• He is the co-author of what could probably be called "The Bible of Linux
  Development", in which he uses his keen knowledge of the Linux kernel and
  its design to show people how to develop device drivers. No one in India
  would even *think* of trying this without referring to his book, now in
  the third edition.

        He is Jonathan Corbet, co-author of "Linux Device
        Drivers", and editor of LWN.NET, aka "Linux Weekly News".

• His code safeguards millions of networks across the world, and can be
  found in virtually every consumer router these days. And when he isn't
  writing code, he makes the world a safer place for the GPL, by
  relentlessly tracking down and exposing corporations who "don't get it"
  when they use GPL'd code without following the rules of the game, and
  provided the first precedent of the GPL standing up in court - and
  winning.
  
  From Germany comes the chairman of the netfilter/iptables project, and the
  man behind GPLviolations.org - Harald Welte.

• He speaks Japanese, German, English and a variety of other languages, but
  most importantly speaks Geek as well. He had a knoppix CD before people
  knew what that was, and can lie in the sun for hours without getting a tan
  or a sunburn.
  
  He is Mr.Wizards-of-OS - Volker Grassmuck.

• Every time you go to the web to access information, you are using
  technology that this man has had his eager fingers in. His work is one of
  the first instances of a FOSS project almost completely demolishing the
  proprietary competition, and is used in a majority of all web servers
  across the Internet.
  
  The man behind the Apache project, COLLAB.NET's Brian Behlendorf.

• He started off writing something to make it easier to maintain his
  personal home pages, and ended up changing the way the world created
  websites.
  
  He is Mr.PHP - Rasmus Lerdorf.

• When she speaks, people sit up and listen. She was behind the open
  sourcing of the project that today gives FOSS a place in every office and
  in every home, and is also part of the organization that decides what's
  Open Source, and what is not - literally.
  
  The Diva of Open Source - Danese Cooper.

• As one of the world's best known bloggers, he has played a vital role in
  getting his highly influential organization to play nice with FOSS. He
  loves to dabble with things ranging from Linux servers, databases, to PCs,
  gliders and now powered aero planes.
  
  He is Yahoo's Jeremy Zawodny.

• The world of sound and music is a fascinating one, and there has always
  been a deep connection between code-hacking geeks and music. It is,
  therefore, hardly surprising that a lot of effort goes into making FOSS
  platforms "music compatible" - not just in the playback department, but in
  the music creation and recording department.
  
  The man behind Linux Sound and Audio - Dave Phillips.

• He is probably one of the most recognizable faces in the FOSS world, and
  at the same time one of the most respected names, as well. His
  contributions to Linux rank with those of all the greats out there, and
  that includes Linus Torvalds.
  
  He has been the official kernel maintainer, and little happens in the
  Linux kernel today without him having some say in it.
  
  He is Alan Cox.