Eyes Above The Waves

Robert O'Callahan. Christian. Repatriate Kiwi. Hacker.

Saturday 5 March 2005

Heroes

Mike Connor got me thinking about unsung heroes of Mozilla development. I'm thinking of people who put in long hours for little pay, who toil away endlessly on grungy code, who endure the endless abuse and demands of the community, who patiently fix up regressions and help newcomers, who do work that no-one notices until things go wrong but without which we'd be nowhere, who have more talent than anybody but will never be seen on the WIRED cover or have their own startup, who have been working on the same unsexy code year after year but keep at it because they know that if they don't do the job, nobody will.

To me, no-one exemplifies this dedication more than Boris Zbarsky. My hat's off to you, Boris, and may you one day receive your due.

Comments

Peter van der Woude
Indeed.
Thanks for all the fixes Boris.
Jed
Amen to that.
I would easily say the Boris has been the most influential dev Mozilla has had these last years, gecko wouldn't be anywhere near where it is today without him.
I salute you Boris.
Adam Hauner
Boris is our real hero. Thank you, Boris.
Simon Paquet
Couldn't have said it better, roc.
Boris is really a great guy, always helpful via mail or IRC and probably the greatest hacker that the community has.
Yusuf Goolamabbas
roc, according to the latest minutes of the staff meeting, Boris has been hired part-time till he finishes school.
Robert O'Callahan
Yusuf: I know, and that's a start, but there's still years of unpaid service to look back on.
michaell
Hear hear. Boris was a major factor in my getting involved - I turned up on a bug day and did some QA. Then I turned up on a couple of days that weren't bug days and Boris imparted some useful clues as to what I should actually be doing in bugzilla. Having people that actually understand the code doing that kind of thing is invaluable in getting people involved.