least a part of our selves survive through them.
Re:I wish they'd had this sooner. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A True Open Source Hero is... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Russ Nelson (Score:3, Interesting)
-russ
Re:Don't just mention them... nominate them (Score:1, Interesting)
Larry Wall got enough of both already...
Re:Russ Nelson (Score:2, Interesting)
I remember 20 years ago when he did drivers for the old Zenith Z100 at http://www.clarkson.edu/ [clarkson.edu]
Re:Don't just mention them... nominate them (Score:3, Interesting)
The $500 awards go to plenty of other people that aren't in the news all the time and deserve the awards and recognition. And secondly if people would nominate more projects and people then we'd know about other deserving winners.
John.
Re:A True Open Source Hero is... (Score:5, Interesting)
Bill Gates encouraged MANY MANY people to flock to open source from almost day one. His "Basic" for the altair, even before he released his very first commercial program, his attitude towards users and others was so awful that many people hated him from day one. He sent a foaming at the mouth rant as an open Letter to all [tranquileye.com]
I remember sending him a letter at the ripe old age of 10 asking about when BASIC was going to be released so I could play with it on my dad's computer at work.
I was Flamed hard in a rude reply about how software Thieves were delaying it and as a child it was beyond my capabilities anyways... I wish I still had the letter and I remember how it solidified in me a dis-taste for commercial software. I was writing assembly for my Commodore KIM-1 single board computer at that time and was excited with the idea of being able to easily program a real powerhouse computer.
Bill gates has been driving people to Open source ever cince he started in the business.
Re:A True Open Source Hero is... (Score:3, Interesting)
Brian Fox, author of the Bash shell (Score:4, Interesting)
Brian Fox was the original author.
What about art? (Score:2, Interesting)
And, of course, everybody else at KDELook.org (yes, and Gnomelook.org)!
Re:too much freedom? (Score:2, Interesting)
>If not liking something is not ideological, I don't know what is.
Well, while that's true, it kind of misses the point.
People contribute to the GNU project because they agree with RMS' free-software ideas. (if that, even) Not because they agree with his technical ideas.
The stated goal of the FSF is to promote 'free software', not to promote RMS personal ideas of what is good software.
So, RMS power mandate only extends to the ideology of free-software. He should understand this, and keep out of technical questions. But he doesn't.
Linus on the other hand, is very good at staying out of this. He has confidence in that the developers will sort the issues out for themselves and come up with the best technical solution.
That's why people respect Linux.
Re:He's friendly to newbie strangers, too (Score:3, Interesting)
i don't remember what i asked him, but his answer was quick and to the point. it was certainly a 'wow' moment, and it encouraged me to read and try to understand most of the kernel (that wasn't so difficult those days of Linux 0.99pl9). I even wrote a device driver, an early version of nbd, but when i tried to submit it, linux 1.1 was underway... and before i could read it again, 2.0 was just on the horizon...
anyway, his attitude was what totally made me an open source beleiver.
Re:Gene Spafford (Score:5, Interesting)
Gene Spafford, another computer security expert, likened hacker break-ins to "being pecked to death by ducks."
More at http://www.cerias.purdue.edu/homes/tripunit/spaf-
Re:A True Open Source Hero is... (Score:2, Interesting)
I dont understand what is wrong with wanting to make a living from programming. Plumbers dont work for free, nor do teachers, doctors, librarians, truck drivers, even newspaper delivery guys. So why is it evil when developers expect to be paid for their work??
I'm proud to be a programmer and that it pays my mortage. And no I dont ever want to live from selling support contracts.
Re:Red Demon (Score:5, Interesting)
At least that's what my BSD book says. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Re:I vote for Bill Joy (Score:3, Interesting)
Here [pdx.edu] are [theregister.co.uk] a couple of links to Bill Joy interview content which explains some things about the origins of vi. Basically it came from the fact that ed was bloody unusable and if you had a glass terminal with cursor control, which was most of them (though some needed a ROM revision - that's not mentioned, though ROMs for uppercase are) then clearly it made more sense to have a screen editor, not a line editor.
It's amazing to think that vi is actually easier to use than something else, though I used edlin before I ever discovered Unix, it was probably the second or third editor I ever used. I'd used ed on the amiga, both in the classic ed mode and the visual mode, and much better editors on that platform as well. I had to read the ms-dos manual in order to figure out how to use edlin, but I was a kid at the time so I have an excuse. I fixed some problem with the neighbor's dos pc, they were amazed :)
Re:Tim Berners-Lee (Score:3, Interesting)
When I ask my students if they know who he is, 99% of the time it draws a blank stare. This happens with other techies of an older age as well. It's really a shame. He is the father of a great change in computing and a new business paradigm when you think about it.
Then again, he did get knighted....
(In case no one says it, and he reads this.... Thank you TIM!)
GAIM (Score:3, Interesting)
There's a piece of software that many of us geeks can't live without. And while you hard core geeks might be thinking "That Jabber Author Guy" .. but most people I know, including myself, uses Gaim on Linux. Heck, there are many AIM clients even for Mac OS X that use the gaim core (ie. Adium and Fire) ... and a bunch of others even on other platforms.
While GAIM is radically different from when he passed on development to the community, let's not forget Mark Spencer for having brought us the original gaim, which evolved into the product that most of us use.
(Let's not also forget the current maintainers at: http://gaim.sourceforge.net/contactinfo.php [sourceforge.net] )
Kern Sibbald et al for Bacula (great backup sys!) (Score:1, Interesting)
Runners up would be Dan Langille (very active Bacula developer), Nicolas Boichat (for the wx-windows gui) and José Luis Tallón for the Debian packages.
Re:A True Open Source Hero is... (Score:3, Interesting)
Teachers don't get paid every time you use something you learn. They also don't get paid if you teach someone else what they taught you.
Developing new techniques is one thing that great surgeons do, and then they share them with other surgeons. You don't have to pay the pioneering surgeon every time you do the procedure yourself.
Similarly, with lawyers, you cannot copyright or patent a legal argument. If you make an argument in open court, it's there for anyone to use for the rest of eternity.
"And no I dont ever want to live from selling support contracts."
What about selling programming? X doesn't exist. Pay me Y and I'll bring it into existence. That's the way most software companies do things anyway. Remember, free software doesn't necessarily mean that you make software public, it means that those that receive the software have full rights to use, modify, and redistribute -- which is really a typical consulting agreement.