caption birth_place nationality birth_date image article_title name occupation alma_mater
mark spencer at the 2006 o'reilly emerging telephony conference alabama american 08 april 1977 mark spencer.jpg mark spencer -lrb- computer engineer -rrb-
 mark spencer computer engineer auburn university
mark spencer -lrb- computer engineer -rrb-

mark spencer -lrb- born april 8 , 1977 -rrb- is an american computer engineer and is the original author of the gtk + - based instant messaging client gaim -lrb- which has since been renamed to pidgin -rrb- , the l2tp daemon l2tpd and the cheops network user interface .
mark spencer is also the creator of asterisk , a linux-based open-sourced pbx in software .
he is the founder , chairman and cto of digium , an open-source telecommunications supplier most notable for its development and sponsorship of asterisk .
spencer shifted from ceo to chairman and cto in early 2007 .
while attending auburn university , spencer co-oped at adtran when he wrote l2tpd .
he went on to start a linux technical support business .
spencer did not have enough money to buy a pbx -lrb- private branch exchange -rrb- for his company so he decided to write asterisk and later founded digium .
