Join us in celebration of our 5 year anniversary on January 25, by taking a moment today to vote in our 2015 Opensource.com Community Awards.

The People's Choice Award recognizes the community's favorite contributors from 2014. Voting is open from January 19 - 28. We've come up with a list of eight individuals who have made a significant impact—either by contributing multiple articles or being involved in a story that resonated with our community and generated a big response. You may notice that we've excluded previous winners, Community Moderators, and Red Hat associates from the list.

Voting was closed on Wednesday, January 28.

2015 People's Choice Award nominees

Ben Balter

Ben is a government evangelist at GitHub. In 2014, he wrote and shared these articles: How to treat government like an open source project, about how civic geeks can help make progress. Why isn't all government software open source?, on government releasing code and the platforms they use.

Shauna Gordon-McKeon

Shauna is a programmer, organizer, writer, and teacher. She works for OpenHatch and volunteers with the Open Science Collaborative. In 2014, she wrote and shared these articles: Things newcomers to open source rarely ask but often wonder, as part of our Beginners to Open Source Week. 4 ways to make open science easier and Some patients are eager to share their personal data, as part of our Open Science Week. Doctors unite to increase access to quality health information, about Wikipedia's Project Medicine. How being online changes how we think about the traditional research paper, on a new way of curating research.

Matt Micene

Matt is a Solutions Architect and lead engineer for DLT Solutions. In 2014, he wrote these articles: On the hunt for the right open source project?, about what to consider when looking for a new open source project and community to join. The right fit? 4 open source projects evaluated, about his journey to find the right open source project for him to join and his ultimate choice. OpenStack for humanity's fast moving technology, his interview with Niki Acosta, the Director of Cloud Evangelism at Metacloud.

Robin Isard

Robin is the systems librarian at Algoma University where he works primarily with open source technologies. In 2014, he wrote these articles: 5 key insights on the transition from Windows to Linux, from his experience helping others make the switch. 4 words to avoid when negotiating the use of open source at your job, from his experience getting his boss and team to accept and try open source software.

Subhashish Panigrahi

Subha Panigrahi is an educator and open source activist based in Bangalore, India. In 2014, he wrote these articles: Digitize any book in the public domain, on his work to with Indian poetry important to the culture. Books and more are relicensed to Creative Commons, about news from the Wikimedia Foundation. Mozilla brings Indian communities together, about the Indic FirefoxOS L10n Sprint 2014. Open access platform to save the Odia Indian language, on his work to preserve his native culture.

Ben Lloyd Pearson

Ben handles open source operations for the Open Source Group at Samsung, and runs Open Source Today. In 2014, he wrote these articles: Who's using Docker?, about understanding the hype and practical implications of this new technology. Open source goes corporate at Samsung, his interview with Guy Martin, a Senior Strategist for Samsung Research America as a part of the Open Source Group.

Shawn Powers

Shawn is a trainer for CBT Nuggets specializing in Linux. In 2014, he wrote and shared these articles: The sought after Linux professional, from his experience working in the industry and the changing market demand. Want a fulfilling IT career? Learn Linux, for our Careers in Open Source Week.

Mark Radcliffe

Mark is a senior partner who practices corporate securities and intellectual property at DLA Piper. In 2014, he wrote these articles: Top 10 legal issues for free software of 2013, looking ahead for our beginning of the year coverage. GPLv2 goes to court: More decisions from the Versata tarpit, about an important open source license case.

Voting is now closed