Irish Open-Source Types

So, I was thinking about this last night, and trying to figure out how many “open-source types” Ireland had. I define that as really just people who regularly contribute – committers, basically – to open source projects (ie, working with others – not just releasing their own code under a free license). I suspect if I included once-off/minor patches, there still wouldn’t be an increase in the order of magnitude… To that end, I’ve included the projects I think people to be involved with – if I’m wrong, let me know!

Please don’t get religious on my ass – I’m not worried about what license things are released under, or whether you use vi or emacs… My rough guess was twenty-ish – so here’s the names I have so far. Can you think of more? Only people currently resident in Ireland are here – plus me, cos it’s my blog (and my official residence is still in Dublin), and Justin, because he’ll be back in Ireland in just over a week.

Caroline Sheedy – OpenSSL
Noirin Plunkett – Apache
Colm MacCarthaigh – Apache, kernel, Debian, stuff
Baruch Even – Debian
Niall Sheridan – Ubuntu, Debian
Stephen Shirley – Ubuntu
Kenn Humborg – kernel
Padraig Brady – kernel
Mel Gorman – kernel
Ian Dowse – FreeBSD
Peter Edwards – FreeBSD
David Malone – FreeBSD
Niall O’Higgins – OpenBSD
Paul Jakma – Quagga
Justin Mason – Spamassassin
Donncha O’Caoimh – WordPress
Caolan McNamara – OpenOffice
Alan Maguire – Solaris OS/Net
Calum Benson – GNOME
Mark McLoughlin – GNOME
Alvaro Lopez Ortega – GNOME
Brian Cameron – GNOME
Andrew Manson – KDE-Marble

So, I got twelve at first count (that’s since risen) – Sun, RedHat and friends must have another few hiding away somewhere – who have I forgotten? Girls – I’m a bit worried that there’s only two of us on this list… Where are you all?! A bottle of Erdinger to anyone who suggests a girl who makes it onto the list

Update: Several people for one reason or another don’t fit in the list above. Either they only contribute occasionally/used to contribute etc, or I can’t confirm that they properly fit the description of “open source types”… These are they

Kae Verens – webby things, and bug-reporter for the best
Orly McGann – FreeBSD/ipfw
Conall O’Brien – FreeBSD patches
Niall Murphy – FreeBSD patches (suggested by Conall)
Niall Walsh – kanotix, stuff
Gary Coady – no known projects, but he seems like the type (suggested by Conall)
David McNamara – apparently, Mackers has a name. Not in the above list, because he’s the only ‘committer’ to things like o2sms, but still deserves a mention.
Edsko de Vries, Paul Biggar & John Gilbert – phc (no functional release yet available)
Alan Horkan – bug-reporter and general GNOME helper
Bill Hanneman – Sun employee, possibly GNOME, possibly also one of the ASF projects, haven’t been able to confirm either of these
Marcus Furlong – KDE advocacy type
The following are people who count as Irish, but aren’t currently based in the country. Given the tenuousness of some people’s claims to Irishness, however, only people who are bona fide Irish get listed here. What constitutes bona fide, I get to decide

Dave Airlie – kernel
Ian Clarke – Freenet
Glynn Foster – GNOME
Dave Neary – Gimp
Brian Summers – FreeBSD, OpenBSD
Colin Watson – Debian, Ubuntu
David Coallier – PHP
Martin F Krafft – Debian (Martin isn’t Irish at all – but he’s currently doing research in UL, and he definitely qualifies as “open source” )