Nominations for the FSF 2005 Free Software Award

The Free Software Foundation has posted a call for nominations for their 2005 Award for the Advancement of Free Software. Last year's winner was Theo de Raadt. Previous winners are ineligible, so who's left who hasn't already won?

Linus

[wyldeone]

Ummm, this may seem overly simple, but what about, Linus Torvalds? You know, that Finnish guy who wrote some software?

Re:Linus

[Blakey Rat]

I think I'm more qualified. I've thought about writing more software than anybody's ever actually written!

Re:Linus

[QuantumG]

You mean the guy who thinks functionality is more important than freedom? The guy who has no problem with DRM in the linux kernel? Theo de Raadt may be an asshole and he may have declared his hate for the FSF on more than one occasion but at least he's always stood up for freedom... that's why he deserved to win last year's award.

Re:Linus

[Reverend528]

That would be like giving the rebel alliance award to han solo!

Re:Linus

[ArmorFiend]

That would be like giving the rebel alliance award to han solo!

What, like this one [williams.edu]?

Re:Linus

[Orkie]

I could see that one coming...

For us noobs

[PyroGx1133]

For us who don't know who these people are, can someone summarize a list of projects they have worked on?

The info's in Wikipedia

[H4x0r Jim Duggan]

See Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FSF_Award_for_the_Adv ancement_of_Free_Software [wikipedia.org]

Several nominees

[Noksagt]

As suggested, Linux is past-due a nod. He hasn't been a finalist, as far as I know. neiterh have Tim O'Reilly, Eric S Raymond, and Bruce Perens.

A many-time finalist, never winner who deserves it: Andrew Tridgell for samba & getting linux out of bitkeeper. I also have a soft spot for Donald Knuth, who was once a finalist.

RTFA

[pkhuong]

"Last year's winner, Theo de Raadt, was recognized for his work as founder and project leader of the OpenBSD and OpenSSH projects. Theo joined a prestigious list of previous winners including Alan Cox, Miguel de Icaza, Donald Knuth, Larry Lessig, Brian Paul, Guido van Rossum, Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds, and Larry Wall."

Then why isn't Linus listed in...

[Noksagt]

Prior Years' Software Award [gnu.org]?

Does it predated 1998?

When did Knuth win it? Because he was a nominee, but I don't see him in that list.

ESR and Politics in F/OSS

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't call fetchmail "little-used". Most mutt users I know use it. While he hasn't donated as much code as some, he has made good contributions to ncurses.

Like it or not, the Cathedral & The Bazaar was QUITE influential (and the art of unix programming is quite useful). He also monetized open source quite well. Getting financial backers on-board is important. Arguably more important to open source SOFTWARE than Larry Lessig's contribution of CC. (Though I do like and respect Lessing more than

Donald Becker?

[hubritc]

I didn't see him in the linked list.

By the way, when I was getting started in Linux years ago, I was in Fry's trying to pick a network card that would work with Linux. Of course the Fry's guy had no idea. A fellow customer stepped up and said, "Most of these should work. They have Linux drivers. I wrote them." Even though I was a noob, I knew enough to know who he was.

While I am going on this way ...

I saw Linus outside of home depot with his kids and wife. She saw me see him and stand there kind of slack jawed for a moment while I wondered ... is that someone I know .... is that Him? and she knew ... yep another Linux geek ....

Re:Donald Becker?

[Grishnakh]

I saw Linus outside of home depot with his kids and wife.

Was she hot?

The DeCSS guy

[anthony_dipierro]

How bout Jon Johansen. That was free software, right?

Mark Shuttleworth

[Rafikichi]

Mark Shuttleworth and the Ubuntu Linux Foundation are doing great things.

Ron Minnich

[DeathPenguin]

The LinuxBIOS [slashdot.org] dude! What better nominee than someone who has helped so much in bringing free software to a traditionally proprietary area of the computer?

Who's left?

[Dr. Photo]

"[...] so who's left who hasn't already won?"

"Who's left"?

Was the array of free software developers and projects statically allocated at the beginning of time? Could there ever possibly be, just maybe, someone new?

The Brams

[Noksagt]

Bram Moolenaar for vim [vim.org] and Bram Cohen for BitTorrent [bittorrent.com].

Ruby-on-Rails

[Noksagt]

creator David Hansson was recently recognized for his work, but rails has arguably had the most rapid adoption (in terms of both cool uses and number of end users) of any new open source project. [loudthinking.com]

Patrick J. Volkerding

[some guy I know]

Patrick J. Volkerding [slackware.com]

Not yet

[wom]

Never one to procrastinate :-) I sent in my nomination at 9:30 Aug 4 (EDT) and recieved a reply.

"We are not currently seeking nominations for the Free Software Awards.
Please watch http://www.gnu.org/award/ [gnu.org] for the call for nominations,
which is usually in the fall."

Now I have to remember to do it again.

Re:Not yet

[johnsu01]

Now I have to remember to do it again.

The autoreply message is wrong. If you sent a nomination to that address, it was received and recorded. Sorry about the mistake.

There are options other than programmers...

[Pseudonym]

I don't think that PJ has been nominated yet, for example. Can you think of a non-programmer who has done more for software freedom lately?

Possibly Michel Rocard, I suppose...