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Linus Torvalds ...
Torvalds' story has been told many times before. An impecunious university student in Finland in 1991, he wanted a more capable operating system for his low-end PC than any vendor would supply at low cost. His solution: write his own. A second seminal decision was to share his work. Before long, his early experiments in writing a Unix-like kernel had spread to far more fellow experimenters than expected, and the Linux phenomenon took off.
Today, Torvalds is still a working programmer, employed by Transmeta Corporation. Along with his busy work schedule, he continues to make many of the crucial technical decisions for Linux. He also makes time for a wholesome family life.
Andrew Tridgell ...
Tridgell is a hard-working programmer; he's the guy who wrote Samba, and is at least partially responsible for the rsync, JitterBug, and KnightCap programs. Tridge, as he's known to his friends, is the reason why Linuxcare set up an Australian office; it's the home for his research-and-development work.
Theodore Y. Ts'o ...
Filesystem guru Ted Ts'o was recently snatched from his position at MIT by VA Linux to become yet another star on its "dream team" of developers. He is best known for maintaining the ext2 Linux filesystem and writing drivers for high speed serial boards.
Stephen C. Tweedie ...
Some hackers are known for their complete mastery of one area of Linux; others because they know a lot of things about a lot of subjects. While Tweedie probably falls into the latter category, he has also made a name for himself with the clustering work he has done, and as a key developer of ext3, a journaling filesystem for Linux. Tweedie is employed by Red Hat.
Arthur Tyde III ...
Tyde founded Linuxcare along with partners Dave Sifry and David LaDuke. Prior to that, Tyde founded the Bay Area Linux Users Group. Along with its for-fee support services, Linuxcare gives back to the community through such projects as its CareTracker free bug-tracking site. After a startup stint as CEO, Tyde handed the position to industry veteran Fernand Sarrat and assumed the title of Executive Vice President.
Guido van Rossum ...
Van Rossum is Python's creator. Often compared to Tcl, Perl, Scheme, or Java, Python is growing in popularity and is widely used in Linux Web and installation scripts. Van Rossum originally wrote Python -- after the Monty Python comedy troupe -- while at a government-run research lab in Amsterdam. He moved a few years ago to the United States, where he works for the Corporation for National Research Initiatives, a nonprofit lab based in Washington, DC.
Larry Wall ...
Wall invented the Perl programming language. Perl's character reflects many elements of Wall's personality: his interest in linguistics, his motivation to share and shepherd good works, and his near-fanaticism that There's More Than One Way To Do It -- the catchphrase Perl practitioners learn. One element of Perl's success is that it has benefited from Wall's prior free software experience: He also wrote the widely used patch, warp, and rn. Wall is an employee of O'Reilly & Associates.
Matt Welsh ...
As one of the founders of the Linux Documentation Project (LDP) and the author of O'Reilly's seminal Linux book, Running Linux, Matt Welsh has eased as many Linux headaches as a small pharmaceutical company. Although Matt has contributed to the Linux code base, he is best known for his efforts in the realm of documentation. He has been a frequent contributor to the Linux Journal and is a founding editor of Linux Magazine.
Dave Whitinger ...
Whitinger and his partner Dwight Johnson run LinuxToday.com, one of the most popular Linux news sites on the Net. LT was just acquired by Penton Media, Inc. (the Internet.com people). But anyone who knows Dave and Dwight knows that the site will continue to have the interests of the Linux community at its heart as it continues to serve as a source for news and commentary on all things Linux.
Bob Young ...
In a span of four years, Red Hat's CEO turned his tiny startup into a $4 billion supplier of the Linux operating system. In August, Red Hat's IPO broke records on Wall Street with its meteoric rise during the first day of trading. Young, who owns about 15 percent of Red Hat, formed the company in 1995 with partner Marc Ewing.