It's like being born...you just know you owe someone more than you could ever pay... but you don't know who...

Thanks ThunderRd, now I know one of the "Whos"

“Note that nobody reads every post in linux-kernel [note to readers: LKML, the Linux Kernel Mailing List, a mailing list with extremely heavy traffic, normally 300-500 posts a day - (http://www.tux.org/lkml/)]. In fact, nobody who expects to have time left over to actually do any real kernel work will read even half. Except Alan Cox, but he’s actually not human, but about a thousand gnomes working in under-ground caves in Swansea. None of the individual gnomes read all the postings either, they just work together really well. ”

Linus Torvalds

Linus can be as generous and sweet in his praise as he is abrasive and sharp in his criticism.
No easy thing to watch over Linux as it wanders into the world.