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Torvalds the "5th Most-Powerful Man in Tech"
An anonymous reader writes "According to silicon.com, Linus Torvalds is the fifth most influential man in technology. The bio they have written for him isn't the most flattering to the open source community though. I quote: "If it wasn't for the presence of Lara Croft and Xena Warrior Princess, techies around the world would have posters of Torvalds on their walls."
It goes on to say: "In truth Torvalds best work is in the past"... which seems to negate their own argument for having him in there.
Also in the Top 5 is Steve Jobs (1) who comes out on top of Bill Gates (2).
As an interesting aside, the writer of the Sobig virus even makes it in at Number 42..."
That's it? Should be #2. Linux is the second best OS in the land!
Does this mean he now has a chance of obliterating Gates in "Celebrity Deathmatch" ?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
And how do I get back to aol.com from this site? I just installed this Internet. HELP!!!
The bio they have written for him isn't the most flattering to the open source community though.
Whatya mean? the last line says "Rumour has it he's a Guinness man as well." Mmmmmmm...Guinness...
Trolling is a art,
You don't have a poster of Linus on your wall?
The ranking is the top Agenda setters, not the most powerful folks in tech as the poster states. For this reason I can easily see S. Jobs and Gates towards the top. This is slightly different than influence and worlds different that "Most Powerful".
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
If it wasn't for the presence of Lara Croft and Xena Warrior Princess, techies around the world would have posters of Torvalds on their walls. :(
But I DO have posters of Torvlads on my walls
I have over 70 freaks, do you?
Where's Darl McBride on the top 50? I'd say he's pretty influential right now. Look at him, he has the UNIX world groveling before him!
---- Move SIG...For great justice!
They are not the same! Influential people can be those who influence those with power but may have little or no power themselves. Think of advisors to POTUS.
DecafJedi
my weblog: apropos of something
... but you can reasonably expect to sit down and have a beer with him after work if you're in the right city. Can you say the same about numbers one through four?
It's nice having people in the upper-levels of Linux kernel development who actually read and post to mailing lists...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
So how do we know the anonomous writer of the SoBig virus isn't already near the top of the list?
Bill Gates is powerful, because he's so insanely wealthy. He then can influence all sorts of people with his power.
Linus Torvalds may be influential in tech circles, but whether that translates into any normal interpretation of "power" is another question.
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
Yay! Linux manages to take one step forward in the acceptance of it by PHB's and CTO's in large organisations and two steps back by making it sound like it's hacked by a bunch of teenage nerds with no understanding of the "real world" (let alone "real women").
Image might not be everything - but its a big something.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
Stroking the ego of a virus writer, way to go. I'm sure that'll entice her to stop.
"If you're thinking what I'm thinking, you're right." -
IAALS.
And he's such a regular guy (seemingly) that it probably gives him a bit of a shudder to read that. I don't envy the position Linus is in though, I mean looking back, he didn't set out with the goal of being worshipped globally by computer nerds, he just had this re-write of Minix he was working on. Eesh!
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
Jobs' role is overrated. Some Mac "innovations" (like pinhole to eject media) no-one ever follows. He makes a colorful splash with his colorful consoles, which end up meaningless in the tech world (the candy-colored iMac look had more influence on staplers and George Foreman grills than computers).
Due to the locked-in relationship of the hardware and software, his influence is limited for the most part to the tiny Mac world. This could change as soon as his music store goes beyond its limited beta situation.
It goes on to say: "In truth Torvalds best work is in the past"... which seems to negate their own argument for having him in there.
Why does that negate their own argument?
Power doesn't mean "how much have you coded recently", it means "how much influence do you weild."
Bill Gates hasn't coded anything in over 10 years, but he's made the list - are you suggesting he's not a power either?
I thought CowboyNeal would at least have ranked this year.
--"Sorry for the inconvience." Gods Last Words to his Creation
DNA, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish
On looking for her biography, I currently get a 'page cannot be found' message...
Cheers,
Ian
It seems we are the most influential people over silicon.com servers.
My neighbor's
Of course Linus wouldn't be the most "powerful" - he lets others make up their own damn minds. He doesn't own any companies, and he lets others use his ideas with only the agreement to give credit where credit is due, and use derrivative ideas in just the same way. The power is not in the man, but in the ideas. This "ranking" shouldn't be counted as an insult to open source in any way - powerful men are not a particularly valid way to rank ideas.
Ryan Fenton
Am I the only one that freaked out that there was a LINK named "sobig virus?"
Gad, I havent had my coffe yet and i am shaking!
I'd say John Carmack is badly missing there. He's been trendsetter since years.
Don't thank me all at once.
No 5. Linus Torvalds creator of Linux
Last year's position : 21
Hero of the open source movement, geek made good, thorn in Bill Gates' side - there are so many reasons why people vote for Linus Torvalds each year.
In a nutshell it's because he embodies the idea that there is always another way, an antidote to the Microsofts of this world, evidence that the idea of the 'community' within IT is still there. If it wasn't for the presence of Lara Croft and Xena Warrior Princess, techies around the world would have posters of Torvalds on their walls.
Torvalds started work on the Linux kernel while he was at university in Helsinki in 1991 and since then it has been taken up and developed as a serious alternative to proprietary software.
In truth Torvalds best work is in the past but he got the ball rolling and he continues to be an Agenda Setter because he is the very embodiment of the open source community. A vote for Torvalds is not a vote for the man but more a vote for what he represents.
Linux now poses a major threat to Windows and a series of adoptions in the past year, especially at governmental level (and there are more expected in the coming year) means that threat is only set to increase.
Rumour has it he's a Guinness man as well.
For that matter, does anyone actually care what Tim Berners-Lee has to say any more? I thought he was just someone they trot out to act like a father figure and talk up his latest unworkable, silly Big New Idea plea for attention, like Vint Cerf. Also, I thought John Malone was in jail...
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Anyone know where Cowboy Neal ranked?
Man, us techies are one good looking bunch.
Buffy, Faith and Willow? Sunnydale may be a big hole in the ground, but let's not forget it's finest (former) inhabitants.
His agenda seem quite influential, much of Linux' success is due to his agenda (through the GPL and software).
He may not be at the top, but he should be on the list. And above the Sobig author...
What about RMS, he has done a lot of work for Free Software.
If Linus gets to #5 being the embodiment of Open Source, how can they neglect GNU ?
From Google's Cache: http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:-9shQSz6F5UJ: www.silicon.com/as2003/agenda_lists.html+&hl=en&ie =UTF-8
Is there a search on this site? I can't seem to find my name... =P
So here's the Google Cache
I have over 70 freaks, do you?
The list has India's prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee at 8th.
India's boom - largely engineered by Vajpayee - means some analysts are predicting the country could face its own IT skills crisis over the next five years.
Nothing can be further from truth. Personally Vajpayee has had no effect on IT in India. He has no ideas or plans for the future, as far as IT is concerned. I think Narayana Murthy would have been a better choice.
I doubt the list is a well researched list.
karma : former act as leading to inevitable results
Influential? Definitely. Powerful? Uhh, no. In reality, there are still many more people in the tech world who have considerably more power than he does. After all, exactly how much money have Linux companies actually made? It's a pittence compared to the other big players out there. I'd argue he has much more influence than he has actual power in the industry, especially since anyone can modify his product without giving him a second thought.
As an interesting aside, the writer of the Sobig virus even makes it in at Number 42...
The answer, to the almighty question. Apparently, the reason we exist is to write viruses. You didn't actually believe it was 6 by 9, did you?
As of 10/06/03, I hate COBOL developers.
One of the biggest problems with a lot of people today is that they equate economic success with success in general. However, in the case of Apple and Steve Jobs, the success is in pushing new boundaries that other companies didn't want to touch. Apple has been VERY influential (and therefore Steve Jobs). They popularized the GUI, they brought a sense of style to computing (which is very important regardless of what anyone may think), they shifted the look of the box itself from the ugly beige box to the sleek designer models and now they are bringing Unix and 64 bit processing to the consumer (It could be argued that Sony did this with the Playstation).
The Linux crowd and Torvalds have been hugely successful in starting a movement away from proprietary OSes and again making this movement more visible. Of course *BSD was there first as well as GNU, but with Linux the concept was popularized among the clued in folks in the IT world. Whether you like Tovalds or not, you cannot refute that he has influenced the IT world tremendously with his work.
The best thing is that neither Jobs nor Torvalds needed to be the dominant market leader to influence anyone. There is more power in thought than money. That is the way things should be everywhere.
Un-news
The most influential are on wall street.
postscript
Actually I've found most members/users of open source (averaged) take the most respectful stance to women I've seen from any other group (including pro fem/left/right/religious agenda groups). All with little to no effort, it does seem quite natural.
I'm kind of curious what kind of carry over or representation there is to the larger population. Diversity is not something open source population lacks.
No 5. Linus Torvalds creator of Linux
Last year's position : 21
Hero of the open source movement, geek made good, thorn in Bill Gates' side - there are so many reasons why people vote for Linus Torvalds each year.
In a nutshell it's because he embodies the idea that there is always another way, an antidote to the Microsofts of this world, evidence that the idea of the 'community' within IT is still there. If it wasn't for the presence of Lara Croft and Xena Warrior Princess, techies around the world would have posters of Torvalds on their walls.
Torvalds started work on the Linux kernel while he was at university in Helsinki in 1991 and since then it has been taken up and developed as a serious alternative to proprietary software.
In truth Torvalds best work is in the past but he got the ball rolling and he continues to be an Agenda Setter because he is the very embodiment of the open source community. A vote for Torvalds is not a vote for the man but more a vote for what he represents.
Linux now poses a major threat to Windows and a series of adoptions in the past year, especially at governmental level (and there are more expected in the coming year) means that threat is only set to increase.
Rumour has it he's a Guinness man as well.
I would pay serious money for a poster of Linus dressed up in a penguin costume!
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
Getting a poster shipped is no problem. The vendor rolls it up, puts it in a postal tube, and ships that.
Will I retire or break 10K?
"If it wasn't for the presence of Lara Croft and Xena Warrior Princess, techies around the world would have posters of Torvalds on their walls."
Are you sure it wouldn't be Ellen Feiss?
For someone like me who started using Linux at approximately the same time as I started working in IT, Linus (through Linux) has been one of the most influential people in the technology related part of my life.
Linux has taught me more about computers than even my 3 1/2 years on a helpdesk(win98/NT). The free exchange of ideas, introduced to me through Linux, has shaped much more than my technology life and I can even see examples of it in other areas of my life.
In summary, Linus being one of the most influential men in technology sounds correct to me.
-the_crowbarHave you read the Moderator Guidelines
As an interesting aside, the writer of the Sobig virus even makes it in at Number 42..."
Aha. So that's the question to which the answer is 42...
And more importantly, you might actually want to. I quote the article:
How many of the top 4 are closet Bud Light drinkers? =)You're right. Mac OS X is a perfect example of the merging of the two worlds: Apple and GNU. Mac OS X is a significant thing for GNU software because the basis of the OS is Unix, just like Linux. Ergo, GNU software can be easily ported to Mac OS X and vice versa. Which means that programs like OpenOffice.org and Evolution now have another OS that they will run under.
This is a Good Thing.
SCREW THE ADS! http://adblock.mozdev.org/ Proud user of teh Fox of Fire - Registered Linux User #289618
He's always at the bottom of the list, ya know.
As an interesting aside, the writer of the Sobig virus even makes it in at Number 42..."
So the answer to life the universe and everything is a Windows worm? Somehow it is all very clear to me now... :)
Oh, come on! Steve Jobs has him beat by a long shot - he hasn't coded anything since he worked for Atari!
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Why do writers feel compelled to resort to ludicrous generalisations like this? Is it because they are rather poor writers and can't come up with anything more novel (or true) or does it make their target audience feel smuggly superior to the technical people that run their IT departments and office networks?
Yet another example of piss-poor writing that seems to typify most publications these days. People more concerned with meeting a word count and hitting a deadline than actual quality content.
You're kidding, right?
Or maybe you're trying for the related list of "Sadest Losers in Technology 2003"
Steve Jobs (1) who comes out on top of Bill Gates (2)
:-)
Not a nice picture created in my mind by that sentence...
Gotta stay off that net pr0n
My brother was burning incense, but my mom made him stop.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Does anybody know where I might acquire a poster of Mr. Torvalds?
Make your own. Now your only question remaining is "Bunny suit or S&M leather?"
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
the dimensions of a poster probably make them a lot of trouble to ship
um no...they roll the poster and put it in a cardboard sleeve and mail it .
Linux Kernel Map Poster
Gentoo Linux Poster
Google for Linux Posters
as for a poster of Torvalds, I cant help you as I have an aversion to having posters of People on my walls, Landscapes/Paintings and cool Advertisment/Techie type stuff only please.
--Im an oven mitt, not an engineer! (SLArbys Radio Commercial)
If you're interested in any of the non-Torvalds agenda setters on the list, yes there are indeed many dead links. Carly Fiorina and a few others lead nowhere.
Who besides me noticed?
The list isn't even aligned right! What kind of geek are you!
1. Steve Jobs 26. Rod Aldridge
2. Bill Gates 27. Stelios Haji-Ioannou
3. Greg Dyke 28. Ian Foster
4. Hu Jintao 29. Dmitri Sklyarov
5. Linus Torvalds 30. David Blunkett
6. Roger Cole 31. Erich Gamma
7. Sam Palmisano 32. Jeff Bezos
8. Atal Behari Vajpayee 33. Donna Dubinsky
9. Peter Gershon 34. Donald E Knuth
10. Carly Fiorina 35. Masayoshi Son
11. Rupert Murdoch 36. Michael Gough
12. Michael Dell 37. Keiji Tachikawa
13. Arun Sarin 38. Marc Benioff
14. Richard Granger 39. Sir John Sulston
15. Fred von Lohmann 40. Larry Ellison
16. Eric Schmidt 41. Stephen Hill
17. David Levin 42. SoBig author
18. Stephen Carter 43. Naomi Klein
19. Steve Linford 44. Henning Kagermann
20. Christian Ude 45. Mario Monti
21. Greg Aharonian 46. Ulrich Schumacher
22. Scott McNealy 47. Tim Berners-Lee
23. Terry Semel 48. Steve Ballmer
24. Sergey Brin 49. John Malone
25. Ben Verwaayen 50. Michael Moritz
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
What, like this or maybe this?
Please email me in private to arrange for the transfer of the serious money, thanks.
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
Why should I with my decision to use Linux make Linus Torwalds to one of the most influential persons on this planet?
Is it because he could turn Linux into something I would not want to use? Or into something that would not let me use my computer anymore or only on a very high cost?
Or is it because he is hard to convince of the necessity of a particular patch and appears to be the most annoyed person on the kernel mailing list?
Sven
Predictive text is shiv!
David Crane is the author of Pitfall and many 8-bits clasic games. Lot of todays programmers are in this field because they were atracted by classic games.
DNA in your Linux: DNALinux
Not flattering? The main problem with this bio is that it is poorly written fluff by some hack with a lot of space to fill. There's substantially better journalism in People. Ignore this junk.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Isnt it distressing that there are only two women on this list? And that the highest ranked of the two isnt a developer/researcher but a corporate exec through and through?
Im not saying that they should be artificially promotoed in order to give fair treatment, but it seems that we are sort of only using half the resources availble to us, and that the female perspective could radically change(improve?) technical innovation if it were taken advantage of.
I know that industries like finance get a bad rap frequently for being centered around a "boys club" mentality. But I bet a survey of finance's top fifty would do better then 4% women.
the "dude, you're getting a Dell" guy. He has certainly helped bridge the generation gap between the PC populus. Too bad he can't accept the award because he's in the clink after trying to score another sack...
"Work" doesn't mean "coding" either. Torvald's current work is in coding and "herding cats".
I'd expect the headline to say "Steve Jobs Most Powerful Man in Tech" rather than focus on Linus being 5th most powerful.
Mmmm.. Donuts
I love the fact that Good old Rupert was knocked down to size by a pioneer in e-izing independent media, Greg Dyke. I have loved the BBC's style of reporting since living in Birmingham for a year. Since then Greg Dyke has moved the BBC to be one of the best news/tv sites on the net. Regardless of what you think of the BBC itself he has paved the way that other media giants are going to intigrate thier services onto the Net.
For the worlds worst example see FOX News.
--"Sorry for the inconvience." Gods Last Words to his Creation
DNA, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish
In a world where you aren't judged not by what you have done, but what you have done lately... I have to say that this journalist is one of the few tech journalists out there that doesn't know what the fsck he is talking about.
I say that rarely these days because most tech journalists, nowadays, know what they are talking about and are quite savvy.
Not only because Linus is doing some real good stuff these days, managing the kernel itself, but because if he wasn't doing anything good currently, why would he be voted higher than last year?
This person not only doesn't know tech, they have no common sense.
I have to give this journalist the Anonymous Coward Weanie Journalist of the Week award.
l8,
AC
The most innovative hardware technology in computing today is coming from Sony. Everybody else has architectures from the past; Sony is actually selling new ones, in volume.
Incidentally, Motorola is about to bail out of the semiconductor business. They're trying to sell off their semiconductor operation. Sad.
they don't mention my name once. I mean, REALLY. Sooner or later I will force those fools to recognize my contributions. Ohhhhh, yesss, they laugh now, but someday... SOMEDAY...
muah. a. hah. ah.
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
Who's more pathetic, the fanboy geeks, or the loser trolls who spend time on slashdot making fun of them?
(Or the fanboy geeks making fun of the loser trolls making fun of the fanboy geeks?)
Gates too. The Jan/Feb '99 cover of MIT's Technology Review with Torvalds and Gates face to face has been on my wall for years now. There is a devil mustache and horns on Bill, of course.
Strange. I just thought he was just a TV exec. For those not familiar he is the head of Newscorp, parent company of Fox and Sky.
I was also interested as to why Sobig made it and Blaster/Lovsan did not. Blaster forced people off the net because their systems were constantly rebooting. Sobig was just a clever e-mail that has been used before.
I don't know a single geek with Xena posters. Most geeks have Star Trek or X-Files posters, at least that is what I have in my office.
John Sulston won a well deserved Nobel prize in medicine for his work with Sydney Brenner on cell lineage fate in C. Elegans. He is also one of the few men for whom it can be rightly argued that the human genome project would not have happened, but for his contributions. There may be another Nobel coming his way for this too. However, Sulston's influence on Bioinformatics/Software/IT is FAR, FAR, FAR less obvious. Suggesting that he might be one of the 50 most influential people in the world in IT is a terribly difficult argument to make. It's not entirely clear he is among the ten most influential IT people at the Sanger, never mind in the world. Let's give credit where credit is due. Sulston is one of the great biologists/scientists/geneticist of his time. IT is but a small component of this man's work, and not one where his enormous powers have been most evident.
As an interesting aside, the writer of the Sobig virus even makes it in at Number 42...
SoBig virus - ranked Number 42...
Number 42 - The answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Coincidence? Maybe...
And those aliens were just a figment of your imagination too.
No really...they were.
{Twitch}
I noticed that one group of people was not represented among the top 50 at all - people connected to video gaming. Don't tell me that companies like Sony are less important for the future of technology as virus writers or even 15-minutes of fame people like Dimitri Sklarov.
...is number 8 because he's prime minister of India? How did he even contribute to making India a software destination worth considering??
How many techies do in fact have a poster of Lara on their walls? I am yet to see/meet one..
So the big T. made the list. So RMS didn't. So Gates and Jobs rank well too. So what? This is just a journalist's opinion of who is influential anyway. Ordering is based on those he knows and how visible they are. The world has LOTS of opinions - at least as many as there are people.
English -- gotta love it! / The engineers refuse to refuse the rocket until the refuse is removed from the launch pad.
I think the Photographer should have stopped at 2 pots of coffee that morning...
I've got news for you, he didn't do much coding at Atari, either!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
"...techies around the world would have posters of Torvalds on their walls."
Is this something we should expect to see at ThinkGeek in the near future? Or perhaps a deck of cards with faces of the Techno-Famous on them?
-h
--
"my other flamethrower is a Spaceballs flamethrower"
of the silicon.com web site, CmdrTaco has been added to the list.
/. which leads to...
Unfortunately, this leads to the revised list being posted on
They included the SoBig author, so they understand "most influential" could mean negative influence. Whatever you think of the sue-em-all campaign, the RIAA has had a huge impact on the development of p2p apps, distribution of music over the internet, and probably the growth of broadband as well.
Rank Presidents by th
http://disjointed.org/archives/000248.html
"Basically, he jumped out of his car in his outfit and said, `If anyone can, Angle-Grinder Man can,' " Ms. Tendai said in a telephone interview. "Then he just started sawing it off. It was wicked."
Otherwise, you might as well fit into the category of the people "out of their right mind"...
Oh, and kdevelop is a great tool. Don't mistake it for Visual C++.
In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.
looking at the list briefly, it's good to catch 2 or 3 hackers on it! (if you count the SoBig author) at least 2 or three names i recognize.
it's interesting also, with the arguably condescending remarks on the Open Source movement, that while the president of China is listed the 4th most influential man in technology they fail to mention China's official RED FLAG LINUX.
interesting, eh?
Hu Jintao
Here is a household name for the free software crowd. To leave Stallman out of this list is unthinkable. Stallman is to Torvalds what Marx was to Lenin.
an ill wind that blows no good
They should do a study as to who the most influential religious figures are. Torvalds would get #2, just behind LRH.
From Silicon.com's Agenda Setters 2003:m l
http://www.silicon.com/as2003/analysis2.ht
===============
Someone who could well have fallen into this category this year but
didn't make the list at all is SCO CEO Darl McBride. He has led his
company's charge to get credit for what it claims is some of its code
turning up in Linux. So far the row has taken the form of a lawsuit
brought against IBM, headlines in the media and SCO invoicing some
users for Linux roll outs.
However, when asked what happened when his company was served with a
request to pay a SCO licence for Linux, panellist Ric Francis,
Safeway's CIO, said: "I told them to stick it. At the end of the day it
is never going to fly. It's the last dying breath of a company that is
never going to make money."
McBride - in the headlines yes, agenda setting no. There is a
difference.
===============
I tried to read the article but just couldn't due to the obnoxious flashing skyscraper ad for... the same article I was trying to read.
I am surprised not to see the PERL GOD, Larry Wall up on that list. He might not be powerful, but he is influential.
Causing Chaos Everywhere,
Nik J.
The strange world of a loner, in a populous city, drowning in society
isn't she Briney Spears mother or something?
Where the hell is Esther Dyson? She is a top member of EFF, used to be the chairman of Icann and now sits on like the boards of 10 companies, as well as a being a trade show organizer and a VP capitalist, and to top it all off her dad is Freeman Dyson one of the pioneers that helped quantify Quantum Electro-Dynamics.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
frolicking in the reality distortion field...
"You mortals are so obtuse." -Q
The CEOs of Intel and AMD aren't even on the list. I'd think they'd have something to do with setting the tech agenda.
Vote for Pedro
to say that "Linus' best work is behind him." In other words, Linux has evolved into a stable, robust operating system. It has emerged from the development stage (where his "best" work was done) to a level of stability and usability that Bill can only dream of.
To put it another way, "we've done what Microsoft has said they're going to do if you'll only hang on for the next release."
My name isn't on it!
I mean come on now! I know I'm a hot stick with a keyboard!
Or does it mean that we're all tied for 51st place?
(a legend in my own mind)
-Goran
Carpe Scrotum - The only way to deal with your competition.
Whether you like him or not, it seems like he should have made it in at least the top 50. I mean sheesh if the soBig guy gets in there, why not RMS?
I think it's also safe to say that Bill Gates' best work is in the past. How could he possibly top the coup of licensing MS-DOS to IBM? (Short of total world domination, anyway.)
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
No 15. Fred von Lohmann senior staff attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation
Last year's position : Not Placed
Some would say millions of consumers, in bedrooms and offices the world over, are doing a good job of dictating terms to the suits in music and film subsidiaries of the major entertainment conglomerates. But when the RIAA goes after a 12-year-old girl or confused pensioner, who are they going to call? Of course the answer could well be leading IP lawyer Fred von Lohmann from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, given his track record fighting the controversial US Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Can currently be found defending Streamcast in a case brought by 28 entertainment companies.
"Neque enim lex est aequior ulla, quam necis artifices arte perire sua."
The Chinese government is looking to develop its own 3G standard, while its support for the development of an open source alternative to Windows has already had Microsoft, somewhat ironically, complaining of anti-competitive practices.
I know most people on slashdot saw that as irony, but until PHB reads it, chances are he/she will not. So I am glad that at least silicone.com wrote it. It would be better if Wall Street Journal published similar assessment, but for now, I take this as a positive sign.
A religious war is an adult version of a fight over who has the best imaginary friend
RMS is not a zealot, at least no more a zealot than the "free enterprise" nutcases who think that it is reasonable that because of broken intellectual property laws and unethical business practices M$ should continue to be paid $30,000,000,000/year for ten programs it wrote ten years ago.
--
It's wrong that an IP creator should not be rewarded for their work.
It's equally wrong that an IP creator should be rewarded too many times for the one piece of work, for exactly the same reasons.
One would think that power and influence are synonymous. I don't think the day is too far off in IT-land when individual power is surpassed by the notion of communal power.
I mean, where is the Linux community itself on that list?
With no offense to dear Linus, but Linus!=The Linux Movement. Linus=Linus. He is a member of a greater organism, the Linux community. While he may (bless his soul) have a great deal of influence over us, we, the organism, dictate our own course, and our own movements.. For example, lately, the Linux community seems to be moving more and more in the direction of replacing X11..Hardly an edict handed down from Linus, right?
Surely we, the Linux community, should at least be ahead of Palmisano on that list. Our little community seems to have enough influence over other pieces on the chess board..enough to move them without even touching them directly---Regardless of what SCO says, it's not like the Linux community went to IBM and ordered them to modify their business plan.
Something to think about, at least.
Bowie J. Poag
guiness is hardly the end all of beers. I can think of quite a few stouts, porters, and pub ale's I'd rather drink before I'd have a guiness. My favorite of course being Young's double chocolate stout. Guiness just has a distinction of being readily available worldwide.
Jack Valenti and Orrin Hatch will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
probably gates is not viewed as 'influential' because he doesn't make so much trendsetting choices himself(or at least, the voters think so, i don't know shit about their decision process), rather he just does what his told or what everybody else is already doing. he doesn't decide if the next product from ms will be shipped in aluminum boxes or not, he lets other people decide it.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
What power does he have?
He can't hire or fire anyone.
He can't spend anyone's money.
He even quit his day job to slave over his open-source avocation.
He might break his version of the kernel by adding massive incompatibilities, but then he'd would merely marginalize himself.
Just what actual power does he have?
RMS is a big pusher for OSS and Free software. You all (those who are like no RMS???) keep referring to him as GNU. Yes, that is a term, it just says that its not unix. His idea are what have made him as big as he is, that and the whole BSD thing :)
I agree, he has been a very important force in the development of free/open source software. I dont think he has influenced the technology as much as we give him credit for. People say that without him, GNU wouldnt exist, true. Free/Open Source Software has been around since the 60'S!! I dont think RMS is 60 years old (had to be about 20 at the youngest to be involved in IT at the time). The ideas he promotes so loudly have been around before him, and they would be around without him still. He (I am not sure, so correct me if I am wrong) did give us the GPL ( or influenced its writing heavily). Linux very well could have been written without GNU as oss still. On the other hand, Linus has only made it because Linux is taking vast amounts of the market (even M$ uses linux load balencing servers like akaimi.net) in the recent years. Linux is starting to snowball in a way that Linus never could have expected, nor even really intended to. BSD has its loyal fans, I have never used it, but I have no doubt that it is a very solid os and is quite capable. BSD just isnt making the waves that Linux is.
* all references to Linux actually are for GNU/Linux.
Stop signs are only Suggestions
You, like W, must not read the newspapers or watch the news programs.
actually, on the unhampered free market (in an anarcho-capitalist world), there would be .
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Where aren't these people on their list?
Even the Slashdot editors might qualify.
> The list isn't even aligned right! What kind of geek are you!
You mistake "anal retentive" (should that have a hyphen?) with "geek".
Anal retainers align the columns; a geek he would have numbered them 0 - 49 instead of 1 - 50.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The big question that we need confirm here, "Is Linux a Guiness man?"
WURD!!
So, where do we get the Linus Torvalds posters?
Come on, you all know you want 'em.
An image I could have done without :-(
My favorite of course being Young's double chocolate stout.
what a strange coincidence! i don't know how popular Young's is, but i happened to see it in a little Finnish town on my way into Russia and bought it on an impulse.
what a terrific beer, rich and creamy with only a hint of chocolate. i don't know what other countries carries this, but i recommend it to anyone that can appreciate a good stout.
Young's is quite good. Another slightly chocolatey stout is the Sheaf Stout, which is Australian, I think. I also recommend Sam Smith's Oatmeal Stout, if you can find it.
Angle Grinder Man = yes, he's great. Long live air poisoning and parking that blocks roads and endangers life.
I hope he gets sent down for a long time.
I thought it had been proven that he didn't say that?
Linus is influential because he has given very few people cause to dislike him. He avoids taking part in political arguments, he avoids making himself anyone's enemy.
RMS is a zealot, and for every person he brings into his way, he alienates two others. RMS's influence is limited becaue of the numbers of people that he alienates.
In other words: "Influence is like money in the bank, the less you use it, the more you have."
Exigo spamos et dona ferentes
How on earth did Jobs get on the list? His last cutting edge moment involved NeXTstep (which failed and had minimal influence). Apple today? Again, minimal or no influence. I think Torvalds should be number 1 or 2 as his work is radically destabilizing the industry. Bill Gates should be 1 or 2 (depending on where Torvalds is ranked) based on his ongoing influence and the repurcussions of Microsoft's battle with Linux.
It would seem that HP has successfuly re-branded themselves as an actual 'cutting-edge' technology company.
At least in the eyes of the general public.
Author and activist Naomi Klein has been working for the anti-globalisation, anti-corporate movement for some years but shot to fame with her first book, No Logo, examining the politics of big business, among other things.
The book provided a rallying call for those disenchanted with huge brands and, although Klein has no specific beef with the world of technology as such (despite her open criticism of Microsoft), her stance against the big corporations has struck a cord with - and mobilised - previously apolitical youth which is sure to have repercussions for the industry at large.
I almost bought this list until I came across Naomi Klein at 43rd. Let me summarize why she's on the list.
"Naomi Klein doesn't really write about technology per se and doesn't enjoy any real currency with most segments of the population. If she does write about technology then she will suddenly become more influential then Steve Ballmer and Tim Berners-Lee as unwashed teenagers throw rocks in windows with Microsoft and Gateway products."
Ummm, okay. As much as he's a toad, Jeremy Rifkin is far more influential in terms of criticizing aspects of technology then Klein and I wouldn't even place him on the list.
You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
That's the problem... I'm not in Dublin, and don't have any trips to Ireland planned. My guiness comes out of a tap in a seattle pub if I'm lucky, a can or bottle if I'm not. And if I remember correctly, the guiness in the US isn't even brewed the same as the irish version.
Jack Valenti and Orrin Hatch will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
Bill Gates hasn't coded anything in over 10 years
And his best work is certainly in the past - it's been downhill all the way since Altair BASIC.
Seriously, though, when do we think Bill last wrote some code?
It's an interesting contrast between the world's of FOSS and commercial software. Given that Linus is still involved at the code face that must make him the most powerful (and it is power and not just influence) programmer in the world.
Go Fred!
...the end user of a DRM-enabled operating system.
And that's below luddites.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Another notable to the /. crowd
"But when the RIAA goes after a 12-year-old girl or confused pensioner, who are they going to call? Of course the answer could well be leading IP lawyer Fred von Lohmann from the Electronic Frontier Foundation"
I thought it was interesting that number 4 was the President of China. Note that he is an advocate of Open Source alternative to Windows...
No 4. Hu Jintaopresident, China
Last year's position : Not Placed
With China, size is everything and a population of some 1.3 billion people means the modernisation of Chinese society will turn the country into the most lucrative technology market in the world. The country already has 300 million mobile phone users - twice that of the US.
Panellist Ajay Chowdhury, managing partner at IDG Ventures Europe, said: "It will influence the world of technology in many different ways. First as a market and second as a lot of technology comes out of China. It is motoring ahead at a rate of knots."
But it is clear already that new president Jintao, the man charged with guiding China to its new superpower status, is not just going to throw its doors open to the usual western technology giants. The Chinese government is looking to develop its own 3G standard, while its support for the development of an open source alternative to Windows has already had Microsoft, somewhat ironically, complaining of anti-competitive practices.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
All of it has been either copying, stealing, or both. Honestly the only person who is worse in this industry is Michael Dell, who emulates everything and then says HE invented it (anyone remeber when durring a press conference HE said he created 802.11b and Dell was the first to put it into it's laptops a YEAR after Apple and Sony did it.)
but regardless this was based on agenda so its not who's most powerful, and I think maybe Bill should be number one, what with all the press releases saying they are going to fix the swiss cheeese that is XP (yes I know you have to have at least cheese to have holes in it while XP is really more one GIANT hole, but saying air isnt as cool)
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Don't forget the asterisk.
History won't.
I dont see Cowboy Neal in the top 50.. what's with this shit.
It probably is. Guinness have spent a whole lot on establishing a global brand, and on standardising the drink. There'll be subtle differences from one brewery to another, but they'll all use yeast from the same original strain, and they'll all use the same process. The canned and bottled stuff isn't that bad either; again, they've spent a hell of a lot on R&D over the years. Indeed, the canned stuff can be better than the stuff on tap - what's in the can is never far off what Guinness intended, whereas what's on tap is at the mercy of the pub cellar and the landlord.
Incidentally, if you ever are in Ireland don't bother with the Guinness brewery in Dublin. The bar there is a soulless corporate pit, and there's certainly no shortage of excellent pubs in Dublin. The best pint of Guinness I ever had was at Matt Molloy's bar in Westport, Co Mayo. Fabulous pub, too; there was an old bloke in the corner singing verses of 'Galway Bay' that had surely never been printed in any book of Irish songs ever compiled ;-)
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Except where I live... Freaking bastards. there is *NO* guinness in Santa Maria, California, except one place-- Who sells so little of it, it tastes stale and awful...
Read my write-up of finding guinness in my new hometown here.
I didn't realize they were naming men Donna and Naomi now.
Yes, he did a nice job of taking out the Asprin Factory of Doom and assorted empty buildings, but his followup was rather weak (i.e. nonexistent) considering he utterly failed to achieve his goal (assuming his goal was in fact to get bin Laden and not keep Monica out of the headlines).
even though he got just as close to knocking the pious bastard off as George Bush ever did, and spent a hell of a lot less taxpayer dollars to do it!
Right, all Bush did was spend more money. Unless you count the destruction of the Taliban, crippling of al Qaeda, and liberation of the Afhan people, but why bother with details? Oh, and Osama is very probably in many thousands of pieces at Tora Bora
The right wing needs to get past this whole Clinton thing, I mean, it really makes them look like a bunch of chumps. The rest of us are ready to move on.
That's just funny, considering this sub-thread started with yet another whine about the 2000 election.
Sorry to burst your little persecution complex, but I don't give a rat's ass about Clinton. I pointed out the three major causes of the recession (which we're recovering from nicely; I know how that must disappoint you), and exactly zero of them are due to Bush's actions in office.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
"Long live air poisoning and parking that blocks roads and endangers life."
If a car is parked in such a way that it blocks a road, you'd be daft to boot it now wouldn't you?
Daft bugger.
MM
--
By including this sig, the copyright holders of this work or collection unreservedly place it in the public domain.
Here in most of the US (except maybe NY, and some of the more metropolitan areas), Guiness is just about the only stout you can find on tap. I like it, and I do like other darker beers... I just can't find them on tap.
"but you can get them in some stores." Feh. Don't even get me started on buying bottled beers... many of them, guiness included, are horrible out of the bottle (guiness in cans is much better... you actually get a decent head).
That's not to say I haven't had some damned good beers overseas... I have... they just aren't available here.
I'm not a beer snob; different strokes for different folks... you should drink what you like. For my own part, I'd have to say that I like guiness.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
I've heard that the Jamaican Guinness is stronger yet, but I don't know if that's true. At any rate, I prefer Bell's Expedition Stout, when I can get my grubby mitts on it. That's rarer now that everyone I know in Ann Arbor has moved to DC.
You can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of beer a day, no matter how rich you are.
-- Colonel Adolphus Busch
It takes an especially bad President * to have every major financial measure he's ever sent passed (all massive tax cuts, of course), control both Congress and the Senate and have an net loss of jobs (the first time in 70 years!).
The asterisk refers to the fact that W was selected by the SC, bypassing the Constitution (and the majority of citizens who didn't vote for him, including the majority in Florida which had the necessary electoral college votes to elect the correct President.
The Taliban still exists.
Al Quaeda is still active.
The Afghan people would rather not be "liberated" into the arms of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the Northern Alliance of despotic criminals.
That would be nice. Don't bet the farm on it.
Well, Taco says if you can't be insightful be amusing. And I too am tired of the whining about the 2000 election; the shrub stole it fair and square as far as I'm concerned. Besides, the Gorebot couldn't have beaten Bozo the Clown with his campaign strategies.
Three causes - Clinton, Clinton, Clinton.
I don't feel persecuted and disappointed, but I guess I can take your word on it. Oh well, at least I have a job, which is tough in the shrub economy. Talk to any of those Timken Bearing employees lately?
I am also very amused by the way we've been "recovering nicely" from this "recession" ever since Bush got in office. I read about it every day in the "liberal" media!
You guys bag me up....
I found it amusing that when I clicked on the web site for the company hiring Linux/C++ developers, I got:
This site is best viewed with Internet Explorer 4 or higher.
Since you are not using Internet Explorer 4 or higher,
you are being redirected to the no-frills version of this site.
If this page does not refresh by itself, click here to continue
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." -- Albert Einstein
Today, we had the US Special Envoy to Afghanistan warn of "spectacular attacks" by the Taliban against US forces. On Sept. 22, we had news about Mullah Omar (you remember how W missed him as well as Osama) having a big meeting with the reformed Taliban in Pakistan. And even the CIA doesn't actually think Osama is dead yet. And liberating the country and handing control of most of it to rival warlords isn't what W said the fight was all about.
As for your "we're recovering from nicely; I know how that must disappoint you" comment on the recession, a jobless recovery with a fundamentals this weak, not to mention the first net loss of jobs in over 70 years, doesn't constitute recovering OR nicely as far as I'm concerned.
Worse yet, someone seems to have switched Bill Gates with Steve Ballmer - seems not many notice who's truely calling the shots at MS these days. It's Steve with his bullyness, not Bill with his nerdy curiosity.
As for Linus, I note that he's up from 21 last year. Things are going well.
The remark that his best work is in the past is just silly - his best work is not his coding (which is fine), but in his social skills which are phenomenal. If RMS would discover this, he might make it to the list one day, too :)
I'm in a Unix state of mind.
If it's not Consolidated Lint, it's just fuzz!
"If it wasn't for the presence of Lara Croft and Xena Warrior Princess, techies around the world would have posters of Torvalds on their wall."
It's times like this, I'm proud to be a Windows user.
"Derp de derp."
Hooray, we can agree on something. With that, I'll be done.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Personally, I had posters of Samantha Fox and Apollonia Kotero on my walls when I was a teen, but I bet none of you know who they were. ;-)
Samantha Fox was *hot*, dude. I remember her being really sweet, so we concluded she was probably bitchy as hell when there wasn't a camera pointed at her.
Like what I said? You might like my music
It's more important to be a successful entrepreneur than a successful technician or technologist. The same probably applies in other fields of industry or services.
I think it's time those involved with education start giving as much or even more attention to entrepreneurial, economic, or financial literacy than they currently do to technology, computing or information literacy.
He heads up a small outfit called the BBC. They do a bit of reporting every now and again. You might have seen some of their articles linked from slashdot sometime - it happens occasionally.
Anyway, you clearly haven't been following the Hutton enquiry into the death of Dr. David Kelly (the affair that should be toppling the British government any time now). Grey Dyke has been a prominent witness. Let me guess, you're not from this side of the Atlantic, are you?
The fact that I dislike his politics doesn't change the fact that he was selected not elected. Even Rutherford B. Hayes doesn't have an asterisk. He wasn't handed the election by the SC.
By the way, I note you've avoided that whole 3 years of recession, passed every finance measure he wanted (all tax cuts), his party controls both houses and has the first net loss of jobs in 70 years thing. Hasn't the RNC given you the spin sheet on that one yet?
Heck, I didn't even mention budget surplus to largest budget deficit in history!
I don't honestly think that he even deserves a top 50 place. Sure, he was influential in the past, but if you are talking about now...let's just say that people running Anti-RIAA sites are probably more influential.
Ellison deserves to be top 5.
Stallman and Raymond should be in the 50.
Darl McBride (for all the wrong reasons) should be in the 50.
The Guinness in Ireland is just like any other.
The only reason why screw-cap wine is generally worse is that people don't put good wine in it as a rule (although this is changing).
"Mike, I'm married to my unattractive wife who is terrible in bed, so I have to sleep with her. But why you?"
"It takes three (_____) to change the lightbulb: one of the (_____) holds the lightbulb while the other two rotate the ladder. Afterwards they throw the used lightbulb away."
silicon.com that ran the "Torvalds for Governor" story? They've removed the original from their site and replaced it with this apology but both they and zdnet were fooled.
That may be true. I just know that most imported beers of the popularity level of guinness are different in the states. For instance foster's sold in the united states is actually brewed in canada.
Jack Valenti and Orrin Hatch will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
Except where I live... Freaking bastards. there is *NO* guinness in Santa Maria, California, except one place-- Who sells so little of it, it tastes stale and awful...
I find it tastes that way everywhere. For a real beer, I prefer Red Oak which is brewed locally at their brewery/pub. Getting a fresh one isn't an issue. In kegs only, since it isn't pasturized. I would imagine most decent sized cities have their own breweries as well.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
From M-W.com's:
One entry found for personal computer.
Main Entry: personal computer
Function: noun
Date: 1977
: a general-purpose computer equipped with a microprocessor and designed to run especially commercial software (as a word processor or World Wide Web browser) for an individual user
Macs seem to be "general purpose", have a microprocessor, and designed to run especially commerical software. Word, Photoshop, iTunes, etc.
So acording to the dictionary definition, Apple computers qualify as "PC's".
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
...the guy who invented patents? Is he on the list?
Yeah, we do have a santa maria brewery...
They make what appears to be Budweiser, but non-pasteurized (I have no freaking clue how they managed that)...
I love dark beers, and while guinness isn't the best of them (mmmmm... Blackwatch...), It was the best I was hoping for around here... *sigh*
That is all, I'm going back to work...
I'm sorry, but I can't see Hu Jintao's name without thinking of Hu's on First
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
It's just there's a belief by some that Guinness in Ireland is a real, live beer, when it is keg like the rest of the world.
No-floppy computers? Sorry, he did not. IBM sold crippled floppy-less PC's at the beginning. This is not a good idea: it is bad one that few copy. It is not a good thing to sell something without a useful feature. That's why most PC's have floppies (along with the DVD or CDRW burner).
Computers without floppy drives are not crippled, unless you need to use a floppy to interact with an old computer that can't use something better for some reason. For example, it might be a convenient way to transport small files (word processing documents, for example) to/from a computer that doesn't have Internet access, and I'll need to use floppies the next time I upgrade the OS on my 486. If you need these features, you can buy a floppy drive. But there's no reason for every computer in my house to have one.
USB? He did not bring us this. It would all over the place before the iMac.
USB was on motherboards; there were almost no USB peripherals. The first USB printer to hit the market was made by Epson, and it had translucent blue plastic to match the iMac.
These unreadable icons will die a quick death. Thankfully, few are following the lead. Look for Apple to ditch it when the paradigm of "make icons readable" returns.
I'm with you on that.
We could also mention an old Job's favorite: "eject the disk with a bent paperclip in a hole. It is so much better than an eject button". No one copied this.
Sun did, I believe.
Eventually, Jobs had to follow the leaders: there are now eject buttons on Macs.
There are now CD eject buttons on Mac keyboards. Previously, there had always been eject buttons on Mac CD-ROM drives, as well as other Mac removable media drives such as Zip drives, external floppy drives, etc. Newer Macs do not have accessible eject buttons on them, relying on the keyboard button instead. What does this have to do with your point?
It should be noted that nearly all removable media drives have a paperclip hole, except PC floppy drives which have a manual eject button. Try to find some that don't.
Actually, the one innovation you did name that finds favor outside of Apple's niche that Jobs was involved with was Firewire, which he did.... alongside Sony.
Then why didn't Sony win the Emmy?
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Rioters paid by Bush
Time makes more converts than reason
That's false. When the US government looked into these claims from a Sudanese informant they were told by the Sudanese governement that it was not true and they would not hand him over.
We're still reeling from the recession that started in Clinton's time. We can move passt Clinton once we can shake free of the great damage of his policies. Clinton' still running around the country lying about things in an effort to block economic recovery.
HAHA. Clinton's 8 years in office resulted in the biggest growth in the history of any nation. The bubble burst when George took over and the tax cuts for the rich won't do any good. I thought we learned in the 80's (when Regean tripled the national debt) that trickle down economics (aka voodoo economics) doesn't work. It's unfortunate that the bottom 60 percent only get 14 percent of the tax break.
You're only fooling yourself and others just as uninformed as you.
Time makes more converts than reason
Give one example.
take credit for the creation of the Internet
At least the people who still bitch about the 2000 election have a reason to. Gore took credit for the funding of the Internet because he took the initiative to get funding for it. Before Gore got involved it was still Arpanet. He never claimed that he invented it, only that he was a major factor in its creation, which he was and you should be thankful or else you wouldn't be able to spread your filthy lies on slashdot.
Time makes more converts than reason
I'm kind of surprised that he didn't make the list.
Tp.
That's one hell of a list. Nice to see Torvalds at the 5th place...More surprising is to see the prime minister of India on 8th place :-)
Happy Hacking!!!
Huh??? How does Jobs even make the top 10 in the 20th century??? To rank him above Bill Gates is an absudity??? Jobs is a Bill Gates wannabe!!!
HenryJamesFeltus.com
hey, wait a minute. Is this why they have USB on some of those grills?
C|N>K
I dont see Kats from Zero Wing there.
All your top50s are belong to us!
You have 5 Moderator Points!
Which Helpless Linux zealot/MS basher do you want to mod down today?
Darl is a number two on my list.
Don't forget, Christmas is coming, and I check my list twice!
Look at it: Sobig is 42 the meaning of life is to be so big you jiggle like a bowl full of jelly! HoHOho
Don't forget, Christmas is coming, and I check my list twice!
you mean 0-31 however, 0 - 61 would have been acceptable. 110001 would have been tring to hard, so it wouldn't count. hohoho, I love a good pun.
Don't forget, Christmas is coming, and I check my list twice!
..The consumer. I don't care what anybody on that list has on there agenda, it will change if the consumer doesn't buy into it.
Don't forget, Christmas is coming, and I check my list twice!
Sometime in the either mid or late 1990's only then did PC's come to mean a computer with an Intel Chip and Windows. Today its a computer with an x86 chip.
But what we call PC's today in slang is not the true meaning of the word first recorded in 1977 by Mr. Websters. According to that definition, Apple running any Macintosh OS other than their Xserve qualify, by defition provided in my earlier post, as a "Personal Computer".
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
pretty simple really ... the article makes an assumption of P == $ (power/influence is directly proportional to money). The writers are only looking at people who are financially influential. And totally miss RMS who engineered a paradigm shift in software
(btw read *Free as in Freedom* it's freely availiable online by oreilly).
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
I wish I'd saved a screen shot.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
His distribution is one of the most powerful in terms of automated hardware detection; it is also very attractive for people who are willing to try a Linux distribution, but without having to touch their hard disks; and it has generated a flurry of derivatives for all needs and tastes.
Kudos to Klaus Knopper and all the Knoppix-based distros !
In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.
I see three reasons why Linux won the battle of the minds:
1. Linus had working code out before Jolitz (who released the first free working BSD distribution, 386BSD).
2. Jolitz really didn't get how you could be working with the net. He didn't participate much in the public forums, but came with some weird announcements. And he tended to ignore the patches from the community promising something "much better" would be released later. And that meant the the community splintered as first the NetBSD people and later the patchkit people (FreeBSD) gave up on Jolitz, and rolled their own distributions.
3. The leading BSD developers saw themselves as "computer science profesionals who through great personal sacrifices contributed to the BSD cause". They tended to come from a strong Unix background. The leading Linux developers saw themselves as a bunch of nerds having fun. They tended to come from a MSDOS background, or at most Unix-user-level background. Basically, the Linux people were a lot more fun to hang out with, and had a background more similar to most young nerds looking for a project had.
At the time AT&T sued BSDI, Linux had already won heart and mind of the young nerds. The lawsuit might have delayed the technical development of some of the free BSD's a bit, but the battle was never one of technical strength.
He is the current Emacs maintainer, so he has gobe back to his roots, so to speak.
The kernel really doesn't matter a lot.
But it is possible that the FSF would not have dropped funding Hurd development, which mean Hurd would have finished long ago. Given that a prefectly good GPL'ed kernel existed (Linux), development of Hurd was no longer important.
The GPL is more or less a legal expression of RMS's political agenda, and it has been quite influential.
I'd imagine the inventer of the internet would be pretty influencial!
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
Never heard of them.
Anyone know why they should deserve a place next to my Linus posters?The site where: "I'm right, as long as you ignore the things that prove me wrong", became a valid method of debate.
No, if Bush had his way, the defecit would have been much smaller, since the tax cuts he wanted would have caused economic growth and resulted in more tax revenues.
Contrary to your supply-side capitalist fantasy, nothing of that sort would have happened. Even when the capitalists, such as the CATO institute and the Wall Street Journal, starts questioning the massive deficit, you know you are on thin ice.
And, more non-wealthy people would have been able to keep more of their own money (the wealthy were a minority of those who kept more of their own money under his plan)
What you are saying is in contrast to what the media and most politicians indicated...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
Torvalds is GOD..
And the mighty hand of GOD smote the evil empire with kernel 2.6!
Well if that disqualifies him then I should be on the list then, because my best work is in the future. Probably.
Reality check, I'm a moderate conservative. It doesn't change the fact the election was stolen and Dubya is a piss poor President. Not all us conservatives are fucking blind.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
wow, what a blind motherfucker. Just because I'm a REAL conservative and don't automatically agree with everything the bush regime says about things does not make me a fucking tree hugging liberal. You have issues. I'm very sorry. Agreeing with this current ridiculous regime does not make you a republican. It makes you an idiot just like the people that blindly followed his father. Quit listening to fucking morons like hannity and rush and coutier and grow the fuck up. You are an AMERICAN first and a conservative second. Until you pick up a gun LIKE I HAVE and defend this country in two wars and 3 "conflicts", you don't know SHIT. Period. Get a fucking clue and pray like I do that in 2008 a true conservative candidate comes along that people other than fucking idiots like you and the "nascar dads" and pathetic poor whitetrash brainwashed morons can get behind. I have no respect for a fucking action dodging president that spent a year AWOL from fucking national guard duty for christ sakes while I shot and killed aggressors in a foreign land. The nerve this illiterate moron had going fucking AWOL while I was fighting because of his rich, politically connected father looking out for him. FUCK dubya. You are too young and too fucking stupid to have a GOD damn clue what you are talking about. Just pray with me that we get a republican candidate that isn't a fucking coward in 2008.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
Ok, lets put it this way. I *HAD* a lot of money in New Bridge Strategies. And I mean a lot. You can find some reality here
That and I've known Karl Rove since grade school and he has always been a shmuck. He is completely behind this anti-trueconservative presidency. He would have been much better suited as a marketing guru. He has turned the notion of being a conservative into some cool marketing buzzword and gotten an idiot elected president. In the process, he has gotten every professional wresting cum nascar fan cum jerry springer fan behind him. You can tell them because they'll have no idea that I'm not using "cum" in a porn sense. The idiot fucking morons in this country that can unfortunately vote and have the fucking nerve to call themselves republicans simply because they bought the sales pitch after 9/11. Look. I've killed woman and children in the name of democracy. I'm not about to fall for the stupid bullshit Karl and friends have used to brainwash the majority of America in the past 3 years. To a true flag waving Conservative such as myself and a lot of vets I know, Bush is a fucking idiot anacronysm and we can't wait for his pointless ass to go away.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
Then you can't negate 8 years of expansion. The largest expansion in history.
Time makes more converts than reason