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[Talk meister] Grab a seat please, there's
lots of seats around here, or there.
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It's my pleasure to introduce our current
and new DPL,
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Neil McGovern for his annual bits from
the DPL
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[Applause]
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[Neil] Thanks very much, hi everyone.
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I'm aware that this talk is due to cut in
to lunch so I'll try and keep it slightly
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... in to dinner, so I'll keep it slightly
more refined [laughter]
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so people can get their food early.
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Hopefully everyone's ok with that anyway.
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I'm also kind of glad that it's in this
slot when it was originally proposed
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and I got my initial time slot it was
going to be a 9am slot just after the
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cheese and wine party so I [laughter]
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probably wouldn't expect quite so many
people as we have here today.
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So, welcome everyone, this final day of
the open weekend. Anyone who isn't a
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regular person, hi and welcome to Debian!
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Welcome to the huge Debian family which
is certainly growing all the time and
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is something that's really good to see.
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It's quite fantastic that there's just so
many people involved, especially this year
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When I last checked the stats I think we
had 383 people who had so far checked in
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slightly less than for DebConf 7, but I'm
certain... [laughter]
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I'm certain over the next few days that'll
go up and definitely surpass us.
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I just want to remind everyone what the
size of the project we are.
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It's such a huge effort, one of the
biggest open source and free software
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projects in the world.
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Combining around 1000 developers, a few
thousand maintainers and contributors as
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well, and also our users.
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It's really a huge effort that we manage
to still be here after 22 years and still
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be going strong.
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Hopefully a DebConf in future will look
a little bit like that
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I think the orga team might be slightly
more stressed if we end up with numbers
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but what a fantastic thing.
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Also over the last few years we've had 42
new project members have joined us.
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This is over the last year, we've had all
these people.
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Huge welcome to everyone there. [Applause]
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Especially one or two on there which I
decided to get back into doing application
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management, especially for our non-
uploading developers as well, which has
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been a huge boost to really grow where
we're going.
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Also welcome back. I've noticed a few
people this year who I haven't seen in a
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few years, so stand up if you've been away
for a few years and you're returning
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I know there's certainly some people,
excellent,
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Tolimar? [laughter] There he is!
[Applause]
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Kris Rose? Is he here? [points] Excellent.
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Was active before I even joined Debian,
and essentially has come back again, so
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it's great to see everyone back and thanks
very much for remembering us.
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There's been a few new people as well.
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Very, very new people who I haven't kinda
seen around before in previous DebConfs
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Where did all these children come from?
I think there must have been something...
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[laughter]
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I think the Switzerland DebConf, there
might have been something in the water,
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because it's suddenly been a huge... it's
absolutely fantastic to see not only
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our usual developers around, but their
families as well, and new people being
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introduced to Debian and to technology.
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The TecKids workshops I think are
absolutely fantastic initiative I think
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that really helps broaden Debian and what
we do.
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So, when I first became DPL, I always knew
Debian was a big thing in free software,
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in the communities and things we do.
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I went along to my running club
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and we went for a run,
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went to the pub afterwards as you do in
the UK,
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you can't have sport without excessive
alcohol consumption afterwards so it seems
-
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and about 7 or 8 people all came up to me
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and said "Hey, congratulations on being
DPL, I'm going to buy you a pint!", which
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[laughter]
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which is great
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So if anyone wants to run for DPL you get
free beer, this is a good thing.
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But it did really impress on me that
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Debian's a big deal, it's a really huge
deal.
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If you have a look at some of the latest
server stats for web servers,
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Debian's number one.
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It's about 32% of Linux distributions, and
and if you combine Ubuntu as well, and
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all our derivatives, we're about 62% of
all linux servers out there
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Basically Debian really does run the world
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Not only that, but the amount of embedded
devices that Debian's involved with
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from, as mentioned before, the HP talk,
running huge teleco systems
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to assistive devices. I know Andy's around
somewhere.
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That product is essentially being based on
Debian and it's a speak and spell type
-
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device.
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It's for people who can't talk.
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You have a little keyboard, you type in
what you want to say, it has predictive
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technology in there, and then it gives
people a voice.
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Debian is literally being used to give
people voices who can't speak.
-
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This is the sort of impact that Debian
have, and free software can have
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on the world.
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A few things happened, certainly over the
last year.
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Apparently we released.
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I was only DPL for about a week, but I'm
going to take credit for this
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like any good politician, anyway.
[laughter]
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I've already had a stable release.
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This has hugely welcomed.
-
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I don't know if anyone followed the DevOps
Reactions tumblr page, but they were
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following along and huge cheers from
everyone when Debian releases.
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It is a big deal.
-
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Strangely I also saw a press release that
that said they're
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having a party to celebrate the release
of Debian 8 at Linux Fest North West,
-
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But this press release was from Microsoft
[laughter]
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I thought it might be a spoof at first,
but I diligently checked the certificates
-
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and domains and made sure it went back.
-
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I think people, certainly large
organisations are realising now that this
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open source, free software thing isn't
going away
-
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This isn't something that they can just
ignore, or they can fight against.
-
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This is something that they have to
embrace
-
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Certainly for someone like Microsoft to
throw away a load of cake and do a press
-
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release because Debian's released is
something I never thought I'd see when I
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first joined the Debian Project.
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We've had some new good things which have
started recently as well
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Fantastic areas if anyone knows what this
might be for a current initiative that's
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going on?
-
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[Picture of four similar potted plants]
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I was trying to do reproducible builds.
-
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They all sort of look the same, so near
enough [laughter]
-
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It's the nearest I could find on Flickr to
something being reproducible.
-
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These are all CC by the way.
-
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So this is perhaps a bit of a better slide
to explain just how impressive it is
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where we've got.
-
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I don't know if everyone here's aware of
reproducible builds and what this is
-
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trying to do, and the importance of it.
-
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When you get a source package
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and you produce a binary from that
-
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there hasn't traditionally been a way of
knowing that what you've produced here
-
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comes from this source package and it
hasn't been tampered with.
-
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This is incredibly important for the trust
that people have in Debian
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and how we produce things
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So if we're able to say "Look, this thing
here has definitely come from here,
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look we've rebuilt it again, you can check
for yourself, it comes from here.",
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then people can trust Debian as this
platform for where we run everyone's
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computers.
-
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I'm quite impressed with the remarkable
progress we've seen here.
-
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From zero to a huge share of things being
reproducable and that work I'm sure will
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continue, especially thanks to the Linux
Foundation's grants as well in supporting
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this progress.
-
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I did a "ask me anything" recently and it
was one of the things that came up as
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being a hugely popular thing that Debian
is doing and that we're driving forward.
-
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Not just for Debian itself but for all
distributions and making sure we're
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able to do that.
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Interestingly I was also asked what I'm
most jealous of other distributions and
-
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I think I said the Arch wiki because it is
pretty good. [laughter]
-
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Often when I'm on #debian and answering
questions then it comes up with the best
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answers a lot of the time.
-
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But, hey, I'm rubbish at writing
documentation so...
-
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Another effort we've come up with is ddebs
-
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Ability to automatically have debug
symbols
-
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Something which a few other distributions
have had for a while and it's really,
-
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really good to see that this sort of
effort is happening as well.
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If Niels is around.... well done!
[applause]
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Not the only one but.
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So, what's next?
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What's the next things that Debian can do?
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Where can we go from here and what sort of
ideas can we have?
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There's a whole range of things we can do
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but I'm just going to pick up two or three
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that we want to kinda concentrate on and
see where we're going.
-
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First, PPAs. [picture of a parcel]
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It's near enough a package, that'll do me.
-
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I've got a BoF scheduled on Friday, to try
and look at what we're doing with this and
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trying to finish it off.
-
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It was in my platform as something I want
push and it's something I believe will
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really help the development of Debian.
-
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Now, it's slightly different from Ubuntu
PPAs as they're well known.
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It's not going to be somewhere that you
can just dump random software and people
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install various quality packages.
-
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This is going to be a very useful tool to
aid Debian development itself.
-
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As far as I remember, most of the work is
actually done now.
-
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Huge thanks to the FTP Masters and DSA
etc for this.
-
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So the actual code is there in DAK.
-
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The only missing bits is the control
functions,
-
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how you create new PPAs and the wannabuild
system and we build stuff and
-
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touch releases.
-
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So it is going to, hopefully, come any
minute now
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and something that we will hopefully be
able to use and will ease the,
-
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sometimes the pain of when we freeze.
-
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Sometimes the ability to easily create
backports
-
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or even to ease library transitions.
-
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If you can create a PPA where you stage
your library, check everything works and
-
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you can fix all your breakages then that
should help unstable and testing as well.
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One on outreach I guess is near enough.
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It's kinda interesting, I've mentioned
that Debian is in a huge position to touch
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many people's lives and it was slightly
worrying that compared to the amount of
-
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Jessie release parties we had all over the
world,
-
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I video called into one in India for
example and it was globally popular.
-
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But all of our sprints have been in
Europe.
-
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So we haven't had some in North America.
-
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We haven't had any in South America.
-
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And there's huge areas here we can really
try and push and bring free software
-
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and really help push Debian to be the go
to place in various countries rather
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thank keeping it a Europe or sometimes
even North American market.
-
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And Debian's in a great place because we
are a community distribution.
-
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We try and aim to be the universal
operating system.
-
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Someone that anyone can come along, join,
help out in whatever way they want to,
-
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be it packaging, or doing wonderful press
work for example.
-
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[pointed look to the side] Not mentioning
that press work at all.
-
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She's not even looking at me.
[Francesca] Hey!
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[Laughter]
-
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[Neil] She's going to volunteer to do more
press work in future again.
-
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So it's an area people can get involved in
really easily and because we're
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distributed, because we work online, it is
natural that people can come and join us
-
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and we should encourage that, and we
should try and reach out and try and reach
-
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more people.
-
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Third area, the final one here is around
accessibility.
-
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It's kind of a sad fact that free software
is about 10 years behind proprietary and
-
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commercial offerings.
-
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There's a reason that iPhones are hugely
popular with people who need accessibility
-
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options - they are just fantastic compared
with what you can get normally.
-
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I don't believe that it is right that
people should have to use proprietary
-
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software, which they pay for, to access
computing, and to access the web, and to
-
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be able to explore what we all have.
-
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We should be able to put in effort, so
there's certainly an area which we can
-
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really make a difference to people and try
and drive forward.
-
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To bring computing to everyone, rather
than those who are fortunate enough to be
-
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able to see a screen well, or be rich
enough to be able to pay for a license or
-
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buy a computer or system from a
proprietary company.
-
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There is no reason why we shouldn't be
able to do this.
-
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We are able to speak and work directly
with people who require accessibility
-
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features, and let those people design it
in a way that is much easier than any
-
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proprietary company.
-
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So it's an area I think we can try and
try and sort of push quite a bit.
-
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Finally, a bit of a huge thank you from me
really.
-
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It was about... So I've been involved with
Debian since about 2001 or so, and doing
-
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loads of different roles.
-
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Originally doing the web apps policy,
which never really got beyond draft
-
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because web apps are terrible, terrible
things that don't really work with
-
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distributions that well.
-
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Then with Joey Hess, doing testing
security team and setting up that,
-
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eventually that led in to many, many years
of release management. [shakes head]
-
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[heckling]
-
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And then many years of being release
manager as well.
-
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And then after that Tolimar found me at
DebConf in Banja Luka and found out I
-
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could write a press release and roped me
in to doing bits there
-
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but after that I was sort of feeling a
bit, I don't know, burned out.
-
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I didn't really know what else to do with
the project.
-
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I think this happens to everyone.
-
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It's a huge reminder each time when I come
to DebConf and I meet people and how
-
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fortunate I am, and we all are to be
involved with such a fantastic project,
-
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something that really is changing people's
lives,
-
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something that is breaking the
traditional proprietary market
-
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and enabling people to have greater access
to computing
-
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and it's really fortunate that I'm in a
position to help lead this project
-
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and to do everything for you.
-
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Finally, I think I mentioned, I think Phil
Hands - is he around?
-
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He probably has a small child trying to
throw-up on him for anyone who saw the
-
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morning announcements today.
-
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He did kind of joke about the next DPL
hustings,
-
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he can just write an auto-responder bot to
any questions which is
-
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"That sounds interesting, I look forward
to seeing the results"
-
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[laughter]
-
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Generally I think that we should be able
to try things,
-
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so if anyone has any ideas, stuff they
want to do, Debian has the money,
-
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let's go try some stuff.
-
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If we want a sprint to work on
accessibility in say, Hong Hong
-
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as there's a huge issue there, or to
improve our localisation, then let's
-
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do that.
-
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We have the money to do it.
-
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We have, hopefully, the interest around,
so let's go try things.
-
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As promised, I thought I'd keep things
nice and short.
-
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As everyone seemed to be getting hungry.
-
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I was going to leave a bit for Q&A, if
anyone had any questions,
-
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or wanted to put me on the spot about
anything or random thoughts anyone had,
-
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then I'd certainly be very happy to answer
any of those.
-
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Someone has to be first.
-
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Otherwise my timing's really, really out.
-
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Oh good. [clappiung]
-
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Lucky me.
-
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Hello! What's your name and where are you
from? [laughter]
-
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[Steve] Oh, you want me to say something?
[Neil] Yeah, go on.
-
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[Steve] What is your single highest
priority thing that you think we should
-
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all be working on?
-
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[Neil] Getting the next stable release
out, to be honest.
-
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This is what we do, as a distribution.
-
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We release things.
-
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We make software.
-
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We give it to our users, Debian is famed
for its stability.
-
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We backport our security fixes.
-
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People can rely on Debian, they can trust
us to produce a rock solid distribution.
-
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Something that people can, in some cases,
yes, derive works from.
-
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If they don't like what we're doing they
can tweak it.
-
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There was the huge thing that came up when
Devuan came up saying that
-
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"Oh, we're going to fork Debian and it's
going to be terrible"
-
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It's like fine! There's over 120 forks of
Debian out there already, that's fine!
-
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Please, come and do this, we're happy with
that.
-
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Being able to produce this reliable,
stable operating system that we only
-
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release when we're ready, which happens to
apparently be about every two years now
-
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is something that everyone relies on us
being able to do,
-
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and they can trust us to produce that for
them.
-
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Essentially putting out releases is one of
the main reasons we're here.
-
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To get that software into the hands of
users.
-
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There's loads of other stuff of course
which we can do to try and improve and
-
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push forward free software in general, but
we are essentially a distribution.
-
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Our aim is to collect software, and then
distribute it,
-
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and one of the best ways to do that is
releases.
-
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[Steve] Good answer.
[Neil] Good!
-
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[Joshua] What's your favourite thing about
Debian?
-
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[laughter]
-
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[Unknown] You're not allowed to say
releases.
-
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[Neil] I'm apparently not allowed to say
the kilt as well
-
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[Bdale] You also already said free beer so
-
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[Neil] And free beer, yeah.
-
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It has to be the people that I'm involved
with.
-
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The project has enabled me to meet so
many awesome people and basically have
-
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the career I've had so far as well.
-
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There has always been a thing about being
involved visibly with and open source
-
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project that helps you professionally as
well.
-
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I got my first job because I was involved
with free software.
-
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I then got my next job because I was a
Debian developer and could put together
-
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Linux systems easily, and knew how to
munge these various crazy different
-
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projects which are written in a hundred
different libraries,
-
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using different compatibilities together
to make something whole.
-
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Then my current job I got because
essentially I was involved in doing
-
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management-y type functions in Debian.
-
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As I say to people when they ask
-
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"Where's the money in free software? How
can I create a career with it?"
-
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It's basically fairly easy. Get stuck in.
-
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Go and do something.
-
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Find something interesting that interests
you,
-
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and that you're able to be the world
expert at, and you can do that.
-
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On an entirely personal view, some of my
closest friends are the Debian people I've
-
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worked with for many many years and I
certainly wouldn't have moved to my
-
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current city, or know half the people I do
if it wasn't for that.
-
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The Debian family is a large one, that
occasionally gets together at DebConf
-
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and Christmas, and sometimes has huge blow
up arguments,
-
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possibly over the turkey or the init
system, something like that [laughter]
-
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but we do all come together.
-
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We have huge contentious decisions
-
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but we're still here.
-
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We've had huge arguments with everyone
trying to stab each other, but at the end
-
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of the day we're still here, we're still
the Debian project.
-
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And sort of like that it's something we
love to be associated with
-
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and it's everyone around that really makes
that.
-
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[Joshua] Thank you
[Applause]
-
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[Neil] Anyone else? No?
-
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Oh oh.
-
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I'll just stop you there - backups are
really really important, [laughter]
-
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so we should definitely concentrate on
backups.
-
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[Lars] So what's the biggest risk to
Debian you see in the 5-10 year span?
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[[[25:48]]]