Open source is the practice of granting universal access to a product’s design or blueprint, and allowing its redistribution, including subsequent improvements to it by anyone. Open source code is meant to be a collaborative effort, where programmers improve upon the source code and share the changes within the community. By reducing the restrictions of copyright, open source significantly decreases the costs to the consumer and the creators of derivative works. In a 2015 survey Black Duck Software estimated 78% of companies are now running open source.
In a recent interview with Forbes, Jim Whitehurst the CEO of Red Hat, one earliest pioneers in the open source world, said “Innovation is happening first in open source. If you’re doing any type of a scale-out infrastructure, it’s probably going to be open source. If you’re looking at implementing a DevOps process, you’ll want to be using open source. If you’re going to do anything with big data, it’s going to be open source. And, of course, the cloud was born using open source software”.
This free exchange of knowledge and ideas has inspired increased sharing and transparency in areas other including biotechnology, electronics, digital content, government, medicine, science and engineering.
WHAT ARE THE EXPERTS SAYING?
We reached out to some of the top 20 influencers to ask them for their views on Open Source. We spoke to Rachel White (#3), Justine Tunney (#15) and Rikki Endsley. Be sure to follow them to stay up to date on the best content and resources on Open Source!
Rachel White – Front End Engineer at IBM Watson
“The most exciting part of open source for me is how a project grows once you put it out in the world. Once other people get their hands on the code, the project can evolve into really awesome things you would have never even thought of. That being said, Open Source absolutely needs more Code of Conducts, to be more inclusive, and should foster growth from new developers who are interested in contributing while continuing to support existing large contributors. Meritocracy is a myth put into place by people who want to control the status quo, and doesn’t help advance anything. I urge anyone interested in Open Source to take a look at Coralina Ada’s Code of Conduct. Other resources worth noting, reading the Meritocracy Myth , supporting your local Girl & Black Girls CODE“
Justine Tunney
“If we wish to make open source great again, then we must restore the original authentic values that made it great in the first place. These values include, but are not limited to: meritocracy, passion for engineering, the complete authority of benevolent dictators whose legitimacy derives from having been the original founders of their projects, and an uncompromising devotion to superior technical solutions.”
Rikki Endsley – Community Manager at Opensource.com
“Finding inspiring stories about open source projects and communities isn’t hard. Keeping up with all of them is a lot harder. Fortunately, connecting through social media is a great way to learn about and participate in open source projects all over the world, not just in our own neighborhoods.”
MAPPING THE COMMUNITY
We were very interested in seeing which Open Source professionals and brands were leading the online discussion, so we analysed 700K+ tweets from November 16th 2015 to February 4th 2016 mentioning the keywords “Open Source” OR opensource. We then identified the top 100 most influential brands and individuals leading the discussion on Twitter. What we discovered was a very engaged community, with much discussion between individuals and brands. Below you can see a network map of the online conversation created with our Influencer Relationship Management software (IRM). Be sure to click on the map to enjoy the full size network diagram in greater detail.
Below you can see another network map created with our Influencer Relationship Management software (IRM) showing the #1 Influencer Scott Hanselman at the centre, and the conversations to and from the different influencers in his field. If you are interested in learning more about identifying, managing and engaging with influencers click here to get in touch!
TOP 100 INDIVIDUALS
We looked at all the individuals engaging on Twitter to bring you a list of the top 100 most influential individuals in the Open Source landscape.
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| Rank | Twitter Handle | Name | Company | Influencer Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | @shanselman | Scott Hanselman | Microsoft | 40.17 |
| 2 | @nayafia | Nadia Eghbal | helloimnadia.com | 35.49 |
| 3 | @ohhoe | Rachel White | IBM Watson | 35.09 |
| 4 | @emangare | Eduardo Mangarelli | Microsoft | 24 |
| 5 | @KevinBankston | Kevin Bankston | New America | 23.19 |
| 6 | @johnbiggs | John Biggs | Freemit | 20.85 |
| 7 | @mjasay | Matt Asay | Adobe | 19.45 |
| 8 | @BrendanEich | BrendanEich | brendaneich.com | 19.25 |
| 9 | @jeresig | John Resig | Khan Academy | 18.67 |
| 10 | @marco_preuss | marcopreuss | Kaspersky Lab | 18.35 |
| 11 | @billwagner | billwagner | Humanitarian Toolbox | 17.41 |
| 12 | @kelseyhightower | Kelsey Hightower | 17.32 | |
| 13 | @cra | Chris Aniszczyk | CNCF.io | 16.9 |
| 14 | @janl | Jan Lehnardt | Neighbourhood.ie | 16.46 |
| 15 | @JustineTunney | Justine Tunney | github.com/jart | 15.46 |
| 16 | @rikkiends | Rikki Endsley | Opensource.com. | 14.16 |
| 17 | @jpetazzo | Jérôme Petazzoni | Docker | 13.89 |
| 18 | @tomdale | Tom Dale | Tilde | 13.73 |
| 19 | @ivelini | Ivelin Ivanov | TeleStax | 13.11 |
| 20 | @davecheney | Dave Cheney | Canonical | 12.66 |
| 21 | @searls | Justin Searls | test double | 12.47 |
| 22 | @joemccann | Joe McCann | NodeSource | 12.38 |
| 23 | @thegrugq | the grugq | Independent Researcher | 12.15 |
| 24 | @larsklint | Lars Klint | Pluralsight | 11.84 |
| 25 | @webRat | Todd Rafferty | Wrecking Ball Media Group | 11.81 |
| 26 | @sindresorhus | Sindresaurus | sindresorhus.com | 11.76 |
| 27 | @daleharvey | Dale Harvey | Mozilla | 11.64 |
| 28 | @CoralineAda | Coraline Ada Ehmke | Healthfinch | 10.68 |
| 29 | @i_robin | Robin Muilwijk | Opensource.com | 10.51 |
| 30 | @Vjeux | Vjeux | 10.29 | |
| 31 | @elisee | Élisée | Sparklin Labs | 10.2 |
| 32 | @Don_Watkins | Don Watkins | Opensource.com | 10.07 |
| 33 | @DAC_dev | Adam Cameron | Hostelworld Group | 10.07 |
| 34 | @solardiz | Solar Designer | Openwall | 10.03 |
| 35 | @tsmith | Ty Smith | 10.01 | |
| 36 | @swardley | swardley | CSC Leading Edge Forum | 9.88 |
| 37 | @Dries | Dries Buytaert | Drupal Association | 9.74 |
| 38 | @jonobacon | Jono Bacon | Github | 9.58 |
| 39 | @pkafei | Portia Burton | Atlantic | 9.35 |
| 40 | @DrPizza | Peter Bright | Ars Technica | 9.21 |
| 41 | @JWhitehurst | Jim Whitehurst | Red Hat News | 9.02 |
| 42 | @jlwallen | Jack Wallen | TechRepublic | 8.88 |
| 43 | @kentcdodds | Kent C. Dodds | PayPal | 8.85 |
| 44 | @frazelledazzell | jessie frazelle | Docker | 8.71 |
| 45 | @webmink | Simon Phipps | Meshed Insights | 8.33 |
| 46 | @philshapiro | Phil Shapiro | Takoma Park Maryland Library | 8.22 |
| 47 | @hichrisfabian | christopher fabian | UNICEF | 8.04 |
| 48 | @jesslynnrose | Jessica Rose | DreamFactory Software | 7.89 |
| 49 | @jesse_squires | Jesse Squires | 7.79 | |
| 50 | @yaypie | Ryan Grove | Yahoo! | 7.67 |
TOP 100 BRANDS
In the top 100 brands we can find a great selection of brands and industry resources like Open Source Way, Docker and Info World as well heavyweights such as Microsoft, IBM and Fujitsu.
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| Rank | Twitter Handle | Name | Influencer Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | @opensourceway | Open Source Way | 100 |
| 2 | @TechCrunch | TechCrunch | 72.26 |
| 3 | @docker | Docker | 55.49 |
| 4 | @Azure | Microsoft Azure | 36.19 |
| 5 | @OpenSourceOrg | OpenSourceInitiative | 31.78 |
| 6 | @OpenAtMicrosoft | Open at Microsoft | 31.1 |
| 7 | @OpenSource_VR | OSVR | 30.3 |
| 8 | @OpenWorldForum | OpenWorldForum | 30.14 |
| 9 | @linuxfoundation | The Linux Foundation | 27.57 |
| 10 | @VisualStudio | Visual Studio | 24.44 |
| 11 | @ZDNet | ZDNet | 23.38 |
| 12 | @infoworld | InfoWorld | 22.42 |
| 13 | @msdev | Microsoft Developer | 21.96 |
| 14 | @arstechnica | Ars Technica | 21.23 |
| 15 | @gradle | Gradle Inc. | 21.09 |
| 16 | @UNICEFinnovate | UNICEF Innovation | 20.59 |
| 17 | @jsconf | JSConf Last Call | 17.77 |
| 18 | @VentureBeat | VentureBeat | 15.48 |
| 19 | @nixcraft | nixCraft | 14.29 |
| 20 | @hackaday | hackaday | 14.26 |
| 21 | @RailsGirlsSoC | Rails Girls SoC | 13.83 |
| 22 | @IBM | IBM | 12.89 |
| 23 | @TechRepublic | TechRepublic | 12.55 |
| 24 | @CIOonline | CIO.com | 12.45 |
| 25 | @MSEdgeDev | Microsoft Edge Dev | 11.64 |
| 26 | @qtproject | Qt Project | 11.15 |
| 27 | @Fujitsu_Global | Fujitsu Global | 9.68 |
| 28 | @arduino | Arduino | 9.66 |
| 29 | @gigasquid | Gigasquid | 9.32 |
| 30 | @MyceliumCom | Mycelium.com | 9.31 |
| 31 | @DigitalTrends | Digital Trends | 8.7 |
| 32 | @RedHatNews | Red Hat, Inc. | 8.44 |
| 33 | @fossasia | FOSSASIA | 7.98 |
| 34 | @ibmmobile | IBM Mobile | 7.7 |
| 35 | @OReillyMedia | O’Reilly Media | 7.66 |
| 36 | @brooklyn_js | BrooklynJS | 7.58 |
| 37 | @WIREDInsider | WIRED Insider | 7.58 |
| 38 | @wordpressdotcom | WordPress.com | 7.43 |
| 39 | @TheASF | Apache – The ASF | 7.39 |
| 40 | @ErlangSolutions | Erlang Solutions | 7.33 |
| 41 | @IBMbigdata | IBM Big Data | 7.32 |
| 42 | @BSDmag | BSD magazine | 7.06 |
| 43 | @SparklinLabs | Sparklin Labs | 7.03 |
| 44 | @thenewstack | the new stack | 7 |
| 45 | @casaJasmina | casajasmina | 6.91 |
| 46 | @keen_io | Keen IO | 6.79 |
| 47 | @sourceforge | sourceforge | 6.78 |
| 48 | @SwiftSandbox | Swift Open Source | 6.59 |
| 49 | @SUSE | SUSE | 6.5 |
| 50 | @Razer | RΛZΞR | 8.4 |
At Onalytica we love building these lists and want to give back to our loyal readers as much as we can. If you’re interested in other topics (such as Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, Internet of Things, Big Data) be sure to have a gander on our blog or why not propose some topics to us on twitter? We also build some very cool software to manage all of these influencers. Get a free demo today by clicking the button below!
Disclaimer: As ever with these lists, it must be stressed that the ranking is by no means a definitive measurement of influence, as there is no such thing. The brands and individuals listed are undoubtedly influential when it comes to driving discussion in the Open Source debate.
The PageRank based methodology we use to extract influencers on a particular topic takes into account the number and quality of contextual references that a user receives. These calculations are independent of a user’s number of followers, but we do filter our lists based on how much a user is engaged in the conversation and the influence they drive through their networks.
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TOP 100 INFLUENCERS AND BRANDS
Download this free report which reveals the top 100 open source influencers and brands