>> writing software is a low status academic activity > This is just not true. People like: Stallman, Knuth, Ritchie, Kernighan, Norvig or Torvalds are not considered as people of low status in the academic world.

I understand the meaning of 'academic software developers' to mean 'software developers that assist in building software for other, non-CS, fields of research', but you only mention people famous within CS. I don't think this article is meant to apply to CS.