Eric S. Raymond

Eric S. Raymond (born 4 December, 1957) is an developer of and evangelist for open source software, as well as an author and columnist. fetchmail is the software contribution Raymond is best known for, but today he maintains a variety of open source packages including gpsd. Raymond is best known for writing the Jargon File and it's print version The New Hacker's Dictionary, and for writing the essay The Cathederal and the Bazaar, which described the philosophy and logic underlying the open source movement including the idea that "many eyes make all bugs shallow" - that instead of having a small group of people in a company working on fixing problems, it is more effective to let everyone get involved.

Raymond is very public about his libertarian politics and is an active supporter of the Libertarian Party in the United States. He is also a self-proclaimed "gun nut" and supporter of the Second Amendment.