Personas

John the Coder

Runs a small team
Has a suspicious boss
Has 12 developers to coordinate
Knows how to program but hasn't seen actual code in a year
Really gets along with his team, but one of them seems to be not doing enough, and that worries him.
Pretty much always has one (or three!) important deadlines to meet
Often being hassled by stakeholders from other departments

Small contributions across a huge range of _stuff_
Gets way too much email
Likes to stay involved
Motivated by community as much as credit
Needs to keep up-to-date with everything happening in the distro
Has cyclic stressful months (before every release)
Lives in the terminal, only uses GUI when forced
Has used Launchpad for years, knows it better than some of the devs
Has long since changed the way she works to work around broken tools -- it's the Debian way
Reached the top of the community game ages ago. Not motivated by increased standing
Packages other peoples software

Works in web development with PHP and MySQL
Uses SVN and a custom-made ticketing system
Uses as much open source software as he can, but is stuck with a few proprietary apps
Is interested in getting things done, doesn't care about communities
Has a dual-boot Ubuntu install at home, but has to use Windows at work, and his company use Fedora on servers.
Hasn't ever committed to an Open Source project. He'd like to, but he's a bit scared, since a lot of these people are uber-geeks.
When Matthew asks a technical question on an Internet forum (mailing list, IRC, whatever), it's always very, very carefully phrased. He's savvy enough to know that badly-asked questions draw fire, and that's the last thing he wants. He takes a long time to ask them, and is always a little disappointed when they don't get answered.