http://www.osnews.com/story/4823/Poll_Vote_for_your_Favorite_Tech_Icon_ Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:42:46 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Robert Szeleney =) Wed, 15 Oct 2003 01:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? My vote goes,hands down, to EW Dijkstra. (!) Wed, 15 Oct 2003 01:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? IMO perfectionism is a great quality that every programmer should have. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 02:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I don't care for whom he works, the man is the best.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/server/evaluation/news/fromms/... Wed, 15 Oct 2003 02:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Cutler co-created VMS and NT. He is the man, but hey, I didn't vote for him. I voted for a more handsome one. ;D Wed, 15 Oct 2003 02:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? No captain Kirk or Data?

CowboyNiel?

Actually I'd vote for JBQ, and then BBQ.

/smartass Wed, 15 Oct 2003 02:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? GO SPOCK! Wed, 15 Oct 2003 02:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Carsten Haitzler. Raster: an artful programmer. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 02:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Data is good, Data is good... but Spock is much sexier.

>Actually I'd vote for JBQ

He didn't wanna be in the poll. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 02:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? He's the man. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 02:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Indeed. But he is no system engineer, he is a good game/3D coder. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 02:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Go bannana !

/Ralph Wed, 15 Oct 2003 02:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? More for what they did in the '70s, although they're both still active.

Microsoft reminds me of an observation some musician (Frank Zappa?) once made about LA studio music - they take a dizzying variety of incredibly cool ingredients from all over the world, put it in the hands of the most experienced talent - and the result always seems to be homogeneous pap. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 02:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I'm sad to report that I dont know who most of these people are. I guess I lose some major geek points! Wed, 15 Oct 2003 02:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I wouldn't marry you, no. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 02:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Matthew Dillon has my vote. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 02:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Hmm, I forgot about Matthew. I would include him in the poll normally. :o Wed, 15 Oct 2003 02:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Well Matt Dillon is good looking, although probably more so in Drugstore Cowboy than in There's Something about Mary... Wed, 15 Oct 2003 02:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I would have loved to see Carl Sassenrath as a choice. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 02:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Come on now, you got to mod my first one back up... Wed, 15 Oct 2003 02:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? RMS Wed, 15 Oct 2003 02:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? RMS does not code anymore. I tried to include current engineers, not ex-engineers. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 02:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? wozniak and steve jobs.... Wed, 15 Oct 2003 02:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? One is RMS, but of course, he's not on there. I really do respect Richard Stallman, probably more than Linus Torvalds.

But I voted for Miguel De Icaza. I really enjoy his writings, and his projects are always wonderful. Linux would be a much sadder place without him. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 02:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? What about Billy Joy. He wrote VI, most of the BSD network stack, was fundamental in bringing Java as well as working on Slowaris. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 02:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Jonathan Ive of Apple. Not a developer but the "most influential designer" according to the NY Times. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 02:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? They don't code [anymore] or they are not actively working as architects. Come on, read my above comment. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 02:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Oh yes

Personally i don't like to have a "Favorite Tech Icon". There are so many cool people in this world, and only the famous get the acknowledgements. Another reason is, nobody is Perfect. That includes you, Theo!

However, there are people i hugely admire.
Rasterman
Pixelhead both great artists
DJB who has written, among other quality software, the for me most easiest MTA i ever mett
Stanley Kubrick (does that count?)
The people of Icculus.org
and finally i'm wondering where RMS is on the list.

Next time you make a poll like this, leave it Open instead of a list. There are so many possibilities people can have, and by this, only the famous people get more famous, while others deserve it, too. It also makes it more biased... Wed, 15 Oct 2003 02:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? DJB who has written, among other quality software, the for me most easiest MTA i ever mett

I agree, I like DJB too.. Matthew Dillon and DJB have my vote.. ;-) Wed, 15 Oct 2003 02:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Not that I like Sun all that much, but Bill Joy is definitely my computing hero. With all he've done, at Berkley...

(Down with EMACS! Long live VI!) Wed, 15 Oct 2003 02:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? joke.. lol Wed, 15 Oct 2003 02:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I use Linux at home but one thing I can't put up with is
Linus's constant struggle to remain the sole controlling
entity behind the development of the kernel. Either way,
kudos to him for starting the project. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 02:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I always had the notion that Ward Christensen, author of the xmodem / modem7 protocol, opened up a great world to me (and a lot of other people). I have great respect for the work of a number of other people, but Ward Christensen is my one hero. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 03:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I was surprised he was not listed.

he is like the Einstein or Neils Bore (or is it Bhor?) of Computer science!! Wed, 15 Oct 2003 03:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? If you mean Edsger Dijkstra, you wrote ''is''. He has passed away about a year ago...

http://www.utexas.edu/admin/opa/news/02newsreleases/nr_200208/nr_di...
http://www.cwi.nl/pr/press-releases/2002/Dijkstra-obituary.html Wed, 15 Oct 2003 03:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? One of the great shapers of Unix. He was creator of vi, csh, BSD, cofounder of Sun, and one of the many great minds behind Java and one of its most vocal advocates. It would have been nice to have seen him on the list.

Lacking an option for him, I voted for Jordan Hubbard, one of the wisest and most sagely developers/project leads there's ever been. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 03:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? RMS hands down... but he's not in list then Alan Cox!

bye Wed, 15 Oct 2003 03:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I didn't vote for anyone. I guess I must be too old (36) for these antics (icons, stars, autographs, etc.). Wed, 15 Oct 2003 03:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? yes of course I meant him..who else?

personally, I don't care if he is dead, he is still a tech icon, as is Woz, and MS's cofounder...the dude who now owns charter cable and stuff....arg...say his name and I will know who he is, and other geeks who care about him will recall his name. ( I put him above Gates because he was the guy who did all the damn work) Wed, 15 Oct 2003 03:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Just tried to set something straight. No offense meant Wed, 15 Oct 2003 03:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "the dude who now owns charter cable and stuff....arg...say his name and I will know who he is"

Paul Allen? Wed, 15 Oct 2003 03:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? i voted for david cutler. he is revolutionary mind behind windows nt/2000/xp. he was one of the creators of vms, and brought great vms knowledge to creation of windows nt, which is really microkernel operating system. because of this windows nt/2000/xp are some of the best design operating system available today. looks like no one cares about that though, and everyone is voting for ratty college student linus torvalds who designed linux as his first operating system in a college basement. well just look at windows nt/2000/xp popularity versus linux, and i think u will see who did the better os design job. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 03:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? RMS rulz Wed, 15 Oct 2003 03:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? yes, thank-you, I had a brain fart :-) Wed, 15 Oct 2003 03:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? He and a TEAM worked at the NT kernel, not only he did.

"well just look at windows nt/2000/xp popularity versus linux, and i think u will see who did the better os design job."

Argumentum ad populum (a fallacy)

http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/logic.html#populum

Just because Zeta (for example) is unpopular (on which is this concluded anyways? Have you seen yesterday's poll), it doesn't make it a less better design than [insert name of OS here]

"looks like no one cares about that though, and everyone is voting for ratty college student linus torvalds who designed linux as his first operating system in a college basement."

(not everybody is voting on Linus Torvalds. For example, you don't)
Which according to you leads to [...]? Wed, 15 Oct 2003 03:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? James Gosling? Still very active. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 03:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? while I will admit this fellows greatness, OS design has nothing to do with its popularity.

either you are a troll or you are really that naive

which do you prefer? Wed, 15 Oct 2003 03:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? We wouldn't be sitting at fucking personal computers arguing over this crappy poll without Steve Wozniak because such things wouldn't EXIST without him. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 03:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? i went for Miguel De Icaza, but only after almost going dave cutler. After seeing the results i think i wish i went for dave since he is very under representing. His baby has gone farther then the others. But the pole seamed to be largly of the opensource world, so I went Miguel. He's one of the few with his head on right. He gives me hope for the opensource world. Linus isn't to bad either, it's just unfortent that those who are all about him are nuts and tend to ruin his image. Also in the end his project hasn't done that much to effect the computing world, even if you don't want to belive it, oh well. Linux has made much of a dent on things. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 03:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I didn't see the Matthias Ettrich option until after voting for Dominic. Crap.

Here's a write-in vote for the OpenBeOS guy. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 03:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? My all time CS hero, will be recognized years from now. FP's, PCC, you name it. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 03:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >Here's a write-in vote for the OpenBeOS guy.

Dominic is not an OpenBeOS guy. He is an ex-SGI, ex-Be, ex-QNX and current Apple guy. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 03:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? BitTorrent is the most revolutionary network application of our age, and the first real mainstream Python application, much like LimeWire was the first real mainstream Java application. It has transformed the face of file sharing on the Internet, something which hasn't happened since Napster. With peer-to-peer networks springing up left and right, the technology was beginning to feel quite stale, until one lone Python programmer revolutionized the world. It's sad not to see an option for him. Let's hope the future brings many more such Python applications, that we may cast off crufty C network daemons and replace them with secure Python counterparts! Wed, 15 Oct 2003 03:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? No Dennis Richie? the father of UNIX and creator of all things good ;-)

If from a CEO point of view, I would say Larry Ellison. He is rich and quite happy to show. Heck, if I was as rich as he, I would be willing to gloat a little. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 04:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Not very fashionable and certainly not within the rules, but John Von Neumann. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 04:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I voted for Matthias...can't let him be forgotten... Wed, 15 Oct 2003 04:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I voted for Dave Cutler too, but don't underestimate Linus Torvalds, he did what others still can't do (RMS and the Hurd). Wed, 15 Oct 2003 04:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? No Dennis Richie? the father of UNIX and creator of all things good ;-)

Dennis Ritchie is the creator of C, not Unix. The original UNICS kernel was written by Ken Thompson in PDP-7 assembly in 1969. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 04:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Oh wait, wrong site... Wed, 15 Oct 2003 04:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? windows nt, which is really microkernel operating system.
>>>>>>
Windows NT was never a microkernel OS. It was microkernel-ish, but stuff like the VM and filesystem were in the kernel from the very beginning. Modern versions of NT (> 3.5) are definately *not* microkernels.

because of this windows nt/2000/xp are some of the best design operating system available today.
>>>>>>
That's a good one. NT 3.5 was an excellently architectured OS, but Microsoft threw all that away as it moved to NT 4.0, then 2000, then XP. NT's core algorithms were never world-class compared to Solaris, AIX, Irix, or now, Linux and FreeBSD. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 04:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Too many people to choose!

I think John Carmack should get some props. Yes he is a game
programmer, but probably one of the best ones!

Dan Berstein should be on that poll too.

Same goes for Donald Knuth!

See!!! Too many computer geek heroes :-) Wed, 15 Oct 2003 04:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Not to rain on your parade, but BitTorrent is a poorly designed resource hog. I've been working on a C-implemented BitTorrent replacement protocol called PDTP. You can read about it at http://pdtp.org/

And by the way, the creator of BitTorrent is named Bram Cohen, not "Braham" Wed, 15 Oct 2003 04:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? perl & patch and TeX.

I'm not sure if Larry still writes code. Knuth doesn't, but is not fair not to mention him. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 04:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Well, I'd have voted for RMS, but he's not on the list.
So I went with the masses and voted Linus. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 04:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I think John Carmack should get some props. Yes he is a game
programmer, but probably one of the best ones!

Dan Berstein should be on that poll too.

Same goes for Donald Knuth!

Those are all great programmers, especially Knuth. I'm sure many frequent OSnews readers own all three volumes of the Art of Programming.

Unfortunately I think if you listed all the influential people in computer programming today the poll would have hundreds of options. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 04:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Steve Jobs, John Carmack, Woz

Wed, 15 Oct 2003 04:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? hrrmm i dont think i could have a number one, but havok (who i think is a visionary), andrew morton and linus all have minds that inspire me. other people who i admire include dirk and george and co (basicly the entire 'inner loop') from the kde team. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 04:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >"NT's core algorithms were never world-class compared to Solaris, AIX, Irix, or now, Linux and FreeBSD."

IBM might disagree with you:
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-rt9/?t=gr,lnx... Wed, 15 Oct 2003 04:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The guy is amazing! Wed, 15 Oct 2003 04:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? With all the discussion about the "OpenBeOS guy", I would certainly give a large amount of kudos to Axel Dorfler, who seems to be singlehandedly developing huge portions of OpenBeOS. Hats off to him. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 04:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Since neither Dave Haynie or Joseph Palmer were on the poll (hardware guys), my vote want to Dominic Giampaolo (a software guy). Too bad a poll like this is really impossible to do. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 04:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? let it be noted how important his work really is.
Bittorrent is one of the few projects i have donated money to. (i wish i could donate to more, but im a poor student, and at the time i had a spare $2 NZD) Wed, 15 Oct 2003 04:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Dominic. He does the work of 8 programmers. He's irreverant, antisocial, godlike, yet humble. Many sit on their accolades. He doesn't. He keeps working. He never expected the credit.

Not like all of these others named. People talk about linus like he was a prodigy. He wasn't. Dominic was. Linus, he's just shrewd. Jobs? I'm sorry, but apple lost their magic when JLG left(who could both program and build scratch archetecture, plus run a business). Oh, and jbq is good. I won't take that from him. He's DAMN good. Most of those working on obos, and most of those who worked at be were doing unbelievable things. You say the magic is gone in all those people. These fellas are young, and they just got started.

Eugenia- BeOS had a little of your husband in it. Impossible to seperate the man from his creation. Just something I stole freely from the 1923 movie, "Metropolis".

So, your loyalty being unwavering, is expected. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 05:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? i guess i would have voted for Ken Thompson like someone else mentioned... He could easily trump all of these characters as the most influential person on modern operating systems b/c he is the father of unix itself (but then again it was dennis ritchie who invented c, among which lie the derivites of some of the most popular computer languages in the world, and recoded unix for c)...

but i guess he is not a modern programmer so i my vote went to john hubbard, the ultimate sage... i guess i coulda just as easily voted for theo, but, meh, it was a tossup b/c they both are just so great and so cool...

on a side note, i have a little bit to say about linus:
contrary to the overhype of linux (yes, it WAS drastically overhyped... maybe not any longer b/c of corporate help... ), linus deserves a lot of credit for continuing the grassroots academia unix movement when it berkeley and att were fighting there heads off (damn u thieving at&t!!!)... anyways, it was because of his project and alternative to "controversial" code that free unix survived, even if it meant dwarfing the bsds...

no matter how many issues i have with gpl, no matter how many issues i have with the kernel and fraction of the community, no matter how many linux evangelists and zealots i find, no mater how much i personally prefer something else, credit must be given b/c linus did save free unix for academia for awhile... (AFAIK, commercial business didnt really give a damn about linux before around 97 when the hype machine really kicked in and the bsds had already been cleared of wrongdoing from at&t... so where did linux survive so fast and well between 93-97??? the academia)

linus seems pretty straightheaded and open to ideas (even drm!!! crazy or what??? he doesnt care what people do with the kernel when he publishes it)... he deserves the credit he gets considering that the work of one man eventually gained so much momemntum that some of the world's best companies are using his products

still, **MY** choice is john hubbard... i just admire his style and wisdom... he just has personality about him that just makes him my favorite tech "icon"... Theo and Linus therefore are tied for second... Wed, 15 Oct 2003 05:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Engineers are boring. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 05:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? My vote would have been for Andrew Morton, but since he isn't there I voted Linus. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 05:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? if axeld was up there, wait.. ken tompson?

axel dörfer. one man programming army. Trump?

Ya'll playing chump suits, really dudes. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 05:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Theo and Linus therefore are tied for second

While I agree with everything else you've said... I would vote Linus Torvalds over Theo de Raadt any day. Linus is a gentleman, but Theo is an immature asshole. As you seem knowledgable about Jordan Hubbard, you can understand the childishness of this exchage:

http://mail-index.netbsd.org/current-users/1996/10/20/0004.html

Quote Theo de Raadt: "the anon mailer is coming up. in 10 minutes you're in trouble. you guys persist in getting the last word of flaming at me, and it isn't going to work."

Yes, that's Theo de Raadt having a temper tantrum and mailbombing FreeBSD's mailing list following an exchange with Jordan Hubbard. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 05:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? to get a little more side tracked, i realized that even after that long post, i forgot to mention to more heroes of mine that aren't really coding anymore but had and still have such a powerful influence on tech industry...

steve jobs and steve wozniak...

if it wasnt for these two, the world of personal computing wouldn't even exist... everyone knows and love woz... the guy INVENTED personal computers... no one else... he did it first... hp said it was crap so they recused all rights ...

anyways, his engineering principles absolutely pioneered personal computing for the first decade or so...

then there was steve jobs... w/o his marketing genius woz would have no clue what to do with the powerful machine he had... he would probably have worked on it alone at home and make it into some kind of fun hobby... he deserves just as much credit for bringing us the home computer...

again, like linus, no matter what people say about the "jobs distortion field," the man had vision and still has vision as his company still innovates (yes, i said innovate, cause they actually do , unlike a certain redmond-based company; its true that they dont innovate everything they say they innovate but still, they are a very powerful force within the industry even with their Wed, 15 Oct 2003 05:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? N Wirth is the main man, he gave us atleast 4 succesfull programming languages AlgolW-Pascal, Modula-123, Oberon and even a HW language Lola. He also built the HW for computers and OSes & languages symbiotically, the only way to build the best. He has always strived to keep it as simple as possible rather than piling on features. Each project learns from the +-s of the previous work.

Alot of the other names are great too, but I think Wirth is one of the most acomplished allrounders there is as well as a great educator.

PS I don't use any of those languages but I wouldn't mind if I had too. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 05:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Nikola Tesla, the man that shaped this century. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 06:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Aw, come on.. the most friendly, the cool guy that helps the kids, the hardware engineer (guys, I'm a hardware engineer, deep inside), the systems engineer, the one that crafted the first Apples.

My vote goes to Woz. Sadly missing from this list. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 06:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? And sadly, no one is actually READING before voting. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 06:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? ....bummer, he would've gotten my vote Wed, 15 Oct 2003 06:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Patrick Volkerding (Slackware)
John Carmack (Has done incredible amount of work to increase computer rendering)
Steve Woz (Apple hardware design)
Larry Wall (Perl language) Wed, 15 Oct 2003 06:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Engineers are middle class successful people in society with incomes of $67,000 - $70,000 on average, but it's the power elite, the upper class that controls the factors of production and makes the decisions in the computer industry. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 06:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "if it wasnt for these two, the world of personal computing wouldn't even exist... everyone knows and love woz... "

eh, you made a classic mistake with this one. Saying something wouldn't exist without someone is basicly never right, because someone else would have done it, in this case there were probably thousands of people with the same idea, only a matter of time till someone did it. Something like a discovery in physic's or the like is probably one of the few places where such a statement might work, but even then someone would figure it out.

That being said, woz is a cool guy, and hats off to him, but I think eugenia made it clear why he's not on the list. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 06:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Lead GNU developer. Also the guys working on L4. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 07:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? At the dawn of World War II, she co-invented non-FM, spread spectrum communications with George Antheil:
http://cooltown.hp.com/mpulse/1102-lamarr.asp

Better photo here:
http://www.sss-mag.com/shistory.html

Non-FM, spread spectrum is a widely used technology, utilized by GPS, 802.11, wireless phones, etc.

In addition, she was the first woman to appear nude in a feature film. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 07:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I only recognise some of these guys from places such as OpenBSD, linux, and Ximian... I assumed you ment icon from as far back as you could remember, not just living ones, from what i can tell (and i dont know half of them) they're all still alive.

Im sure their's people swearing black and blue about the atari and amiga creators that didnt get mentioned or others. I dont know or admire many people, expecialy in coding.

Although there are people that just do amazing things. Such as linus, and theo i think is particulary good, maybe even better than linus in my opinion, so i'll vote for him when i've finished this.

I forget, did steeve jobs get a mention? Surly he'd have to be there right? I think he's particulary clever how he markets apple and how he got it back on track with the Imac... and several people acknowledge how great NeXT was, despite its downfall, or whatever happened to it.

I also appreciate Olaf Barthels work on AmigaOS, and he is one reason why that operating system is still working today. And there are many others. Infact there are so many, perhaps would should just acknowledge a specific erra? like 70s 80s or 90s and which one had the largest impact on the PC... Maybe that'd have to be the 90s with the internet and such... but im getting severaly off topic enjoy the poll! Wed, 15 Oct 2003 07:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I voted for Jordan Hubbard because of all the work he did with FreeBSD. It is my second favorite OS with OS X being the first. Now he works for Apple which is cool.

Say what you want about Theo de Raadt but he and the others that work on OpenBSD make a great secure OS. If Jordan was not on the list, I would have went with Theo. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 07:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? My favorite tech icon is the United States. That country owns the IT industry. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 07:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Surely? A whole generation grew up with his little plastic boxes. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 08:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? ^^ Wed, 15 Oct 2003 08:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I would have chosen Bjarne Stroustrup if he were on the list, but since he isn't I chose Mr. Spock. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 08:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? But as I read they have to still be in the game... Dave Haynie, Carl Sassaranth?

I would also have thought that someone like Clive Sinclair might have been a good one, given that his little machine was most people (of the 80's generation) first sight of a home computer in the uk at least... shame too that he isn't in the game anymore (I think he died some time back but I can't remember off hand). Wed, 15 Oct 2003 08:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? At least at the moment Wed, 15 Oct 2003 08:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Carl Sassenrath of AmigaOS and REBOL fame. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 09:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? would say Kurt Skauen (www.atheos.cx) if I knew what he was up to recently... Wed, 15 Oct 2003 09:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Because:

1. He created so much relevant work for CS
2. Here in the Netherlands nobody know who he is and nobody seem to care. There should be a statue for him IMHO.
3. I carry the same name and share the Fresian stubborn background of not compromising for quality and perfection
4. I particularly like the way he expressed himself regarding technology Wed, 15 Oct 2003 09:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Well, Raster is quite interesting, I would've voted for him. But I voted for Linus, it's hard to overestimate his impact.

If OBOS would've released their first release I would've voted for them (and if they had been in the poll...) Wed, 15 Oct 2003 10:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Where's Jef Raskin? The man that invented the GUI, first he worked at XEROX PARC, building that Alto-thing, later he started the Macintosh project at Apple.

He changed the (computer) world. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 10:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? RMS
Rasterman
Marcus Brinkman
Keith Packard
Georgy Russell Wed, 15 Oct 2003 10:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I could have voted for several of the choices, but chose Avie for his understated role (Jobs gets all the credit:-) for helping bring Apple from the brink of disastor with the transformation of NeXT to OS X. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 10:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I know the others... but who is Linus Torvalds? :-) lol... Wed, 15 Oct 2003 10:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I really find this guy interesting his work on GUIs and Smalltalk have had a major impact on computer programming. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 11:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? This poll is missing John Carmack, who continues to make great contributions to todays computer tech. My vote would go to him, but now I picked Miguel de Icaza, because he is a guy who seems to have the clearest vision of a (non-Mac) UNIX desktop. He is a good programmer and an all-around bright guy. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 11:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Theo deRaadt is one who's not afraid to speak his mind *and* one with a clarity of vision unsurpassed by most of the other choices. Thus he gets *my* vote. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 12:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "My favorite tech icon is the United States. That country owns the IT industry."

Really? Your bosses seem to be moving everything to India so one must assume that its Bangalore that rulz... :-) Wed, 15 Oct 2003 12:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Don Knuth is one of my heroes :-)

But Dave Small is another, yet far less known. He used to write articles for atari magazines some years ago, and it was a fantastic writer, along with a fantastic hacker (in the right sense of the world).

For example, he's the main one behind the excellent Spectre GCR emulator. mind you, it was a great piece of hacking : a macintosh emulator for atari ST, which was able to run faster than the mac, with a bigger screen resolution (using the atari res), and that costs far less (atari+spectre) than the mac itself...

For Tesla ... well, just read the article about Tesla written by Dave Small ;-) : http://www.skepticfiles.org/crank/tesla0.htm

This article was titled : " THE GREATEST HACKER OF ALL TIME" :-) Wed, 15 Oct 2003 12:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? /me too
But if you don´t accept historical figure, then my vote goes to Larry Wall. It´s a always pleasure to read his books, interviews and articles. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 12:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Where's good ol' Bill? He isn't here?

Okay, Spock it'll be then! Wed, 15 Oct 2003 12:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Any one who can stare at a screen of wiggly lines and random dots on a screen coupled with beeps here and there.Then using that information calculate the trajectory the enterprise has to take around the sun to travel back in time has got my vote anyday! Linus bah! he is small time! Wed, 15 Oct 2003 12:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Wow, I thought I'd be the first to mention Niklaus Wirth. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 13:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Larry Wall: For giving me a renewed boost for thinking cleverly and coding in the last few years. He showed me through Perl the inside of some people's brain!

Bill Gates: Even though people do not like him today, I must say that because of him and his 'Basic' of yesteryear, I was able to learn programming on my TRS-80 and discovered that THE THING to do wad computer programming. I still think that way, even 20 years later.

Linus Torvald: For giving the people the "missing link" to the GNU project 10 years ago. I must say that his experiment now benefits the whole world. We are now in the Matrix!

RMS: For being the man he his. For out-hacking all those top brains in 1970 all by himself. For being the last of the True Hackers. For inspiring me when I don't know how to solve a particular problem. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 13:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? One of those giants we owe so much. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 13:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I feel the same Bill had the idea of a computer in every American household. Linux would have a hard time of it if DOS and windows never existed(no cheap PC hardware).

Bill Gates is the single most influential person in IT ever. Quit denying it people... Wed, 15 Oct 2003 13:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "little girls & boys admire athletes, singers, actors... We, OS geeks, tend to respect and admire engineers "

Hmm, I don't recall ever admiring anyone, I might have thought he or she is good at this or that but then we're all good or at least have the potential to be good at something aren't we. Maybe I'm just weird. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 13:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Who's that? My vote goes to Lenny Dykstra!!! :-) Wed, 15 Oct 2003 13:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Would be of immense help if the posts came with the counter on it so that we could walk through them easily.

I think it will be easy to do.

ps. Of course, people need to insert it on header or in the message body if needed. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 13:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? But, putting Bill in a poll like this wouldn't be politically correct. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 14:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Yes, Joe, Nikola Tesla is probably one of the most important engineers of the century, but he is dead, unfortunately.

It's too bad he had to have all his funding taken away during the prime of his research.

Honestly, I think the man had one foot in the genius pool and one foot in the flat out mad pool, but that's just me. As they say, it's is a fine line between the two. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 14:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Steve Wozniak!

http://www.woz.org/ Wed, 15 Oct 2003 14:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Old school Niklaus Wirth, "newer" school Bill Joy. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 14:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Theo Theo Theo! Wed, 15 Oct 2003 15:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? You are clearly doing this because you don't like RMS; Eugenia.

RMS is certainly not a historical figure. Sure, he does many other things other than coding, but if you take a look at the mailing lists of GNU binutils, you will see that he still is actively contributing code. Looking at some core GNU project's CVS commits also shows the same thing.

Ofcourse, I dunno how this guy still manages to find time to code, but he ceratinly stilll codes a lot, and he certainly is a great coder.

Biased view Eugenia. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 15:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Linus is teh uber kool!!!

He gets my vote Wed, 15 Oct 2003 15:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The creator of doom and quake Wed, 15 Oct 2003 15:24:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Yes, I know this won´t be very popular, but for me, Bill Gates. He built a company out of nothing, he made billions and made other make millions. And he is the mind behind Windows and MS-DOS. Icaza, Torvald and others are great guys, but Gates made a great product and made it very succesful. He made computing affordable to everyone. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 16:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I agree, for the most part. There was some real shady stuff along the way, but computing wouldn't be where it is today without Mr. Gates and his company. If it wasn't for my hatred for Microsoft in the past 5-6 years he'd be topping my list. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 16:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? No he didn't, He just got all the glory. Microsoft would have been nothing without qdos, and Paul Allen which means you can not state that Bill Gates built Microsoft.


As for computing today, you can thank IBM, Compaq, Commodore, and Apple for computing today. Microsoft was just in the right place at the right time. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 16:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Ok, granted. Paul Allen and Gates both built Microsoft. But Allen left the company, and Gates stayed, and he is still making Microsoft bigger and better. So, my vote still goes for Gates

As for qdos, I don´t know about that. But, where is qdos now? Wed, 15 Oct 2003 16:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? No he didn't, He just got all the glory. Microsoft would have been nothing without qdos, and Paul Allen which means you can not state that Bill Gates built Microsoft.

Oh, come now, Microsoft was already a large enough company from their sales of BASIC for the ALTAIR that IBM approached *them* and asked them to develop an operating system for their upcoming personal computer. Yes, they purchased a CP/M clone that had been written for the Intel processor that IBM selected, but had that not been available they would have simply selected a different operating system or written one in house. There was nothing revolutionary or technically interesting at all about QDOS. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 18:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? you the man! Wed, 15 Oct 2003 18:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I voted for Miguel De Icaza, but Theo deRaadt was a close call, ..and we are missing Andrew Morton who would have had my first vote and possably Hans Reiser just for fun.

Bill Gates? heh.. ok dude. http://kerneltrap.org/node/view/10 Wed, 15 Oct 2003 19:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? ""if it wasnt for these two, the world of personal computing wouldn't even exist... everyone knows and love woz... "

eh, you made a classic mistake with this one. Saying something wouldn't exist without someone is basicly never right, because someone else would have done it, in this case there were probably thousands of people with the same idea, only a matter of time till someone did it. Something like a discovery in physic's or the like is probably one of the few places where such a statement might work, but even then someone would figure it out.

That being said, woz is a cool guy, and hats off to him, but I think eugenia made it clear why he's not on the list."
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Regardless if the technology could exist without them, they DID invent it first and it is their implementations and their actions that set off the industry which we are discussing today. By this I mean that because of this event in history and their actions in history (setting off ibm, ibm vs apple wars resulting in pc dominance, ibm choosing intel to combat apple, ms & ibm battling apple together, ms licensing apple os, ms creating windows, etc) have resulted in the computing world we are in today. It is guaranteed that the landscape of computing today would look a lot different without jobs & woz (both were equally important)...

The same can be said of linus for free software (especially his importance for gpl ) but probably not of my personal favorite tech icon john hubbard... while i admire him, i just cannot conceive how he is as instrumental to computing today as woz and jobs... important to unix, freebsd, & linux - yes... important to the computing as the whole industry - no...

someone mentioned gates as important... and this is true too... no matter what he did, he is also very much responsible for the computing landscape looking like how it is today... but just b/c he is important doesn't mean i gotta like him ;-)... Wed, 15 Oct 2003 19:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Typo: I meant JORDAN Hubbard not JOHN Hubbard... damn... wish there was a way to edit posts... Wed, 15 Oct 2003 19:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Larry Wall, and not for his work on PERL but for writing patch! I mean c'mon people, where would we be without patch? Still hand-applying diffs, that's where! It's become such an indispensible utility for collaboration by allowing us to pass diffs around that we hardly ever think about it anymore, but we have Larry to thank for it and the fact that he still codes should have made him more than eligible for this poll. Oh well, as Eugenia says, there are a lot of deserving people missing from this list. :-( Wed, 15 Oct 2003 19:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Linus started off with recompiling Tannenbaums Minix for the x86. Yes correct no own kernel devolopment. Than he ripped more and more Unix code and included that into what today is known as Linuks. But really it is nothing else ripped code and recompiled into Linuks. What went wrong with folks voting for such an IP thief ? Wed, 15 Oct 2003 20:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? And Tim O'Reilly. Well I didn't make my choice because it's one of these 3! Wed, 15 Oct 2003 20:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Spock baby Wed, 15 Oct 2003 21:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? How can you have a poll like this and not have Wozniak listed? www.woz.org Wed, 15 Oct 2003 22:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I am not sure exactly what Jobs, Woz, Gates or Linus "invented."




Certainly. They were implementors and developers, rather than inventors.




I am not sure about this point, in regards to how computers interface and work. The main thing that these two "invented" was the trash can (a temporary holding directory for deleted files) in 1983, which probably would have happened own its own. (Incidentally, I do not use one with my Golem/Debian setup). When Apple's Lisa was released, the GUI was already 10 years old with offerings by several companies. It is not clear whether Apple or Visi Corp. invented drop-down menus in 1983, but this innovation probably would have appeared on its own soon after... how else would one arrange multiple features in an uncluttered, organized fashion. Apple probably invented the Finder, but the more useful and informative task-bar/dock seemed to have first appeared in an early version of Windows. Wed, 15 Oct 2003 23:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I am not sure exactly what Jobs, Woz, Gates or Linus "invented."

Woz invented something called the "Apple I" Thu, 16 Oct 2003 01:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? My vote goes entirely to Alan Kay. His ability, vision and leadership has endured 30 years. Who is he? Co-inventor of the GUI, coiner of the term object-oriented, and the grandfather of the personal computer. He saw how humans could interact with computers long before there were any which could fit on a desk.

And today, he is still active, leading Squeak deeper into the future of computing. A personal hero of mine, and one that does not get much attention compared to a lot of others. For most of us, Alan's work has had a bigger impect on our lives than anyone else on that list- and hopefully will continue to! Thu, 16 Oct 2003 01:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "
Linus started off with recompiling Tannenbaums Minix for the x86. Yes correct no own kernel devolopment. Than he ripped more and more Unix code and included that into what today is known as Linuks. But really it is nothing else ripped code and recompiled into Linuks. What went wrong with folks voting for such an IP thief ?"

Actually if you were trying to be serious and not trolling...you are wrong, very wrong. Minix was a microkernel. Tannenbaum and Linus's argument over the architecture design is still posted on the web.

With regards to Unix, or SCO in general, Linux gave more to SCO than SCO gave to Linux. If anyone is an IP theif, it is SCO, or maybe even Bill Gates. He seems to rip a lot of code off too. Thu, 16 Oct 2003 02:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "With regards to Unix, or SCO in general, Linux gave more to SCO than SCO gave to Linux. If anyone is an IP theif, it is SCO, or maybe even Bill Gates. He seems to rip a lot of code off too."
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no way can sco steal linux code without gpling their own software so high doubt that... bill gates maybe an ip thief but again, definitely not from linux...

almost every major os out there today does "steal" from one major group -- the bsds...

in fact it is suggested and believed the sco code & linux that were found to be matching line for line is actually really old bsd code... so no, linux didnt steal sco code and sco didnt steal linux code... they stole from the bsds... but thats ok cause thats what the bsd code is there for and thats why the bsd license is there for... bsd just doesnt give a damn who takes what and crams it where... Thu, 16 Oct 2003 06:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I love reading these things. If you read the first set of posts and then skip to the very last set of posts to see what the discussion degenerates into, it's just hilarious.

I vote for who ever posted this article in the first place.
The ability to generate 140+ posts on what essentially amounts to "Name tour favorite color or flavour of ice-cream" wins the geek test hands down. Microsofts endless security updates don't even get that much attention.... Thu, 16 Oct 2003 15:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I seriously do not get why the list is full of these Linux people. They have done very little. Even Linus himslef has done nothing but develop his own version of Unix, which most say is not even as good as other, just as free, alternatives.

Now, Linus did help push along the GPL and such, but that is hardly all that much of an accomplishment, I would say.

Someone like Cutler has the leader for teams who built MANY first-class operating systems, including NT, which is the most used PC OSs in the world today, not to mention it was, and still is, a great undertaking.

I'm sorry, but there are many other people who would be much better suited on that list than the ones on there. Thu, 16 Oct 2003 16:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? With regards to Unix, or SCO in general, Linux gave more to SCO than SCO gave to Linux. If anyone is an IP theif, it is SCO, or maybe even Bill Gates. He seems to rip a lot of code off too.

I heard a rumor the NT was based or at least partly inspired by VMS any truth to this? Thu, 16 Oct 2003 17:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Hey, where's George Chen (also known as the 'Internet Guy')?

For those of you who don't know/remember George, you can see an article about him here: http://www.clementmok.com/musings/detail.asp?ItemID=4 Thu, 16 Oct 2003 21:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? He may be slightly windows centric... I think he is great. Sat, 18 Oct 2003 06:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments