Who are we?

Mike founded the project in the summer of 2002 and still leads it today. He writes prototypes of new features then lets his crack team of code commandos actually make them work. He's a student at Durham University in the UK, and also works part-time for Codeweavers on the Wine project.

He likes Royksopp and cheese/tuna/tikka-masala sauce sandwiches. In May 2006 he wrote an article on the lecturers pay dispute.

Hongli was the first to join this motley crew, a few months after the autopackage project was launched. He's worked on nearly everything from the core code to the GTK+ graphical frontend. His most recent accomplishment was implementing the binary delta based C++ support originally suggested by Tim.

Hongli is a tri-lingual anime addict with a flair for the dramatic. He is the only person in the world who does not have a mobile phone (yet).

Curtis joined the project back in the early days and has been with us ever since. The core code is his home: whilst Mike and Hongli are off fighting dragons in the GNU libraries and toolchain, he sallies forth into the grasslands of Tux's realm to slay bugs and build new features, which are too numerous to list.

During the day Curtis does mechanical engineering for Caterpillar, and by night he romances Parisien maidens.

Isak came to us from the PureAdmin project which he maintains. His guru-like knowledge of the GNU translation infrastructure was immediately put to work and today he takes care of co-ordinating translators and other localization tasks. This is great because Mike knows sweet FA about how it all works. Aided on his mission by Curtis who has written a lot of the code to support translated package metadata, Isak continually works towards the destruction of the darkest tower: Babel itself.

When not being an ambassador to the world, Isak builds robots that play football.

Rykel hails from Singapore, and brings a talent to the table most open source projects lack: he's a direct sales professional. A new Linux user who isn't a programmer, he found other ways to make himself useful including promoting the project on user forums and answering questions from end users. He has also been active in spreading the word and telling developers about the project.

When not selling Autopackage, Rykel sells all manner of household goods. He keeps two budgies and goldfish as pets. He is an expert in the biology of cockroaches.

Dave joined our little IRC channel three years ago, and never left. A professional lurker, Dave has nonetheless contributed in many ways: he's written new features and uses his knowledge of server administration to keep us from doing stupid things. His most recent contribution is an RSS feed for the packages list. Perhaps more importantly, he's always been there to egg us on when the going got tough.

Dave is deputy editor for AllAboutGames, a magazine targeted at pro gamers. In his spare time he juggles knives with the hope of one day joining the Russian circus. As yet, they haven't come for him ... but one day they will.

Tim has been a huge help in getting Autopackage off the ground and accepted. By producing the Gaim package, he has introduced thousands of new users to the project. Visitors from the Gaim download page still make up the bulk of our referral traffic. But Tim doesn't just help spread the word: he is also an active participant on the list, often providing valuable insight and opinions on the direction of the project.

Tim lives in the American south, and in his spare time breeds raccoons.

Taj has been instrumental in improving the website. He was the driving force behind the user forums which proved a great success, and has also set up a Wiki. Taj also takes part in the mailing lists and user forums, spreading the word and putting people on the right track.

Taj is a talented musician who plays the fiddle. He also wrestles leopards.

The man is a mystery, an enigma, a multi-faceted conundrum. Who is he? Where does he come from? What does he do? We can answer the last question easily enough: he maintains the Qt frontend for KDE users. He also wrote the package list code. All else is shrouded in the fog of anonymity.

Filip was an early contributor to the project with his Visual LDD tool. Unlike regular "ldd", this program shows a tree of ELF dependencies allowing you to find out exactly what is loading any particular piece of code. Filip has also proved a valuable member of the testing community.

When not hosting big fat Greek weddings, Filip runs a shipping firm that supplies America with 90% of its anchovies. Be warned, this man is more powerful than you can possibly imagine!

During his spare time, Peter operates a nursing home for elderly computers and writes satirical screeds for fun.