Chris Grams

Maybe he is... but a design dictator (like Steve Jobs) or a benevolent design dictator (like Linus might be) would need to always be thinking of design first, with all other things falling lower on the priority list in order to keep the design standards high enough to produce truly great design.

Like or hate Apple, one has to admit that they place a higher priority on design than most companies or communities do. Many other things are sacrificed to please the gods of design (how hard must we fight to keep our firewire port being one example!).

I don't have any personal experience with Linus to know whether he puts design, either Big D or little d, first... maybe others do and could comment?

Does gentoo have a benevolent design dictator then? Is it Daniel Robbins? Or are there others in the community who also care about design as passionately?