I know that the original question was "Who are the top 5 OSS thought leaders", and that's been covered by several folks already. I'm going to ask a similar, but different question.
Who are the top 5 entities that have brought OSS into everyday (enterprise & commercial) use? This is less a list of 1. PHP guys (Rasmus Lerdorf, Zeev Suraski & Andi Gutmans): How many websites you use today are running PHP? PHP enabled a whole class of "non-techies" to become techie enough to throw up a website with dynamic content or modify existing templates and a legion of startups to get stuff done quickly and on the cheap.
2. IBM & HP: It's unlikely that Linux would have received enterprise acceptance from CIOs without the backing of major IT vendors such as IBM & HP. The growth of Linux no longer relies on the blessing of major IT vendors, but without the early investments and advertising from IBM & HP, it's hard to say we'd see Linux adoption where it is today. And both have continued to support OSS by their participation in OSS projects, contributing code, paying key OSS developers to work on their respective OSS projects, and driving revenue from hardware, support and services around OSS. (Note: I'd say IBM has done more around OSS than HP, but that's because I'm more familiar with IBM's efforts.) Oh yeah, IBM & HP benefited nicely from their backing of Linux & OSS.nothing wrong with that :-)
3. Stallman/Linus: Hard to have an OSS list of any kind, especially Comments
Top 5 OSS Action Leaders
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