Open-Source Saviour?
Well, Gates and Jobs were Chairmen/CEO types. When you speak of "Linux," there's no equivalent here. You're not talking about a company. Moreover though, you're not just talking about an OS either, but really an entire culture -- and an extremely fragmented one at that. There is no unifying entity around whom/which all factions can rally.
Linus Torvalds himself would be the obvious choice, except for the simple fact that when the young Finnish student decided create this new operating system kernel, it was FREE -- a personal project -- just a hobby. He's the titular "head" of Linux, but no more than the Queen of England is the British sovereign authority. He has a job, and it's not at Linux, Inc. His bottom line is not impacted by sales of Linux.
I suppose Richard Stallman would tell you he is the one true saviour of open-source, but a self-made proclamation and a neckbeard do not a messiah make. I mean, sure he has a cool monogrammatic moniker and a foundation, but he wields no real power.
People listened to Gates and Jobs because they were both charming & geek-chic in their own quirky ways, and yet they were both very shrewd, cut-throat businessmen that took their shareholders along on a fantastic voyage to the top. Every geek wanted to be them, and their names became ubiquitous in every household.
Ubuntu's Shuttleworth is probably the closest candidate for the saviour job right now. He's pretty enough, but Unity and the Trinity are entirely different concepts...
The real problem is that the landscape has wholly changed, and as it stands, we'll never see an "open source saviour," per se. In our brave new Goog-Tube-Face-Twit-Amaz-ulu-Wiki-flix-Bing-hoo!-world of 140 characters or less, I don't think our culture as a whole has the attention span to devote to a single saviour.
No, if you want an industry-defining savior, you have to follow the money. Make no mistake, that is where the cult of personality is born. By it's very nature, however, "open-source" is decentralized and moneyless.
Ergo, there is no single eye of this hurricane from whence a savior shall arise. Sorry, but there will never be one single Linux distro to rule them all because it would inadvertently have to become a proprietary platform, and that whole GPL thing kinda throws a gorilla-sized monkey wrench in that.
As for me, I neither want nor need an "Open-Source Saviour." I'm a man who knows a thing or two, you know what Im saying? I'm Oppan Gangnam style...
