I have to write a report on a 'web personality' someone who has done something significant for or on the web.

[dcdomain]

I'm going with a five minute Power Point presentation over the typical paper. Heck, I might even link to this thread and just give the class an idea on how much of a community this place is. I mean are there any other communities out there that are this closely tied together? I know of some large ones centered around cars, but nothing to this scale really.

I can't find the photo I described in one of the previous posts. If anyone has a link to it or could upload it could you please do so? In addition, does anyone know where I could find the videos I mentioned before?

edit: Oooh, almost forgot to mention NEF! What other community has coined their own terms? NEF, Staples is SUCK! This stuff is gold!

 

[phatcow]

al gore.

 

[Static911]

i triple motion on gore, though your report might be a little bit skimpy

static911

 

[Rendus]

Linus Torvalds.

Maybe it wasn't completely on the "web" (for varying definitions of "web" - are we talking purely HTTP related?), but I'd consider the Linux kernel (and everything else to do with Linux) an AMAZING feat.

Does it have to be a person? How about NCSA - Birthplace of the first graphical browser (Mosaic) and the predecessor to Apache (NCSA httpd)? GNU? The entire Free Software community? Theo De Raadt - head of the OpenBSD project? Larry Wall, creator of perl? Patrick Volkerding, author of Slackware, probably the longest-standing Linux distribution?

Just had to put those out there as options

 

[pamchenko]

what about steve case and how he helped accelerate the introduction of the internet to homes? I'm being serious here...i thk AOL was a big part of making the internet as popular as it is.

 

[Jfur]

Vint Cerf

[from the ICANN website]:

VINTON G. CERF

Vinton G. Cerf is senior vice president of Internet Architecture and Technology for WorldCom. Cerf is the co-designer of the TCP/IP protocol, the communications protocol that gave birth to the Internet and which is commonly used today. In December 1997, President Clinton presented the U.S. National Medal of Technology to Cerf and his partner, Robert E. Kahn, for founding and developing the Internet.

Prior to rejoining MCI in 1994, Cerf was vice president of the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI). As vice president of MCI Digital Information Services from 1982-1986, he led the engineering of MCI Mail, the first commercial email service to be connected to the Internet.

During his tenure from 1976-1982 with the U.S. Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Cerf played a key role leading the development of Internet and Internet-related data packet and security technologies.

Cerf served as founding president of the Internet Society from 1992-1995 and as the chairman of the Board from 1998-1999. He is a fellow of the IEEE, ACM, American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering.

Cerf holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from Stanford University and Master of Science and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from UCLA. He also holds honorary Doctorates from the University of the Balearic Islands, ETH in Switzerland, Capitol College and Gettysburg College.

Click here for Vint's personal homepage.

 

[thEnEuRoMancER]

Let's not forget Mahir!!!!

 

[rubix]

how about amir the "i kiss you" guy. while everyone else will have these boring lame reports on boring people you'll have amir!

 

[Czar]

Do Stile on Stileproject, it would be very interesting

 

[classy]

Isn't Sysopt like the oldest internet hardware site? I believe they were like a pioneer for websites like this one and others.

 

[Nemesis77]

Jarkko "WiZ" Oikarinen. The guy who invented IRC.