This puzzle relates to the apparent, and sometimes the true historic, meaning of the name of various people who have won the EFF Pioneer Award. (We don't mean to suggest that these winners necessarily currently think of the meanings of their names this way.) Generally we give an image clue (possibly with a flag indicating which language) for the winner's surname, and blanks where the winner's given name should be filled in. One letter from each clue is always highlighted with an X.
- Burlap fabric → Harri HURSTI (Finnish for 'burlap')
- Gold mountains → Ian GOLDBERG (German for 'gold mountain')
- Arrows pointing in all directions → Librarians EVERYWHERE
- Love → James LOVE
- Angel's beard → Douglas ENGELBART (German for 'angel beard')
- Small t-shirt → Mark KLEIN (German for 'small')
- Street → Frank LA RUE (French for 'the street')
- Black → Aaron SWARTZ (variant spelling of German for 'black')
- Boiling water → James BOYLE
- Logical givens (deductive hypotheses) → Beth GIVENS
- Red mountains → Marc ROTENBERG (German for 'red mountain')
- Game controller → Annie GAME
- Dill → David DILL
- Borg (from Star Trek) → Anita BORG
- Thumbs up + passage of time → Steven AFTERGOOD
- Flag of Wales → Jimmy WALES
- Ghost → Michael GEIST (German for 'spirit')
- Teacher → Carl MALAMUD (Hebrew for 'teacher')
- Green forest → Glenn GREENWALD (anglicized German for 'green forest')
- Peace sign → Limor FRIED (variant spelling of German for 'peace')
- Fire → Matthew BLAZE
The indicated letters spell HIS SURNAME MEANS YELLOW, which is a reference to BUNNIE Huang, another Pioneer Award winner.