Richard Stallman, GNU founder
Position: 40 Last year: Not ranked
Why? Open source and anti-plagiarist crusader
Agree with panel rating?
Richard Stallman reappears on the Agenda Setters list after a brief absence in 2006.
Founder of the GNU Project and the Free Software Foundation, Stallman reappears in the rankings for bringing popular free software tools into the public domain, developing the open-source software replacement for Unix and campaigning against software plagiarists.
Outspoken as ever, Stallman has also spent considerable time over the past 12 months supporting local efforts in Cuba to bring open source to the country's government.
The panel decided that this "unusual man", who comes up again and again in the Agenda Setters list, should reappear in the rankings for his huge following and ongoing campaigning for the Cuban open-source cause.
Take a walk down memory lane - and find out who made the agenda setters poll in years past
"Blogging's definitely got to the point where there're enough mainstream consumers watching it for the top bloggers to be regarded as agenda setters."
Michael Smith,
Agenda Setters panellist
"Open source gets more important rather than being something that will get squeezed out of the enterprise."
Simon Briskman,
Agenda Setters panellist
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Content featuring Richard Stallman
Open software guru, Richard Stallman, is an Agenda Setters regular having made the list numerous times before but he drops a few places in 2009, from number 30 in 2008. Stallman founded the GNU Project in 1984 to develop a Unix-like software kernel...
This week open source guru Richard Stallman puts a spanner in the works of the cloud computing trend - prompting some heated responses. Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation and creator of the GNU operating system, has slammed...
A frequent Agenda Setter, Richard Stallman makes the list again this year for his continuing advocacy of free and open source software. Founder of the GNU Project and the Free Software Foundation, Stallman "single-handedly" began this movement...
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Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation and creator of the GNU operating system, has slammed cloud computing as "stupidity" that ultimately will result in vendor lock-in and escalating costs.
Free-software advocate Richard Stallman has spoken out against the association of open-source software with London's Oyster-card system. In an email sent to silicon.com sister site ZDNet.co.uk on Monday, Stallman criticised the use of open-source...
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