Top 10 strangest characters in IT

2. Steve Jobs
Shaun Nichols: Iain, we really have to stop putting Steve Jobs or Steve Wozniak at the top of every list we make. That said, Saint Steve most certainly deserves a spot on this list.

The Apple chief executive may be a marketing genius and technological visionary, but he's also more than a little weird. How many consumer electronics companies can trace their entire design philosophy back to a college calligraphy course? It is said that much of Jobs's taste for the simple yet elegant style of Apple's products comes from a calligraphy class he took in his days before Apple.

After founding Apple, it got even stranger. As it grew from a garage operation to a major tech firm, Jobs took a very hands-on approach to running things. He was said to have recruited one engineer by simply unplugging his computer and carrying it over to the Macintosh project office, all while the stunned engineer was sitting in front of his desk.

Then he became chief executive of the company, and it got worse. Jobs's strict management style and unpredictable nature have become legendary, and many who have worked at the company speak of his micromanagement. Tech columnist Dan Lyons once described Apple as "the church of Scientology goes into the computer business", and he wasn't far off in my opinion.

Iain Thomson: Silicon Valley historian Robert X. Cringely once told a tale about Steve Jobs that rings strangely true. In Apple's early days Jobs would wander the corridors, find an employee and ask them: "I think xxx is an asshole. Do you agree?"

If the employee said "no" he would walk on, but if they said "yes" he'd walk with them to someone else and say: "We think xxx is an asshole. Do you agree?" With bosses like that who needs an excuse for an evening with a high tower and a rifle?

The problem is that Jobs has really good ideas. You can put up with a lot so long as you're surfing the winning wave and Jobs is so good for Apple. Seeing how the company languished when he was away shows how Apple is dependent on strangeness.

It helps that Jobs at his best is the consummate salesman. Want a computer you can't modify? Don't like having removable batteries? Want an iPod without a screen? Apple's got the brand for you.

1. Richard Stallman
Iain Thomson: Bill Gates once said that he'd be stunned if there were more than 50 people in the world with as much programming experience in the world as him when he started Microsoft.

Richard Stallman was one of these, but rather than become the richest man in the world he has devoted himself to a vision of how computing should be. In many ways he shares a lot of attributes with Steve Jobs in his self-belief, but peppers his life with such oddity that he had to make the number one spot.

After a knee injury forced him to abandon folk dancing (I'm not making this up) Stallman devoted his time at MIT to polishing his software skills. When DARPA introduced a password system at the computing centre he hacked the system to give unlimited access to those that wanted it.

His trailblazing work at the GNU project has made a world of free software available to all, but Stallman retains his odd side, living a nomadic existence without the trophy house or even a mobile phone to his name. He looks the part of the hairy hacker too. One wonders what government leaders think when Stallman bears down on them, but it certainly works.

He also inspires strangeness in others. Stallman was presented with a Japanese fighting sword after the popular XKCD started publishing strips with him wielding one or two. As Hunter S. Thompson put it: "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."

Shaun Nichols: Not only can Stallman program better than Gates, he can dance better than Wozniak. He may look like an Appalachian hermit, and be hard for journalists to contact (the pre-conditions one must meet before interviewing him are quite extensive,) but Stallman is also a very admirable person.

As Iain mentioned, Stallman was such a brilliant programmer that had he gone commercial, he would likely have made himself a billionaire several times over. Instead, he went completely the other way and devoted his efforts to creating and maintaining free software. One has to admire the person who can turn down millions of guaranteed dollars and opt to give out his work for free, because almost none of us would have done the same thing in Stallman's position.

His vision may also be a bit impractical, however. While Stallman enjoys a more or less lifelong appointment at MIT, there are only so many universities in the world, and while many developers have made a nice living writing Linux applications, the GNU licences have also proved to be difficult for developers to work with, particularly when trying to interact with closed-source outfits such as Microsoft that don't especially enjoying opening up their code to the outside world.

But I digress. Stallman has been an unconventional and highly influential force in the computing world for the past four decades. It's safe to say there is no one like him in the world.