Tom Lane (Open Source Software Developer)

Infobox_Scientist
name = Tom Lane
birth_date = birth date|1955|9|18
birth_place = Madrid, Spain
residence = U.S.
nationality =
field = Computer Science
alma_mater = Carnegie Mellon University
known_for = The Independent JPEG Group (IJG) PostgreSQL, Portable Network Graphics (PNG)

Tom Lane is a computer scientist dedicated to Open source software. In a 2000 study, he was cited as one of the leading contributors to Open Source software. [cite web|url=http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_7/ghosh/|title=The Orbiten Free Software Survey|author=Rishab Aiyer Ghosh and Vipual Ved Prakash|date=2000-05-10|accessdate= (The Orbiten Free Software Survey)]

Tom Lane's contributions to Open source include:
* Organizer of the Independent JPEG Group (IJG) [cite web|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=jCqRwa0T81kC&pg=PA301&lpg=PA301&dq=%22Organizer+of+the+Independent+JPEG+Group%22&source=web&ots=7CNdkKB-nu&sig=K8lasgz6-RfJg7qsBkWpnrl9ZrY&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result|title=Introduction to Information Theory and Data Compression|author=Darrel R. Hankerson, Greg A. Harris, Peter Dexter Johnson|date=|accessdate=]
* Member of the core steering committe of PostgreSQL [cite web|url=http://www.postgresql.org/community/contributors/|title=PostgreSQL.org website|author=|date=|accessdate=]
* Co-author of the Portable Network Graphics (PNG) Specification [cite web|url=http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/spec/pngspec-index.html|title=Portable Network Graphics (PNG) Specification and Extensions|author= Thomas Boutell and Tom Lane|date=|accessdate=]
* Member of the Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) advisory committee

Education and academic work

Tom holds a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, 1978 and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University, 1990.

Tom occasionally lectures at Carnegie Mellon University and other places.

PostgreSQL

Tom Lane is a member of the core PostgreSQL development team. He is involved in all aspects of PostgreSQL, including new features, performance improvements, and bug evaluation and fixes.

Independent JPG Group (IJG)

IJG is an informal group that writes and distributes a widely used free library for JPEG image compression. The IJG is arguably one of the important early open source groups and a major reason why the JPEG image format is a standard.

The IJG develops and maintains libjpeg, a library written entirely in C which contains a widely-used implementation of a JPEG decoder, JPEG encoder and other JPEG utilities.

PNG

The original specification for the Portable Network Graphics (PNG), version 1.0, was written by Thomas Boutell and Tom Lane, with contributions by many others.

Tom Lane is a Contributing Editor for PNG Specification, Version 1.1.

TIFF

Tom Lane is a member of the Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) advisory committee.

Works

* [http://www.faqs.org/faqs/jpeg-faq/part1/preamble.html Thomas G. Lane, JPEG FAQ]
* [http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/os2002/view/e_sess/2681 Thomas G. Lane, PostgreSQL Concurrency Issues ]
* [http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=100196 Thomas G. Lane, User interface software structures]
* [http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.50.6570 Thomas G. Lane, Studying Software Architecture Through Design Spaces and Rules]

Humor

* In disputing a JPEG patent claim. "The patent describes a three-way symbol classification; the closest analog in JPEG is a two-way classification. If the jury can count higher than two, the case will fail." [cite web|url=http://www.networkworld.com/news/2002/0719jpeg.html|title=Forgent claims JPEG patent; others cry foul|author=Gillian Law|date=2002-07-02|accessdate=2007-09-11 (NetworkWorld article)]

* In describing the attention to detail of another software company "The Single Unix Spec says that getopt() is supposed to be defined by , but I guess reading the spec closely is not a hobby in Redmond..." [cite web|url=http://www.mail-archive.com/[e-mail]/msg52400.html|title=pgsql-hackers forum|author=Tom Lane|date=2004-11-19|accessdate=2007-09-11]

* In contributing to "The Only Coke Machine on the Internet" [cite web|url=http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~coke/history_long.txt|title=The Only Coke Machine on the Internet|author=|date=|accessdate=] "Since time immemorial (well, maybe 1970) the Carnegie-Mellon CS department has maintained a departmental Coke machine which sells bottles of Coke for a dime or so less than other vending machines around campus. As no Real Programmer can function without caffeine, the machine is very popular..."

* On idiotic benchmark comparisons "Try to carry 500 people from Los Angeles to Tokyo in an F-15. No? Try to win a dogfight in a 747. No? But they both fly, so it must be useful to compare them... especially on the basis of the most simplistic test case you can think of. For extra points, use *only one* test case. Perhaps this paper can be described as "comparing an F-15 to a 747 on the basis of required runway length". [cite web|url=http://www.mail-archive.com/[e-mail]/msg93043.html|title=Re: Database performance comparison paper.|author=|date=|accessdate=]

In Modern Culture

* Mentioned in the game "Doom 3" readme file [cite web|url=http://www.nd80usa.net/slicks/doom3docs/htm/readme.htm|title=Doom 3 Readme File|author=|date=|accessdate=]
* Partially responsible for the standardization of JPEG as the dominant computer image format on the World Wide Web

References

ee also

* JPEG
* libjpeg

External links

JPEG
* [http://www.ijg.org Independent JPEG Group Website]
* [http://www.faqs.org/faqs/jpeg-faq/ Jpeg Faqs]
* [http://jpegclub.org/ Additional features for libjpeg]

PNG
* [http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/spec/pngspec-index.html Portable Network Graphics (PNG) Specification and Extensions]

PostgreSQL
* [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2000_Oct_24/ai_66310915 Great Bridge Developers to Keynote Open Source Database Summit; Project Management, Transaction Processing On the Agenda]
* [http://www.postgresql.org/community/contributors/ PostgreSQL Core Team]

Other
* [http://ask.slashdot.org/askslashdot/04/09/07/2240239.shtml Slashdot.org: Unsung Heroes of Open Source Software?]
* [http://www.demoz.org/List_of_programmers/encyclopedia.htm List of Programmers Encyclopedia]
* [http://www.nedhat.com/upside_article.html He speaks hacker]
* [http://www.zoominfo.com/Search/PersonDetail.aspx?PersonID=3582306&searchSource=basic_ssb&singleSearchBox=tom+lane+jpeg&personName=tom+lane&companyName=jpeg ZoomInfo Web Profile: Tom Lane ]
* [http://www.ddj.com/architect/184404562 Dr. Dobb's Data Compression Newsletter - Issue #17 - April 2001]
* [http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/os2002/view/e_spkr/1218 O'Reilly Open Source Convention 2002]
* [http://www.codersatwork.com/names.html?order=popularity Coders at Work]
* [http://wwwcsif.cs.ucdavis.edu/~bird/papers/msrchallenge2006.pdf Mining Email Social Networks in Postgres]

Persondata
NAME= Lane, Thomas G.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION= Computer science
DATE OF BIRTH= Birth date and age|1955|9|18|df=y
PLACE OF BIRTH= Madrid, Spain