Influential in Open Source?

Yes, I have to agree with Grant, the list of the “most influential people in Open Source” is perplexing, at the very least, containing names like Steve Balmer, Scott Mcnealy, and MÃ¥rten Gustaf Mickos, while missing the blindingly obvious names like Linus Torvalds, Brian Behlendorf, Michael Widenius, and either Larry Wall or Rasmus Lerdorf (you’ve heard of LAMP, right?) as well as folks like Richard Stallman and Eric Raymond. These folks are *still* the driving forces behind the Free Software and Open Source movements, all these years later.

But, also, as Grant notes, the most influential people in in Open Source are folks like Dries (it’s VERY cool that he’s on the list) and Matt Mullenweg and Owen Winkler and Paul Querna, and any of a zillion other people I could mention, who do the actual day-to-day coding of the projects that really matter, in the sense that hundreds and thousands of websites use them every day to power their businesses and our economy.

Calling a bunch of CEOs the most influential people in Open Source profoundly misses the entire point of Open Source.