Open Source Weblog

Andrew Tridgell should be added to this list. There are many reasons to do this, not the least of which is Andrew's bringing to light the (continuing, I might add) refusal of Microsoft to implement interoperability (as in releasing API's) for other OS's.

If you are going to list Richard Stallman and Eben Moglen you need to change the name of the list to Free Software and Open Source VIP's.

The media's constant misunderstanding of the difference between the Free Software movement which Richard founded in 1985 and Open Source which came later as simply a way to avoid talking about the politics of Free software forces Stallman to explain again the difference every time he is interviewed or introducted to speak.

The Free Software movement is about users freedom. Open source is all about convenience.

Dennisk

The point regarding free software is a good one. As noted in the article: "Given his dislike of the phrase, one wonders what Stallman would make of being an 'open source' VIP, but he is also indirectly responsible for the open source movement that created a more business-friendly approach to free and open software."

The list is so small, and there are so many people that could be nominated, but I think we need to mention at least one person who helps with the recognition of Open Source by helping enforce the rights and obligations that come with certain common licenses -- Harald Welte. He has been doing this tirelessly for a very long time now, and it's a hard, often thankless, but necessary job.

Roy Fielding should be on the list, for Apache (for a long time, he was the Apache foundation chairman.) With a market share of over 60%, Apache is one of the really successful Open Source projects.
Andrew Tridgell deserves a spot as well, for Samba.
Theo de Raadt, for his focus on security. OpenSSH is one of the most important tools ever.
And finally, as Bob Sutor suggested in your part 2, Eric von Hippel, for looking at Open Source from the management side. People like him will be crucial to get into management heads that Open Source is not just a bunch of hippies...

No list would be complete without Bob Young, the founder of Red Hat. Bob was the first guy to figure out how to create an open source business model.

I would also add Erik Troan and Marc Ewing the creators of the early Red Hat builds. Erik was also the author of RPM (along with Michael Johnson). RPM (in my mind) was what gave Red Hat an early edge over competing distros. RPM made Linux packages easy to manage, which made Linux much more accesible to the non-kernel-hacker crowd.

Michael Tiemann, GNU C++ compiler rings any bells ?

He it does Vruz, that's why he made the list

Thanks for all the suggestions. The intention is for this to become something of a hall of fame, so some of the people who missed out on inclusion this time could still make the list at a later date.

Keep the suggestions coming though. One thing we want to make sure of is that we don't just pick the people with the biggest media profile.

Too much American bias - I'd list several others to balance the true contributions out a bit more:

Guido Van Rossum (Python)
David Heinemeier Hansson (Ruby on Rails)
Larry Wall (PERL)
Brian Behlendorf (Apache)
Yukihiro Matsumoto, a.k.a Matz (Ruby)
Rasmus Lerdorf, Andi Gutmans, Zeev Suraski (PHP)
Martin Fink (HP)
Nicholas Negraponte (OLPC)
Jim Gettys (X, OLPC)
Alan Cox (Red Hat)
Andrew Morton (OSDL)

In my humble opinion, anyway!

Ian W.