WEBVTT

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[Bradley Kuhn] I have to be honest
I'm really honored to be here

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I don't say that to just every conference
I care a lot about Debian

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This is my 3rd DebConf I've ever been to.


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There have been a lot of them so I 
obviously haven't been to that many

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But I was at DebConf1

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I just learned today that it was zero
based so that it wasn't the first DebConf

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which I should have known but didn't for
some reason.

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I was at the 2nd DebConf by accident
somewhat because I was going to

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Libre Software Meeting and just
happened to

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book my flights so that I could be at
DebConf as well

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I gave a regular track talk at DebConf10
about the GPL v3

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because it was in New York City where I
was living at the time

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Here I'm giving an invited speaker talk or
keynote or whatever else it is called here

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That really means a lot to me.

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I'm a fan of Debian, I'm a user of Debian.

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I don't actually consider myself part of
the Debian community

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because other than filing a few bugs
over the years

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I haven't contributed all that much to
Debian but I've relied on it and used it

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and been a fan of it for so long
that I really love your project.

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So I am really honored to be invited to
speak here

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and I really believe that Debian is a
very special project for a lot of reasons.

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First of all, it has thrived for longer
than almost any free software project

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in existence in a lot of ways. 
There are top 10 lists of projects that

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Debian is certainly on as far as longevity
goes, maybe the top 5

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It's governance is one of the few
democratically elected and

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democratically controlled
governance processes in free software

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Everyone is a fan of talking about this
'benevolent dictator' stuff

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which I think is really horrible
The fact that somebody would call

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themselves a 'self appointed benevolent
dictator for life' is really disturbing.

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You are democratic.

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You elect your leadership.

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You have referendums on major issues
that everyone can vote on.

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That is amazingly rare, impressive
and important for free software.

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The other thing that really impresses me,

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in particular being somebody from the
non-profit world,

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is that Debian has been staunchly
non-commercial for it's entire existence.

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Of course I don't mean that Debian
can't be used in commercial settings.

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DFSG free means that things can be put
into commercial products.

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What I mean is that the project itself has
always been non-commercial,

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meaning that the people that work on it
are volunteering,

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and, even if their employers are paying
them to work on it,

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they are part of a community and not
doing their work inside Debian as

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officially part of some
commercial activity.

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Most free software projects these days
are controlled by

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some commercial entity or another.

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Debian is not.

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I was at Debconf1 which was really
exciting for me.

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I was a young executive director of
Free Software.

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I showed this picture to Karen Sandler who
I work with and said how different I look.

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She said I don't look different at all,

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but, speaking as the person that looks
at that face in the mirror every morning,

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there are a lot more lines on my face
than there.

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That is a smooth looking baby face that I
had 14 years ago that I don't have anymore

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I was pretty casual back then.
I'm not in short trousers any more.

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It's hard to see and you can see it in
some of the other photos that I was.

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Even in this heat like this I haven't
worn short trousers in a very long time.

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What's that? [bdale heckles]

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Bdale, I was thinking about mentioning you
and now I have to because you are heckling

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me [laughter]. Bdale is the one adult
in the room who can dress like

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everybody else but I can't pull it off

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I respect Bdale that he can. 
The tie-dye still works for him.

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And I stopped wearing t-shirts years ago
at conferences

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and here I'm sweating in my long sleeves
halfway between hacker and suit attire.

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And there [in the photo] I'm talking to
Martin Michmayer

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I'm going to do questions at the end Lars,
if that's ok.


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I'm not good with questions because I
get off topic easy.

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I left 17 minutes at the end for questions
which Bdale just took 3 of [laughter]

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There I'm talking to Martin Michlmayer
when I first met him.

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A lot of things have changed since I
looked at this photo.

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But one thing that hasn't changed,
you see this face that Martin is making.

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He still makes that face at me every time
I talk to him, which sort of says like

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"You do not know what you are talking
about". That hasn't changed, which is good

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[laughter]. I'm glad he is laughing in the
back there.

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Some things have stayed the same.
Martin still thinks I'm full of it.

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And I probably am, so that's ok.
I like people to keep me honest.

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Other than jokes, the thing that hasn't
really changed since I was first

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introduced to the Debian community, in
person, back in 2001,

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is the ethos of this community is still
the same one that I remember

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even though a lot of the developers
have changed.

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I talked to somebody who had never
even installed Debian when they were at

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DebConf1. I talked to someone who was
12 years old at the time of DebConf1.

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I find it impressive that what I call the
'morality of the hobbyist contributor'

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still lives strongly in Debian.

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The people in Debian want to do what is
right for other people -

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their users, co-developers,
co-contributors.

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They also volunteer to do that.

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As I said before, that doesn't mean that
they aren't being paid to do their work.

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It's the classic free software thing: lots
of people get paid to write free software.

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What I've seen recently, in many free
software projects, is that

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companies have used that. I think
OpenStack is one of the worst examples

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of this. To control the project by hiring
lots of it's developers.

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They have this kindof pull over the
project. I think that a lot of people that

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work at OpenStack would say they are
employers employee first and an

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OpenStack contributor second.

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I don't know anyone in Debian who would
not say 'I am a Debian developer' first

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and then I happen to be employed as a
second issue.

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Debian is their first priority.
Their job is their second.

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That hobbyist culture of 'my volunteer
work matters more to me than

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what actually pays me for a living'
is the kind of mentality that I am such a

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fan of. I try to live that in my own work
as well.

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I like interacting with the community.
I usually find conferences very stressful.

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This one I do not find as stressful
other than I'm standing in a room with a

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huge number of people. Other than that
I don't find it stressful

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because this is the kind of community
that thinks that way.

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I think a lot of it has to do with the
other structures you have set up around

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yourselves. The idea of having charities
that you work with

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which you have chosen to do a multi
charity situation where you have lots

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around the world that you can interact
with.

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One of them was founded by a Debian
developer initially.

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You reach out to other partnerships or
charities as a non-commercial community

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That allows you to have an infrastructure
that you can rely on that helps

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you maintain that community.
I'm very glad that you do that.

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I used to work for the FSF and am still on
the board of directors.

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Early in the project Debian was more or
less a GNU project for a while.

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It was part of the FSF. I know that
relationship has never been perfect

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sometimes rocky and sometimes better,
but the FSF saw this in Debian too

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very early on. That it was a really
important way to begin the whole

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distribution thing of free software and 
that culture was a match with

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FSF's culture.

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I know where the issues are and I'm
sure John is here to talk about them.

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But I think there is a lot of cultural
connect between FSF and Debian.

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I'm a little obsessed about this quote.
I saw it in real time.

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I was subscribed to comp.os.minux in Aug
of '91 when it was posted

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Part of it was that when I started working
for the FSF I started thinking about it

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and the FSF when I worked there had 7
employees and still has under 20

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That's not big. (08:56)

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So I don't think of it as big and I guess

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strictly speaking since the FSF is a very

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professional organisation and to take the

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strict definition professional means you

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get paid to do this thing, and you do it

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for a living, yes the FSF staff are

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professionals in all the ways you might

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use the word professional,

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but I don't think that's what Linus
was going for in this quote

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I don't think he meant those normal things
about professional

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I think what he was going for is he was
trying to create Linux back when he was
humble

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Because people forget Linus used to be
really humble. Once upon a time.

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[laughter]

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I don't know... ok. I think some of his
early posts were humble

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but we can debate that I suppose.

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One of the things that Linus understood
well was that he wanted to create

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a project where individuals collaborated
together in their own capacity.

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He wanted a hobbyist kind of culture and
was interested in that kind of culture.

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I think that what he got wrong was not
realising how important charities are

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to that culture and I think Debian has
always got that right.

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You've always interacted with charities
in good ways.

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I think you keep them at arms length,
which is OK and reasonable, but

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you've always seen the value,

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always seen the connection between being

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a non-commercial hobbyist controlled

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project, very professional I think, but

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still hobbyist controlled in a sense that

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you are volunteers doing the right things

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for everyone in your community.

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At the same time reaching out to these

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charities and letting them help you

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get done what you need to get do

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in the magical world outside of your
project. (10:36)