Here are some people who have been suggested as keynote speakers.

More or less Python related

• Eric Raymond - unofficially contacted, is interested.

• Jon Udell (InfoWorld)

• Bram Cohen (BitTorrent)

• Limi and Runyan (Plone)
• Someone from Firaxis to talk about and show Python in the Civilization IV game
• Mark Hammond, who is making Python a first-class scripting language in the

  Mozilla platform: http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roadmap/archives/008865.html

• David Ascher
• Laura Creighton
• timbot
• Evelyn Mitchell
• effbot
• Gitte Wange
• MvL or MAL
• Greg Wilson

General Tech related

• Mark Shuttleworth declined

• Tim O'Reilly
• Mitchell Baker or Asa Dotzler from Mozilla.org

• Vernor Vinge (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernor_Vinge)

• Sam Ruby
• Alan Kay
• Bill Joy
• Jonathan Corbet of Linux Weekly News

• Ray Kurzweil (http://www.kurzweiltech.com/aboutray.html)

• Vint Cerf (http://www.ibiblio.org/pioneers/cerf.html) "The Interplanetary Internet"

Potential topic ideas

• New/Emerging Opportunities for Python

• Python's biggest success (BitTorrent?)

• Python at (a large visible organization, such as Disney, Lucasfilm, NASA)
• The New New thing: Ruby on Rails
• Taking Python Mainstream
• Something really sexy, like scripting a popular game in python (Civilization IV comes to mind, it should be released by then)
• How to change the world (for the better) with Python

(Judging by the feedback forms, people really do want Python-related keynotes. For example, a number of people thought Mitch Kapor's keynote was interesting but didn't have enough Python content. So I think the Ruby on Rails idea would never fly. --amk)

CategoryPyCon2006