and their awesomeness can be found on the forums, too.
but there's also the awesomeness of a "bdfl" that doesn't try to take all the credit... i've been to places where it's as much of a cult of personality as anything else.
the great thing about linux is watching new giants stand on the shoulders of other giants, and when they actually admit it, that's pretty awesome.
not to mention all the people that developed the tools in the repository (and, many many thanks from me to the people that have done the work of compiling those tools for tc.)