Some of the faces behind the distros

When I first migrated to Linux, I bought a nice set of stickers and one of them depicted many smiling penguins. As a heading, you could read "The friendly face of Linux". Today, as I saw anticaptalista's encouraging comment in Megatotoro's blog, it suddenly struck me that there is an element that I have been enjoying since the moment of my migration, something subtle, but powerful. You see, as an ex-Windows user, although I could identify Bill Gates' face (and even Ballmer's), I never received any tangible support from Microsoft. Windows was merely a business.

Linux, on the other hand, has represented an unmatched opportunity to learn and grow because of the intense human interaction of its vibrating communities. For example, as soon as I joined Mandriva's community forum, I was received as a human being, not as a number. The same happened when I posted my first question in Mageia's blog: the prompt reply giving me direction was refreshing. And I cannot describe the feeling I experienced yesterday when I opened my email to find a follow-up message from a Mageia developer taking care of the bug I reported.

There are people behind Linux who get in contact with you in a way that I never saw during my decade as a Windows user. And these people listen to you. What's more, sometimes they RELY ON YOU!
As a tribute to them, I tried to track some of the pictures of the people behind those Penguin OSs that made my work with computers a more enjoyable experience. So, here they are. These are some of the faces behind Linux:

1. Linux Mint's Clement Lefebvre & child (Thanks for your great distro!)
2. The always active Texstar (Billy Reynolds), from PCLinuxOS (noticed the cool Mandriva cap?)
3. Eugeni Dodonov, now the face of Mandriva, the distro that made me dump Windows
4. Anne Nicolas, former Mandriva representative, now Mageia's face.
5. Ozan Çağlayan, (GO, Pardus!)
6. Warren Woodford, the famous Mepis Guy. (Kudos to you for Mepis 11)
7. Sabayon's Fabio Erculiani. (Grazie!)