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Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

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«Traveling is a fool’s paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.»

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Benevolent Dictator For Life (BDFL) is a title given to a small number of open-source software-developmentleaders, typically project founders who retain the final say in disputes or arguments within the community.The coinage originated in 1995 with reference to Guido van Rossum, creator of the Python programming language.^[1][2] Shortly after van Rossum joined the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI) it appeared in 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.

Examples of people sometimes referred to as Benevolent Dictator For Life

• Guido van Rossum, creator of Python^[4][5]
• Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux^[6]
• Larry Wall, the originator of Perl
• Patrick Volkerding, the creator of Slackware^[7]
• 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^[8][9]
• Adrian Holovaty and Jacob Kaplan-Moss, for Django^[10][11]
• Dries Buytaert, founder and leader of the Drupal project^[12][13]
• Ryan Dahl, the creator of Node.js^[14]
• Steve Coast, the founder of OpenStreetMap^[15]
• Tony Locke, creator of Chellow^{[citation needed]}
• Rasmus Lerdorf, the creator of PHP^[16]
• Theo de Raadt, the creator of OpenBSD^{[citation needed]}
• Rich Hickey, the creator of Clojure^{[citation needed]}
• Ton Roosendaal, the creator of Blender (software)^{[citation needed]}

References

1. ^ ^ab Guido van Rossum (July 31, 2008). « Origin of BDFL ». Retrieved 2008-08-01.
2. ^« Python Creator Scripts Inside Google ». www.eweek.com. Retrieved 2008-05-13.
3. ^ Eric S. Raymond. « Homesteading the Noosphere ». Retrieved 2008-08-01.
4. ^« The Four Hundred–Next Up on the System i: Python ». www.itjungle.com. Retrieved 2008-05-13.
5. ^ Guido van Rossum « Benevolent dictator for life ». Linux Format. 2005-02-01. Retrieved 2007-11-01.^{[dead link]}
6. ^ Ingo, Henrik (2006). « Benevolent dictator ». Open Life: The Philosophy of Open Source. ISBN978-1-84728-611-6. Retrieved 2011-03-05.
7. ^« Slackware’s « About » page ».
8. ^« About Ubuntu: Governance ». Canonical Ltd. Retrieved 2011-03-05.
9. ^« Ubuntu founder defuses rumors of impending Microsoft deal ». arstechnica.com. Retrieved 2008-05-13.
10. ^« Django committers ».
11. ^« DjangoCon Article ». Retrieved 2008-09-09.
12. ^« Dries set to be married! ».
13. ^« Urban Dictionary: BDFL ».
14. ^« Proposed Node v2 API Specification Draft ».
15. ^« BDFL and moderation ». opengeodata.org. Retrieved 2010-08-11.
16. ^ Marneweck, Jacques (2006-02-28). « Jacques Marneweck’s Blog: Rasmus’s no-framework PHP MVC framework ». Powertrip.co.za. Retrieved 2011-06-01.

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In computing lore, Microsoft is the monopolistic beast who crushes the creative and entrepreneurial aspirations of small, open-source (or non-proprietary) developers. Apple, on the other hand, is one of the « good guys. » It would certainly seem to be true, since OS X is built upon the community-coded FreeBSD kernel and Safari uses open-source technology called WebKit [source: Cubrilovic].

The irony is that Apple, the friend of open source, is now viewed by many techies as more proprietary than Microsoft [source: Asay]. The complaint, echoed by many open-source software developers, is that Apple builds its products by using the very best open-source technology and then closes them off to the public behind hermetically sealed plastic cases and teams of lawyers.

For example, Apple’s lawyers recently pressured a small group of Linux programmers to stop online discussions of reverse engineering iTunes to figure out how to make iPods work with software other than iTunes. Apple says that’s illegal [source: McMillan]. Apple only wants iPod to work with iTunes and it only wants iPhone users to download new applications through its own online App Store. This is hugely frustrating for developers who have to win the fickle approval of Apple before they can distribute their software to millions of willing consumers.

In a recent case, Apple rejected an e-book reader for the iPhone because it could access a text version of the « Kama Sutra » — with illustrations — and the iPhone’s built-in Safari browser already had that capability [source: Foresman]. Apple also filed suit against a Florida tech company after it tried to sell inexpensive computers made from standard PC parts that run OS X [source: Foresman].

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