# Benevolent dictator for life

Benevolent dictator for life (BDFL) is a title given to a small number of open-source software development leaders, typically project founders who retain the final say in disputes or arguments within the community. The phrase originated in 1995 with reference to Guido van Rossum, creator of the Python programming language.

## History

Shortly after Van Rossum joined the Corporation for National Research Initiatives, the term appeared in a follow-up mail by Ken Manheimer to a meeting trying to create a semi-formal group that would oversee Python development and workshops; this initial use included an additional joke of naming Van Rossum the "First Interim BDFL". According to Rossum, the title was most likely created by Ken Manheimer or Barry Warsaw.
In July 2018, Van Rossum announced that he would be stepping down as BDFL of Python without appointing a successor, effectively eliminating the title within the Python community structure.

## Usage

BDFL should not be confused with the more common term for open-source leaders, "benevolent dictator", which was popularized by Eric S. Raymond's essay "Homesteading the Noosphere" (1999).
Among other topics related to hacker culture, Raymond elaborates on how the nature of open source forces the "dictatorship" to keep itself benevolent, since a strong disagreement can lead to the forking of the project under the rule of new leaders.

## Referent candidates

Key :
| † | Deceased |
| Name | Project | Type |
| Sylvain Benner | Spacemacs | Community-driven Emacs distribution |
| Vitalik Buterin | Ethereum | Blockchain-based cryptocurrency |
| Dries Buytaert | Drupal | Content management framework |
| François Chollet | Keras | Deep learning framework |
| Evan Czaplicki | Elm | Front-end web programming language |
| Laurent Destailleur | Dolibarr ERP CRM | Software suite for Enterprise Resource Planning and Customer Relationship Management |
| David Heinemeier Hansson | Ruby on Rails | Web framework |
| Rich Hickey | Clojure | Programming language |
| Adrian Holovaty and Jacob Kaplan-Moss | Django | Web framework |
| Andrew Kelley | Zig | Programming language |
| Xavier Leroy | OCaml | Programming language |
| Haoyuan Li | Alluxio | Data Orchestration System |
| Miles Lubin | JuMP | Mathematical optimization modeling language in Julia |
| Yukihiro Matsumoto (Matz) | Ruby | Programming language |
| Wes McKinney | Pandas | Python data analysis library |
| Gavin Mendel-Gleason | TerminusDB | Open-source graph database for knowledge graph representation |
| Bram Moolenaar† | Vim | Text editor |
| Matt Mullenweg | WordPress | Content management framework |
| Martin Odersky | Scala | Programming language |
| Taylor Otwell | Laravel | Web framework |
| Theo de Raadt | OpenBSD | A Unix-like operating system |
| Arnold Robbins | Awk, Gawk | Programming language |
| Eugen Rochko | Mastodon | Open source, decentralized social network |
| Ton Roosendaal | Blender | 3D computer graphics software |
| Sébastien Ros | Orchard Project | Content management system |
| Mark Shuttleworth | Ubuntu | Linux distribution |
| Jeremy Soller | Redox | Operating system |
| Don Syme | F# | Programming language |
| Linus Torvalds | Linux | Operating system kernel |
| José Valim | Elixir | Programming language |
| Pauli Virtanen | SciPy | Python library used for scientific and technical computing |
| Patrick Volkerding | Slackware | GNU/Linux distribution |
| Nathan Voxland | Liquibase | Database schema management |
| Jimmy Wales | Wikimedia Foundation | Collaborative knowledge project |
| Jeremy Walker | Exercism | Open-source programming education platform |
| Shaun Walker | DotNetNuke | Web application framework |
| Larry Wall | Perl | Programming language |
| Evan You | Vue.js | JavaScript MVVM framework for building user interfaces and single-page applications. |
| Soumith Chintala | PyTorch | Deep learning framework |
| Martin Traverso, Dain Sundstrom, David Phillips | Trino | SQL query engine |
| Kohsuke Kawaguchi | Jenkins | Automation server |
| Gabor de Mooij | RedBeanPHP | Database object relational mapper |
| Bram Cohen | BitTorrent | Peer-to-peer file sharing protocol |
| Walter Bright | D (programming language) | Programming language |
| Ritchie Vink | Polars | Data analysis framework |
| William Falcon | PyTorch Lightning | Deep learning framework |
| Lars Hvam | abapGit | Git client for ABAP |
| Sebastián Ramírez | FastAPI | Web framework for building APIs with Python |
| Bill Hall (gingerBill) | Odin | Programming language |
| Damien Elmes (dae) | Anki | Spaced repetition system |

### Organizational positions

* ↑ CTO of TerminusDB
* ↑ Lead Developer at the WordPress Foundation
* ↑ Chairman of the Blender Foundation
* ↑ Until December 2009, CEO of Canonical Ltd
* ↑ Technical Advisor at the F# Software Foundation
* ↑ Sponsee of the Linux Foundation. Also holds the trademark for Linux