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Miguel de Icaza ...
de Icaza is Linux's best advertisement for desktop computing. There are two broad projects to make Linux safe for conventional desktop use: KDE and GNOME. GNOME is de Icaza's -- that is, he's the leader of a broad and ambitious project to which dozens of programmers contribute their energies. Though some would argue that neither KDE nor GNOME is yet fit for popular consumption by Microsoft standards, de Icaza's vivacity and personal energy go a long way toward convincing those who meet him that it is only a matter of time before GNOME achieves its lofty ambitions.
Scott Draeker ...
You may not be able to say that Scott Draeker has made Linux more productive, but you can't deny that he's made it more fun. For those who keep Windows around just for the games, there is now no reason not to run a free OS. The Linux games playlist has exploded in the last year, and Loki Entertainment, with Draeker as president, is at the center of this expansion. Draeker, a former Dungeons & Dragons fanatic, has also shown how a proprietary software vendor can contribute to the Linux community (something Loki does regularly, with software like their extensions to Linux's MPEG library).
Matthias Ettrich ...
Ettrich created the popular KDE windowing environment for Linux. More accurately, in 1996 he founded the mailing list and project team that has coded the K Desktop Environment, and has done much of the programming himself. Troll Tech, the commercial vendor of the Qt toolkit used in KDE, has employed Ettrich for just over a year.
Marc Ewing ...
Ewing is executive VP and CTO of Red Hat. In mid-September, the co-founder of Red Hat was worth $775 million, thanks to the company's record-breaking IPO. Ewing, like his father, had worked for IBM prior to starting Red Hat, which was named after his grandfather's favorite old red Cornell lacrosse team cap. Ewing used to wear the cap between classes while a student in Carnegie Mellon's computer science program.
Carsten "Raster" Haitzler ...
You can meet Haitzler on your own. That is, if you visit his "Rasterman" Web site (http//www.rasterman.com) where you'll see what his Web cam is currently broadcasting, as well as a screen shot of his most recent programming work. This spring Haitzler jumped ship, leaving his former employer, Red Hat, and the leafy confines of Raleigh, NC, in favor of the West Coast vibes of VA Linux Systems.
Raster is best known for programming the Enlightenment window manager, but he has also contributed to the GNOME project specifications. Many Linux fans aim to make it as usable on the desktop as Microsoft products. Raster is militant about not being held to such a low standard.
Jon "Maddog" Hall ...
Hall is probably the main reason why Compaq's Alpha platform is one of the best-supported hardware platforms for Linux. A longtime proponent of intelligent computing, Hall first became interested in Linux while in the employ of Digital. Eventually, Digital became Compaq, and maddog became a VA Linux Systems employee, though the bulk of his time is spent serving as executive director of Linux International.
A highly public Linux advocate, Hall can be seen responding to calls of "maddog" at Linux events worldwide, where his avuncular nature and willingness to have fun and talk Unix make him one of the most popular guys around.
Dirk Hohndel ...
Hohndel is head developer for XFree86, the project that has implemented a totally free and widely used version of the X Window System for Linux, BSD, and OS/2. XFree86 is also the name of the nonprofit organization set up to join the X Consortium, which controls X's definition. When he's not programming, Hohndel is CEO of SuSE's consulting group, based in Germany.
Phil Hughes ...
Though the Linux publishing space has become a bit -- ahem -- crowded in recent months, Linux Journal will always hold the distinction of having been here first. As its publisher, Phil Hughes' opinion holds considerable weight with the Journal's 70,000 monthly readers.
The sometimes-prickly Hughes doesn't shy away from controversy, either, which is just what he got with a recent editorial suggesting that the KDE and GNOME development efforts stop competing with each other and unite.
Illiad ...
In the real world, he's J.D. Frazer, a former system administrator at a Canadian ISP, but on the Internet, he's Illiad, the creator of the User Friendly comic strip, which just happens to be the funniest thing to happen to geeks since Bill Gates got pied. Based on the fictional goings-on at a fictional ISP called Columbia Internet, User Friendly can make more of a statement about the geek zeitgeist in three illustrated panels than a wheelbarrow full of essays and Slashdot postings.
O'Reilly's first Linux author.
Alexey Kuznetsov ...
There is a rumor, probably untrue, that Alexey Kuznetsov is not really a person. He is, the rumor goes, a secret cabal of Russian Linux hackers banded together in a single-minded effort to write as much Linux code as humanly possible. Fellow kernel hacker Alan Cox doubts the rumor but admits, "I do sometimes wonder, but they all write e-mail the same way and holiday together."
Whatever the case, Kuznetsov has a reputation in the networking code area for making sharp and frequent contributions to the Linux kernel.
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