AS03: The free spirits

From open source advocates to the lowly programmer or activist not in it for the cash, why are 'free spirits' proving as influential as tech billionaires these days? Tony Hallett investigates one of the defining parts of this year's silicon.com Agenda Setters list…

Besides the number of politicos and public sector-oriented individuals on this year's top 50, it is noticeable that for every billionaire there is someone we might call a 'free spirit', in both the open source and anti-advanced capitalism senses.

Starting as close to the medal positions as possible, Hu Jintao (in at 4) now heads a country of over a billion possible consumers - consumers that the state believes shouldn't be making Western companies rich, or maybe even any commercial company. So we have the real possibility that not only will vendors such as Motorola focus on Linux in China but that China and neighbours Japan and South Korea will get together to come up with a Linux-based alternative to Windows, much to the chagrin of Bill and Steve across the Pacific.

Meanwhile, if you've read this far, you'll be waiting for a mention of Mr Torvalds himself. The creator of the Linux operating system is in for a fourth year, at his highest position yet - number 5, compared to 21, 10 and 22 over the last three years.

Let's not forget that he's not anti-money. For him, Linux started as an intellectual puzzle, all about a better way of developing software. Of course now thousands of major user organisations, developers and companies such as Dell, HP, IBM and Oracle share at least some of his vision - though it'd be a bit much to call profit-hungry vendors 'free spirits'.

Arguably the open source hero of the year, and a man who could be setting an agenda for municipalities the world over, is Christian Ude. Name doesn't ring a bell? For the rest of this analysis go to this page.