10 ms·

Faces of Open Source

188 points by smartmic 7y ago

notkaiho 7y ago
Positives about this: A good mix of people in terms of gender and what they have contributed.
- numlock86 7y ago
  Why would the gender even be relevant?
  - fmajid 7y ago
    So all potential future open-source contributors feel "I can be part of this" rather than excluded. I just wish there were more women who were actual open-source programmers rather than journalists, executives or advocates. People like Margo Seltzer (BerkeleyDB) or Lynne Jolitz (386BSD).
    - collyw 7y ago
      Is there any evidence that showing pictures of women actually makes a difference with this?
      - amwelles 7y ago
        Anecdotally, yes. When I was younger, seeing women in tech roles made it feel like an option for me.
      - playpause 7y ago
        I'd be very surprised to see evidence to the contrary, as it's just an obvious fact of life that people generally feel less confident about entering a community that lacks anyone else like them. Have you never felt intimidated/uneasy when entering a group situation in which every other person was a particular race/gender/age group to which you don't belong?
        collyw 7y ago
        Not that I can think of, but then I don't really define myself by my gender or race or really give much time to identity politics in general.
        claudiawerner 7y ago
        Not defining oneself by gender or race does not invalidate the hypothesized effect: that one may feel excluded if they don't see anyone like them doing it. There is no denying that the fact of being a man or woman influences a lot of our lives and how people treat us.
        telesilla 7y ago
        May I posit this is because you are rarely in situations where you feel your gender is pronounced? If you were, say, a man applying for a job as a general hospital nurse, you would feel this, or as a heterosexual hairstylist applying for a salon job. There are stereotypes you would feel pressure to justify why you, who do not fit the stereotype, would be a beneficial person to hire, in such cases.
        Nicci00 7y ago
        I felt uneasy in my college electives composed almost entirely of women.
        collyw 7y ago
        I imagine I would have loved that.
        type0 7y ago
        > Have you never felt intimidated/uneasy when entering a group situation in which every other person was a particular race/gender/age group to which you don't belong? Even if you have, that's problematic on your part. Just because people look differently doesn't mean they won't be welcoming towards you, that's tribalism at it's finest and needs to stop. The ones that do feel intimidated/uneasy about it need to work on their own perception of other people and not the other way around. You don't change the mindset of a group because there isn't any, it only exists on paper in your gender studies textbooks. Humans are individuals and everyone has their own mindset regardless of genitalia, skin color, age etc. Thinking otherwise is both disrespectful and racist/sexist/agist.
      - zapita 7y ago
        Yes. There is plenty of research on the psychological effects of representation. The effects are very real.
  - telesilla 7y ago
    I was greatly pleased to see attention to gender was paid. I was worried when I clicked on this that women might be underrepresented - we are often invisible, for many reasons. It's a great site that I'll be happy to share as a mentor.
    - numlock86 7y ago
      > we are often invisible, for many reasons Like? I'd really like to know the reasons. Also, who is "we"? Biological women? Also please explain, as I initially asked, why it matters what gender you are. (Or race, hair or eye color you have, height or whatever attributes you think is "invisible" to others and hence underrepresented)
      - telesilla 7y ago
        Take a really simple example. Say you are looking for a new pair of trousers. You go to the high street and you see lots of mannequins in the window that are the opposite (heterosexual-stereotype gender of you). You read in an ad that this shop also sells clothes for your body type— but how comfortable are you going in, as opposed to the window that has a variation of mannequins and outfits in the window? And that's how we encourage everyone to get involved, by letting them know there is no clique or stereotype they need to worry about being part of. We should work hard at this, especially for something as critical as technology, and its design and communication.
        numlock86 7y ago
        Not sure where you live, but where I do mannequins only come in one shape: The perfect shape. Judging by the people I see there it doesn't discourage anyone. Why would it? It's just a sample. Neither I think anyone needed an ad to tell them that they can actually shop and find something there. However if you get influenced by the shape of a mannequin that much, the problem is probably a different one within yourself. From personal experience I know a women-only domain does not keep men from joining it. I've seen it the other way around with friends as well, unless you project something into that and start to think it would be a "problem" or discourage someone or something else. Would you join an office where everyone is a redhead but you aren't? Sure you would. I mean, why not? What would discourage you? So how is it different for a man to join an office for example with only women? Or just replace the attributes which whatever you think fits. If you care about other people's gender, race, hair color, height or number or functioning body parts (read as: "handicapped") much ... well, then there will always be an underrepresentation of some sort. If the distribution of gender discourages you from joining a community or domain maybe you should stop putting people and yourself into categories of body attributes. To me it's the same pair of shoes as saying "too many/few black people". Ok, so they are "different" from other people in a way that would discourage someone? Interesting thought in 2019 for a pre 20th century concept.
- mihemihe 7y ago
  I actually thought about this while I was scrolling. I have the impression that women are over-represented, just for the sake of being politically correct. According to Wikipedia: A 2002 survey of 2,784 open-source-software developers found that 1.1% of them were women.[3] A 2013 survey of 2,183 open-source contributors found that 81.4% were men and 10.4% were women.[4] This survey included both software contributors and non-software contributors and women were much more likely to be non-software contributors.[5] A 2017 survey of 5,500 contributors to projects on GitHub found that 95% of contributors were men and 3% were women.[6]
  - ensiferum 7y ago
    Yep these days because of being "Politically correct" all you need is to be born with the right set of genitalia and preferably represent a minority/oppressed ethnic group and you can use these as tools to promote/advance your career rather than having to rely on the actual content/output of your work. Bonus points if you are also either disabled or part of the LGBT community.
kstenerud 7y ago
Why is Richard Stallman's photo not present?
- phoe-krk 7y ago
  Stallman isn't a face of open source, as he frequently claimed so himself. He is a face of free software[1]. [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html.en https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....
  - cameronbrown 7y ago
    I still think open source is a subset of free software, and Stallman deserves a lot of that credit.
    - teekert 7y ago
      Agreed, Linus is at the top and his Kernel uses Stallman's license.
      - spodek 7y ago
        Richard Stallman and Eben Moglen's license, or at least the license they started. It's all of our license now, I'd think.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - dooglius 7y ago
      It's the other way around, "Free Software" is a subset of open source
      - jacobush 7y ago
        Depends on how you set up your space. :)
DoofusOfDeath 7y ago
I like the stark, high-contrast style of the photos.
- fmajid 7y ago
  Reminiscent of Avedon's "In the American West". Those were shot on 11x14 large-format film, and the detail on the slightly larger than life print has to be seen up close and personal to be believed.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
d37ydThrAwy 7y ago
> "Stormy Peters is an open source advocate and evangelist. Peters founded the Open Source Program Office at Hewlett Packard and has since held senior positions at several open source related organizations including the GNOME Foundation, Mozilla, Cloud Foundry Foundation, and Red Hat." And just like that, "advocating and evangelizing" is apparently all it takes. Can also call it what it often actually is - virtue signaling - but that's not very popular with the kids these days.
- Deukhoofd 7y ago
  She's the Director of the Open Source Programs Office at Microsoft, used to be Executive Director of the Gnome Foundation, and used to be software engineer on the Hewlett-Packard Unix development team.
- timkam 7y ago
  While most OS folks seem to see PR and management roles as support functions, I think it's good to show some appreciation for people in those roles. They help get some funding in and grow the community. Nothing wrong with that, IMHO.
- bregma 7y ago
  Only the roles traditionally dominated by straight white able-bodied men of significant means are legit. The rest are hardly worth spending electrons on.
  - mikeeusa 7y ago
    The only legitimate "roles" are those who /actually/ create the thing which this all rests upon: the software [but really... the license ... {but really the one man responsible for willing it to be}]
- AdmiralAsshat 7y ago
  And comments like this are why people believe they can't contribute to FOSS if they're not developers.
m0zg 7y ago
This must be old. Guido hasn't been BDFL for a while now. And the achievement gap is very wide between people on the list. You have inventors of the internet and several dominant programming languages alongside some "advocates" nobody has ever heard of.
- ahbyb 7y ago
  The point of this website is diversity.
  - oneeyedpigeon 7y ago
    I'm not sure where you're getting that from — it isn't mentioned on the about page[1]. I suspect you've made that assumption because they happen to be diverse, and the stereotype is that computing itself tends not to be. However, I think that is exaggerated, and projects such as this one aim to redress the balance. But I don't think that's the primary aim at all — the primary aim is to exhibit photographs of people involved in open source, in an attempt to raise their profile. > The project is comprised of portraits of notable and unsung heroes who dedicate themselves to the creation and advancement of our open source technologies. [1] http://www.facesofopensource.com/about/ http://www.facesofopensource.com/about/
    - ahbyb 7y ago
      >I'm not sure where you're getting that from — it isn't mentioned on the about page[1]. Obviously. They want to pretend the diversity portrayed in that website is normal. >I suspect you've made that assumption because they happen to be diverse, and the stereotype is that computing itself tends not to be. However, I think that is exaggerated, and projects such as this one aim to redress the balance. Let's agree to disagree then.
Nux 7y ago
1. Broken on Firefox on Android, text unscrollable. 2. Where the F is Stallman?
enriquto 7y ago
a bit sad to see that notoriously "free software" people like Bradley Kuhn and Karen Sadler have agreed to appear here.
- fmajid 7y ago
  Perhaps they are less doctrinaire than RMS.
- luc4sdreyer 7y ago
  Bradley Kuhn is no longer associated with the FSF anyway [1]. That doesn't mean that he doesn't care about free software anymore. I just thought it was interesting that you mentioned him specifically. [1] http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html
rvz 7y ago
Strange to see that the authors of the LLVM project, Chris Lattner and Vikram Adve are not present given that LLVM has been used by many large companies (Google, NVIDIA, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Intel, ARM, AMD, etc) and projects like Rust, Julia and Swift. GNU, GCC, are also free, libre and open-source software (FLOSS) which its very surprising to see the creator and founder Richard Stallman to be missing in this website. Without him, Linus might have chosen to have kept Linux closed-source.
- oneeyedpigeon 7y ago
  Nothing I've read on the site suggests that it intends to be exhaustive. You could interpret this paragraph in several ways: > Faces of Open Source is an on-going photographic documentation of the people behind the open source revolution. The project is comprised of portraits of notable and unsung heroes who dedicate themselves to the creation and advancement of our open source technologies.
  - heyoni 7y ago
    It’s super strange cause I contributed a typo fix to the python doc and have yet to get a phone call.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  Why does nobody here understand that the faces included aren’t exhaustive? It’s obviously not all faces, and it doesn’t even claim to be just the top faces - it’s ‘notable and unsung’. More practically, it’s probably who made themselves available to be photographed and who would he photographer could get in touch with.
  - luckylion 7y ago
    > It’s obviously not all faces, and it doesn’t even claim to be just the top faces - it’s ‘notable and unsung’. It's a documentation of the people behind the development and advancement of the open source revolution. Sure, that doesn't claim that nobody else plays a role, but it has a hint of that. > More practically, it’s probably who made themselves available to be photographed and who would he photographer could get in touch with. Sounds plausible, yeah. The wording makes it sound like more though, but that's probably marketing, because "portraits of some people in the open source movement that I know/was able to meet" sounds less impressive and authoritative than Faces Of Open Source.
jnamaya 7y ago
Two weeks ago on Saturday morning I was driving my son to his soccer game through Medford MA, when in one of the bus stops I saw Richard Stallman waiting for the bus. I told my wife, that's Richard! and I stopped right in the middle of the street and jumped out of the car. I ran toward him and hugged him, and told him to take care of himself and be strong. He didn't say a word. I feel bad for the man, he looked a bit frail, and mind absent. I can't believe history is being rewritten right in front of my eyes, the man that started it all is being forgotten. Open Source is just a catchy marketing phrase for "free software"
- hutzlibu 7y ago
  "Open Source is just a catchy marketing phrase for "free software" " Nope. Even RMS even insist it is not. Main difference is, free software usually enforces "copyleft". And open source not.
  - rmusial 7y ago
    If you read https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.... Stallman states that Free Software doesn't have to do with copyleft vs permissive: "Another misunderstanding of “open source” is the idea that it means “not using the GNU GPL.” This tends to accompany another misunderstanding that “free software” means “GPL-covered software.” These are both mistaken, since the GNU GPL qualifies as an open source license and most of the open source licenses qualify as free software licenses. There are many free software licenses aside from the GNU GPL." The Open Source Initiative sees the GPL as Open Source, and the Free Software Foundation sees the ISC (OpenBSD license) as Free Software. Neither group's definition depends on if it is copyleft of permissive.
  - orangeshark 7y ago
    The main difference between Free Software and Open Software is what aspect of the software they focus on. Free Software is more on the freedom while Open Source is more on the development method. They still value the other aspects, just not as strongly.
- 7y ago
alex_hitchins 7y ago
Is it not missing Eric S. Raymond? EDIT : Yes, he is there - just didn't recognise him.
- dchest 7y ago
  http://www.facesofopensource.com/eric-raymond/ http://www.facesofopensource.com/eric-raymond/
  - alex_hitchins 7y ago
    There he is! I just didn't recognize him. Thanks for pointing him out. I was feeling quite aggrieved on his behalf there!
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
Jefro118 7y ago
This is awesome! I love the photography style. I've been working on something parallel to this myself - interviews with open source maintainers to celebrate their work and aggregate advice for others[1]. It's great to see another example of open source work being highlighted. Some of the images load a little slowly for me - the images in the modals could be compressed as I notice that the file is often significantly larger than the size it is displayed at on the page. [1] - https://sourcesort.com https://sourcesort.com
RickJWagner 7y ago
My thanks to all of them. And the ones who will follow.
rmusial 7y ago
That so many people are asking "where is Stallman" on a site called Faces of Open Source makes be wonder how many of RMS' fans actually really listen to him. He loathes the term Open Source and sees it as direct attack on him and his Free Software movement[1]. [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- luckylion 7y ago
  Reading their about page [1], I'm not convinced they're making a conscious decision to call it open source instead of free software. I don't think the general public (which this is aimed at, it seems) differentiates the two either. [1] http://www.facesofopensource.com/about/ http://www.facesofopensource.com/about/
  - rmusial 7y ago
    It's not the site's issue, it's Stallman. Even if they didn't intend for it to be a strict Open Source site, it has Open Source in the name which Stallman wouldn't participate in. The same way Stallman won't participate in (at least at the time of writing this comment) shows or conferences that only use Linux in the name and not GNU/Linux. For example he won't go to something like Ohio LinuxFest and the Linux Action Show had to rename itself the GNU/Linux Action Show to get him to come on. For some people the work of changing the name is worth it, for others it's not worth the hassle.
    - type0 7y ago
      OSDEM conference even renamed itself on request of Stallman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOSDEM#cite_ref-3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOSDEM#cite_ref-3
  - DarkWiiPlayer 7y ago
    > Yet much of this software is “open source” — a technology commons that can be freely used and contributed to by anyone, but at the same time, is controlled by no one person or corporation. That's pretty much the definition of free software; so yeah... Weird choices.
lwh 7y ago
Wish it was no-pictures as a rule
pepijndevos 7y ago
How many people do you actually recognize? Personally, only Limor Fried. It's weird, but also interesting, that tech is so faceless.
- smartmic 7y ago
  That is why I like this site. I gives tech a human touch.
- rootbear 7y ago
  I recognized quite a few, since I met several of them at the old Usenix conferences I used to attend. Dennis Ritchie, Eric Allman, Kirk McCusick, Keith Bostic. A few others. I would like to have seen the late Evi Nemeth, but she was known more for System Administration than for open source, I suppose. I also recognized Guido van Rossum and Keith Packard, again from conferences. You really get to match a name to a face at events like that.
aloisdg 7y ago
Sara Chipps is on there. I only know her from her Stack Overflow drama. I am not sure about what she is doing on this website with Ken Thompson or Larry Wall. I guess I am not aware of her revolutionary side.
- icholy 7y ago
  Yeah, some of the people they decided to include devalue the whole list ...
  - ReggieJJJ 7y ago
    Eric Schmidt? That really cut into my respect for the list. Not only is he representative of the antithesis of open source, but he is clearly operating in the shadows to subjugate and control the internet, although he is not the only one.
- gnahckire 7y ago
  I was super out of the loop on the drama so I looked it up. Oh boy... Response - https://dearstackexchange.com/ https://dearstackexchange.com/ HN thread - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21176712 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21176712
  - rahuldottech 7y ago
    Yeah, almost every long-time member of Stack Exchange is sick of all the drama that Sara has caused. It's a huge mess.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- fortran77 7y ago
  It's all about "inclusivity". (Unless you're a woman acting in good faith who happens to be active on "Mi Yodeya". Then it's about pronouns and forced speech.)
nautilus12 7y ago
Where is Ian Murdock?
- rmusial 7y ago
  Faces of Open Source seems to be a one person project (Peter Adams) who is a photographer and personally takes the picture of each subject. Since Ian has passed away I don't know how they would be able to be included. Also the site obviously isn't exhaustive since there there are thousands of people in Open Source and is always a work in progress being updated.
sellingwebsite 7y ago
I was expecting to see Matz^ there but ... ^ Yukihiro Matsumoto - creator of the Ruby Language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukihiro_Matsumoto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukihiro_Matsumoto
- DarkWiiPlayer 7y ago
  As was pointed out in some other comment, this list seems to be heavily focused on north-america. I'd also love to see Roberto Ierusalimschy on the list, but he's not on it either.
ReggieJJJ 7y ago
Can anyone make sense of why some people have two versions of pictures, one close up of their bust, the other of most of their full body; while others only have a single image? It seems rather arbitrary if it's intentional at all.
njn 7y ago
Missing Lennart Poettering.
- jerojasro 7y ago
  Missing Theo de Raadt as well.
folkhack 7y ago
I know there's a ton of "where is X?" going on - but one that I would like to see on here is John Resig, jQuery is still practically _everywhere_.
fortran77 7y ago
Why is it necessary to know what a person _looks_ like in order to value his/her/their contribution to open source? I think we should be beyond physical appearance.
- SiempreViernes 7y ago
  I find seeing their picture helps thinking of them as real (living) persons, instead of just some abstract named entity.
- shpongled 7y ago
  I agree. However, if you're seriously asking that, perhaps you haven't been paying much attention to the political zeitgeist
jancsika 7y ago
Someone should make a "Faces of Free Software" that subtly photoshops Stallman into every single image on that site. (Using Gimp of course.)
mfer 7y ago
I'm surprised to see Eric Schmidt on there. I wonder what the criteria was for inclusion.
bitwize 7y ago
My thoughts going through this: "That Weird Al-looking dude is Larry Wall, right?" It was. "Who's this guy? He looks like the Architect from The Matrix." It was Vint Cerf. He is the Architect of the Matrix.
- JetSpiegel 7y ago
  Ohh, I actually believed Vint Cerf had played The Archited on The Matrix... It was actually Helmut Bakaitis.
wastedhours 7y ago
It's an interesting glimpse into the sphere, highlights different people and different achievements, shows that not all contributions have to be code to help OSS, and due to the stylised nature is obviously non-exhaustive for practical reasons. It adds a touch of humanity to technology that is often lost. Of course, as a large percentage of the comments here show, we must criticise and tear-down everything...
rahuldottech 7y ago
> Linus Torvalds invented the Linux operating system which is used to run the vast majority of computer servers connected to the Internet Uhm, no. It's the Linux kernel, used by the GNU/Linux operating system. I'm surprised that this website got something so simple wrong. The Linux kernel is one part of what we know as the GNU/Linux OS Apart from the kernel, virtually everything else in the core OS was written by volunteers of the GNU project, and they deserve recognition for the same Furthermore, calling Linus Torvalds the "inventor" of the OS in question is factually incorrect. The GNU OS was in development long before they decided to incorporate the Linux kernel.
TomMasz 7y ago
So many of these people I knew by name but had no idea what they looked like or at best hadn't seen a photo of them in 20+ years (which is effectively the same thing). As a photographer, it's always nice to see black&white photos. They have a power and charm that is so different from color.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
gnrlbzik 7y ago
No idea why there is duplicates of same people but with different photos

188 points by smartmic 7y ago

notkaiho 7y ago

Positives about this: A good mix of people in terms of gender and what they have contributed.

numlock86 7y ago
Why would the gender even be relevant?
- fmajid 7y ago
  So all potential future open-source contributors feel "I can be part of this" rather than excluded. I just wish there were more women who were actual open-source programmers rather than journalists, executives or advocates. People like Margo Seltzer (BerkeleyDB) or Lynne Jolitz (386BSD).
  - collyw 7y ago
    Is there any evidence that showing pictures of women actually makes a difference with this?
    - amwelles 7y ago
      Anecdotally, yes. When I was younger, seeing women in tech roles made it feel like an option for me.
    - playpause 7y ago
      I'd be very surprised to see evidence to the contrary, as it's just an obvious fact of life that people generally feel less confident about entering a community that lacks anyone else like them. Have you never felt intimidated/uneasy when entering a group situation in which every other person was a particular race/gender/age group to which you don't belong?
      - collyw 7y ago
        Not that I can think of, but then I don't really define myself by my gender or race or really give much time to identity politics in general.
        claudiawerner 7y ago
        Not defining oneself by gender or race does not invalidate the hypothesized effect: that one may feel excluded if they don't see anyone like them doing it. There is no denying that the fact of being a man or woman influences a lot of our lives and how people treat us.
        telesilla 7y ago
        May I posit this is because you are rarely in situations where you feel your gender is pronounced? If you were, say, a man applying for a job as a general hospital nurse, you would feel this, or as a heterosexual hairstylist applying for a salon job. There are stereotypes you would feel pressure to justify why you, who do not fit the stereotype, would be a beneficial person to hire, in such cases.
      - Nicci00 7y ago
        I felt uneasy in my college electives composed almost entirely of women.
        collyw 7y ago
        I imagine I would have loved that.
      - type0 7y ago
        > Have you never felt intimidated/uneasy when entering a group situation in which every other person was a particular race/gender/age group to which you don't belong? Even if you have, that's problematic on your part. Just because people look differently doesn't mean they won't be welcoming towards you, that's tribalism at it's finest and needs to stop. The ones that do feel intimidated/uneasy about it need to work on their own perception of other people and not the other way around. You don't change the mindset of a group because there isn't any, it only exists on paper in your gender studies textbooks. Humans are individuals and everyone has their own mindset regardless of genitalia, skin color, age etc. Thinking otherwise is both disrespectful and racist/sexist/agist.
    - zapita 7y ago
      Yes. There is plenty of research on the psychological effects of representation. The effects are very real.
- telesilla 7y ago
  I was greatly pleased to see attention to gender was paid. I was worried when I clicked on this that women might be underrepresented - we are often invisible, for many reasons. It's a great site that I'll be happy to share as a mentor.
  - numlock86 7y ago
    > we are often invisible, for many reasons Like? I'd really like to know the reasons. Also, who is "we"? Biological women? Also please explain, as I initially asked, why it matters what gender you are. (Or race, hair or eye color you have, height or whatever attributes you think is "invisible" to others and hence underrepresented)
    - telesilla 7y ago
      Take a really simple example. Say you are looking for a new pair of trousers. You go to the high street and you see lots of mannequins in the window that are the opposite (heterosexual-stereotype gender of you). You read in an ad that this shop also sells clothes for your body type— but how comfortable are you going in, as opposed to the window that has a variation of mannequins and outfits in the window? And that's how we encourage everyone to get involved, by letting them know there is no clique or stereotype they need to worry about being part of. We should work hard at this, especially for something as critical as technology, and its design and communication.
      - numlock86 7y ago
        Not sure where you live, but where I do mannequins only come in one shape: The perfect shape. Judging by the people I see there it doesn't discourage anyone. Why would it? It's just a sample. Neither I think anyone needed an ad to tell them that they can actually shop and find something there. However if you get influenced by the shape of a mannequin that much, the problem is probably a different one within yourself. From personal experience I know a women-only domain does not keep men from joining it. I've seen it the other way around with friends as well, unless you project something into that and start to think it would be a "problem" or discourage someone or something else. Would you join an office where everyone is a redhead but you aren't? Sure you would. I mean, why not? What would discourage you? So how is it different for a man to join an office for example with only women? Or just replace the attributes which whatever you think fits. If you care about other people's gender, race, hair color, height or number or functioning body parts (read as: "handicapped") much ... well, then there will always be an underrepresentation of some sort. If the distribution of gender discourages you from joining a community or domain maybe you should stop putting people and yourself into categories of body attributes. To me it's the same pair of shoes as saying "too many/few black people". Ok, so they are "different" from other people in a way that would discourage someone? Interesting thought in 2019 for a pre 20th century concept.
mihemihe 7y ago
I actually thought about this while I was scrolling. I have the impression that women are over-represented, just for the sake of being politically correct. According to Wikipedia: A 2002 survey of 2,784 open-source-software developers found that 1.1% of them were women.[3] A 2013 survey of 2,183 open-source contributors found that 81.4% were men and 10.4% were women.[4] This survey included both software contributors and non-software contributors and women were much more likely to be non-software contributors.[5] A 2017 survey of 5,500 contributors to projects on GitHub found that 95% of contributors were men and 3% were women.[6]
- ensiferum 7y ago
  Yep these days because of being "Politically correct" all you need is to be born with the right set of genitalia and preferably represent a minority/oppressed ethnic group and you can use these as tools to promote/advance your career rather than having to rely on the actual content/output of your work. Bonus points if you are also either disabled or part of the LGBT community.

kstenerud 7y ago

Why is Richard Stallman's photo not present?

phoe-krk 7y ago
Stallman isn't a face of open source, as he frequently claimed so himself. He is a face of free software[1]. [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html.en https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....
- cameronbrown 7y ago
  I still think open source is a subset of free software, and Stallman deserves a lot of that credit.
  - teekert 7y ago
    Agreed, Linus is at the top and his Kernel uses Stallman's license.
    - spodek 7y ago
      Richard Stallman and Eben Moglen's license, or at least the license they started. It's all of our license now, I'd think.
  - deleted 7y ago
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  - dooglius 7y ago
    It's the other way around, "Free Software" is a subset of open source
    - jacobush 7y ago
      Depends on how you set up your space. :)

DoofusOfDeath 7y ago

I like the stark, high-contrast style of the photos.

fmajid 7y ago
Reminiscent of Avedon's "In the American West". Those were shot on 11x14 large-format film, and the detail on the slightly larger than life print has to be seen up close and personal to be believed.

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d37ydThrAwy 7y ago

> "Stormy Peters is an open source advocate and evangelist. Peters founded the Open Source Program Office at Hewlett Packard and has since held senior positions at several open source related organizations including the GNOME Foundation, Mozilla, Cloud Foundry Foundation, and Red Hat." And just like that, "advocating and evangelizing" is apparently all it takes. Can also call it what it often actually is - virtue signaling - but that's not very popular with the kids these days.

Deukhoofd 7y ago
She's the Director of the Open Source Programs Office at Microsoft, used to be Executive Director of the Gnome Foundation, and used to be software engineer on the Hewlett-Packard Unix development team.
timkam 7y ago
While most OS folks seem to see PR and management roles as support functions, I think it's good to show some appreciation for people in those roles. They help get some funding in and grow the community. Nothing wrong with that, IMHO.
bregma 7y ago
Only the roles traditionally dominated by straight white able-bodied men of significant means are legit. The rest are hardly worth spending electrons on.
- mikeeusa 7y ago
  The only legitimate "roles" are those who /actually/ create the thing which this all rests upon: the software [but really... the license ... {but really the one man responsible for willing it to be}]
AdmiralAsshat 7y ago
And comments like this are why people believe they can't contribute to FOSS if they're not developers.

m0zg 7y ago

This must be old. Guido hasn't been BDFL for a while now. And the achievement gap is very wide between people on the list. You have inventors of the internet and several dominant programming languages alongside some "advocates" nobody has ever heard of.

ahbyb 7y ago
The point of this website is diversity.
- oneeyedpigeon 7y ago
  I'm not sure where you're getting that from — it isn't mentioned on the about page[1]. I suspect you've made that assumption because they happen to be diverse, and the stereotype is that computing itself tends not to be. However, I think that is exaggerated, and projects such as this one aim to redress the balance. But I don't think that's the primary aim at all — the primary aim is to exhibit photographs of people involved in open source, in an attempt to raise their profile. > The project is comprised of portraits of notable and unsung heroes who dedicate themselves to the creation and advancement of our open source technologies. [1] http://www.facesofopensource.com/about/ http://www.facesofopensource.com/about/
  - ahbyb 7y ago
    >I'm not sure where you're getting that from — it isn't mentioned on the about page[1]. Obviously. They want to pretend the diversity portrayed in that website is normal. >I suspect you've made that assumption because they happen to be diverse, and the stereotype is that computing itself tends not to be. However, I think that is exaggerated, and projects such as this one aim to redress the balance. Let's agree to disagree then.

Nux 7y ago

1. Broken on Firefox on Android, text unscrollable. 2. Where the F is Stallman?

enriquto 7y ago

a bit sad to see that notoriously "free software" people like Bradley Kuhn and Karen Sadler have agreed to appear here.

fmajid 7y ago
Perhaps they are less doctrinaire than RMS.
luc4sdreyer 7y ago
Bradley Kuhn is no longer associated with the FSF anyway [1]. That doesn't mean that he doesn't care about free software anymore. I just thought it was interesting that you mentioned him specifically. [1] http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html

rvz 7y ago

Strange to see that the authors of the LLVM project, Chris Lattner and Vikram Adve are not present given that LLVM has been used by many large companies (Google, NVIDIA, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Intel, ARM, AMD, etc) and projects like Rust, Julia and Swift. GNU, GCC, are also free, libre and open-source software (FLOSS) which its very surprising to see the creator and founder Richard Stallman to be missing in this website. Without him, Linus might have chosen to have kept Linux closed-source.

oneeyedpigeon 7y ago
Nothing I've read on the site suggests that it intends to be exhaustive. You could interpret this paragraph in several ways: > Faces of Open Source is an on-going photographic documentation of the people behind the open source revolution. The project is comprised of portraits of notable and unsung heroes who dedicate themselves to the creation and advancement of our open source technologies.
- heyoni 7y ago
  It’s super strange cause I contributed a typo fix to the python doc and have yet to get a phone call.
chrisseaton 7y ago
Why does nobody here understand that the faces included aren’t exhaustive? It’s obviously not all faces, and it doesn’t even claim to be just the top faces - it’s ‘notable and unsung’. More practically, it’s probably who made themselves available to be photographed and who would he photographer could get in touch with.
- luckylion 7y ago
  > It’s obviously not all faces, and it doesn’t even claim to be just the top faces - it’s ‘notable and unsung’. It's a documentation of the people behind the development and advancement of the open source revolution. Sure, that doesn't claim that nobody else plays a role, but it has a hint of that. > More practically, it’s probably who made themselves available to be photographed and who would he photographer could get in touch with. Sounds plausible, yeah. The wording makes it sound like more though, but that's probably marketing, because "portraits of some people in the open source movement that I know/was able to meet" sounds less impressive and authoritative than Faces Of Open Source.

jnamaya 7y ago

Two weeks ago on Saturday morning I was driving my son to his soccer game through Medford MA, when in one of the bus stops I saw Richard Stallman waiting for the bus. I told my wife, that's Richard! and I stopped right in the middle of the street and jumped out of the car. I ran toward him and hugged him, and told him to take care of himself and be strong. He didn't say a word. I feel bad for the man, he looked a bit frail, and mind absent. I can't believe history is being rewritten right in front of my eyes, the man that started it all is being forgotten. Open Source is just a catchy marketing phrase for "free software"

hutzlibu 7y ago
"Open Source is just a catchy marketing phrase for "free software" " Nope. Even RMS even insist it is not. Main difference is, free software usually enforces "copyleft". And open source not.
- rmusial 7y ago
  If you read https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.... Stallman states that Free Software doesn't have to do with copyleft vs permissive: "Another misunderstanding of “open source” is the idea that it means “not using the GNU GPL.” This tends to accompany another misunderstanding that “free software” means “GPL-covered software.” These are both mistaken, since the GNU GPL qualifies as an open source license and most of the open source licenses qualify as free software licenses. There are many free software licenses aside from the GNU GPL." The Open Source Initiative sees the GPL as Open Source, and the Free Software Foundation sees the ISC (OpenBSD license) as Free Software. Neither group's definition depends on if it is copyleft of permissive.
- orangeshark 7y ago
  The main difference between Free Software and Open Software is what aspect of the software they focus on. Free Software is more on the freedom while Open Source is more on the development method. They still value the other aspects, just not as strongly.
7y ago

alex_hitchins 7y ago

Is it not missing Eric S. Raymond? EDIT : Yes, he is there - just didn't recognise him.

dchest 7y ago
http://www.facesofopensource.com/eric-raymond/ http://www.facesofopensource.com/eric-raymond/
- alex_hitchins 7y ago
  There he is! I just didn't recognize him. Thanks for pointing him out. I was feeling quite aggrieved on his behalf there!
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Jefro118 7y ago

This is awesome! I love the photography style. I've been working on something parallel to this myself - interviews with open source maintainers to celebrate their work and aggregate advice for others[1]. It's great to see another example of open source work being highlighted. Some of the images load a little slowly for me - the images in the modals could be compressed as I notice that the file is often significantly larger than the size it is displayed at on the page. [1] - https://sourcesort.com https://sourcesort.com

RickJWagner 7y ago

My thanks to all of them. And the ones who will follow.

rmusial 7y ago

That so many people are asking "where is Stallman" on a site called Faces of Open Source makes be wonder how many of RMS' fans actually really listen to him. He loathes the term Open Source and sees it as direct attack on him and his Free Software movement[1]. [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....

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luckylion 7y ago
Reading their about page [1], I'm not convinced they're making a conscious decision to call it open source instead of free software. I don't think the general public (which this is aimed at, it seems) differentiates the two either. [1] http://www.facesofopensource.com/about/ http://www.facesofopensource.com/about/
- rmusial 7y ago
  It's not the site's issue, it's Stallman. Even if they didn't intend for it to be a strict Open Source site, it has Open Source in the name which Stallman wouldn't participate in. The same way Stallman won't participate in (at least at the time of writing this comment) shows or conferences that only use Linux in the name and not GNU/Linux. For example he won't go to something like Ohio LinuxFest and the Linux Action Show had to rename itself the GNU/Linux Action Show to get him to come on. For some people the work of changing the name is worth it, for others it's not worth the hassle.
  - type0 7y ago
    OSDEM conference even renamed itself on request of Stallman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOSDEM#cite_ref-3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOSDEM#cite_ref-3
- DarkWiiPlayer 7y ago
  > Yet much of this software is “open source” — a technology commons that can be freely used and contributed to by anyone, but at the same time, is controlled by no one person or corporation. That's pretty much the definition of free software; so yeah... Weird choices.

lwh 7y ago

Wish it was no-pictures as a rule

pepijndevos 7y ago

How many people do you actually recognize? Personally, only Limor Fried. It's weird, but also interesting, that tech is so faceless.

smartmic 7y ago
That is why I like this site. I gives tech a human touch.
rootbear 7y ago
I recognized quite a few, since I met several of them at the old Usenix conferences I used to attend. Dennis Ritchie, Eric Allman, Kirk McCusick, Keith Bostic. A few others. I would like to have seen the late Evi Nemeth, but she was known more for System Administration than for open source, I suppose. I also recognized Guido van Rossum and Keith Packard, again from conferences. You really get to match a name to a face at events like that.

aloisdg 7y ago

Sara Chipps is on there. I only know her from her Stack Overflow drama. I am not sure about what she is doing on this website with Ken Thompson or Larry Wall. I guess I am not aware of her revolutionary side.

icholy 7y ago
Yeah, some of the people they decided to include devalue the whole list ...
- ReggieJJJ 7y ago
  Eric Schmidt? That really cut into my respect for the list. Not only is he representative of the antithesis of open source, but he is clearly operating in the shadows to subjugate and control the internet, although he is not the only one.
gnahckire 7y ago
I was super out of the loop on the drama so I looked it up. Oh boy... Response - https://dearstackexchange.com/ https://dearstackexchange.com/ HN thread - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21176712 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21176712
- rahuldottech 7y ago
  Yeah, almost every long-time member of Stack Exchange is sick of all the drama that Sara has caused. It's a huge mess.
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fortran77 7y ago
It's all about "inclusivity". (Unless you're a woman acting in good faith who happens to be active on "Mi Yodeya". Then it's about pronouns and forced speech.)

nautilus12 7y ago

Where is Ian Murdock?

rmusial 7y ago
Faces of Open Source seems to be a one person project (Peter Adams) who is a photographer and personally takes the picture of each subject. Since Ian has passed away I don't know how they would be able to be included. Also the site obviously isn't exhaustive since there there are thousands of people in Open Source and is always a work in progress being updated.

sellingwebsite 7y ago

I was expecting to see Matz^ there but ... ^ Yukihiro Matsumoto - creator of the Ruby Language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukihiro_Matsumoto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukihiro_Matsumoto

DarkWiiPlayer 7y ago
As was pointed out in some other comment, this list seems to be heavily focused on north-america. I'd also love to see Roberto Ierusalimschy on the list, but he's not on it either.

ReggieJJJ 7y ago

Can anyone make sense of why some people have two versions of pictures, one close up of their bust, the other of most of their full body; while others only have a single image? It seems rather arbitrary if it's intentional at all.

njn 7y ago

Missing Lennart Poettering.

jerojasro 7y ago
Missing Theo de Raadt as well.

folkhack 7y ago

I know there's a ton of "where is X?" going on - but one that I would like to see on here is John Resig, jQuery is still practically _everywhere_.

fortran77 7y ago

Why is it necessary to know what a person _looks_ like in order to value his/her/their contribution to open source? I think we should be beyond physical appearance.

SiempreViernes 7y ago
I find seeing their picture helps thinking of them as real (living) persons, instead of just some abstract named entity.
shpongled 7y ago
I agree. However, if you're seriously asking that, perhaps you haven't been paying much attention to the political zeitgeist

jancsika 7y ago

Someone should make a "Faces of Free Software" that subtly photoshops Stallman into every single image on that site. (Using Gimp of course.)

mfer 7y ago

I'm surprised to see Eric Schmidt on there. I wonder what the criteria was for inclusion.

bitwize 7y ago

My thoughts going through this: "That Weird Al-looking dude is Larry Wall, right?" It was. "Who's this guy? He looks like the Architect from The Matrix." It was Vint Cerf. He is the Architect of the Matrix.

JetSpiegel 7y ago
Ohh, I actually believed Vint Cerf had played The Archited on The Matrix... It was actually Helmut Bakaitis.

wastedhours 7y ago

It's an interesting glimpse into the sphere, highlights different people and different achievements, shows that not all contributions have to be code to help OSS, and due to the stylised nature is obviously non-exhaustive for practical reasons. It adds a touch of humanity to technology that is often lost. Of course, as a large percentage of the comments here show, we must criticise and tear-down everything...

rahuldottech 7y ago

> Linus Torvalds invented the Linux operating system which is used to run the vast majority of computer servers connected to the Internet Uhm, no. It's the Linux kernel, used by the GNU/Linux operating system. I'm surprised that this website got something so simple wrong. The Linux kernel is one part of what we know as the GNU/Linux OS Apart from the kernel, virtually everything else in the core OS was written by volunteers of the GNU project, and they deserve recognition for the same Furthermore, calling Linus Torvalds the "inventor" of the OS in question is factually incorrect. The GNU OS was in development long before they decided to incorporate the Linux kernel.

TomMasz 7y ago

So many of these people I knew by name but had no idea what they looked like or at best hadn't seen a photo of them in 20+ years (which is effectively the same thing). As a photographer, it's always nice to see black&white photos. They have a power and charm that is so different from color.

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gnrlbzik 7y ago

No idea why there is duplicates of same people but with different photos