Benevolent Dictator For Life
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Benevolent Dictator For Life or BDFL is a title given to a small number of open source software development leaders. The term was coined in 1995 to refer to Guido van Rossum, creator of the Python programming language.[1][2] The BDFL resolves disputes or competing arguments within the community. The title originated shortly after van Rossum joined the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI). It first appeared on a follow-up mail by Ken Manheimer to a meeting trying to create a semi-formal group overseeing Python development and workshops.[1]
BDFL should not be confused with the more common term for open source leaders, "benevolent dictator", which was popularized by Eric Raymond's essay Homesteading the Noosphere.[3] Among other topics related to hacker culture, Raymond elaborates on how the nature of open source forces the "dictatorship" to keep itself benevolent, since a strong disagreement can lead to the forking of the project under the rule of new leaders.
[edit] Examples of people sometimes so entitled
- Guido van Rossum, creator of Python[4][5]
- Larry Wall, the creator of Perl
- Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux Kernel
- Patrick Volkerding, the creator of Slackware[6]
- Mark Shuttleworth calls himself the "Self-Appointed Benevolent Dictator For Life", or SABDFL, and the Ubuntu community often uses this name to refer to him[7][8]
- Adrian Holovaty and Jacob Kaplan-Moss, for Django[9][10]
- Dries Buytaert, founder and leader of the Drupal project[11][12]
- Matt Mullenweg, the creator of WordPress[13]
- Kohsuke Kawaguchi, the creator and leader of the Hudson project[14]
[edit] References
- ^ a b Guido van Rossum (July 31, 2008). "Origin of BDFL". http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=235725. Retrieved 2008-08-01.
- ^ "Python Creator Scripts Inside Google". www.eweek.com. http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Application-Development/Python-Creator-Scripts-Inside-Google/. Retrieved 2008-05-13.
- ^ Eric S. Raymond. "Homesteading the Noosphere". http://catb.org/~esr/writings/homesteading/homesteading/ar01s16.html. Retrieved 2008-08-01.
- ^ "The Four Hundred--Next Up on the System i: Python". www.itjungle.com. http://www.itjungle.com/tfh/tfh041706-story02.html. Retrieved 2008-05-13.
- ^ Guido van Rossum "Benevolent dictator for life". Linux Format. 2005-02-01. http://www.linuxformat.co.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=10. Retrieved 2007-11-01.
- ^ http://www.slackware.com/about/
- ^ http://www.ubuntu.com/community/processes/governance
- ^ "Ubuntu founder defuses rumors of impending Microsoft deal". arstechnica.com. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070617-ubuntu-founder-defuses-rumors-of-impending-microsoft-deal.html. Retrieved 2008-05-13.
- ^ "Django committers". http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/internals/committers/.
- ^ "DjangoCon Article". http://arstechnica.com/journals/linux.ars/2008/09/08/ars-at-djangocon-day-one-round-up. Retrieved 2008-09-09.
- ^ "Dries set to be married!". http://willy.boerland.com/myblog/node/6659.
- ^ "Urban Dictionary: BDFL". http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=BDFL.
- ^ "The Way I Work". http://ma.tt/2009/06/the-way-i-work-annotated/. Retrieved 2009-06-20.
- ^ "Continuous Integration with Hudson". https://hudson.dev.java.net/.
