1 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 [Bradley Kuhn] I have to be honest I'm really honored to be here 2 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I don't say that to just every conference I care a lot about Debian 3 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 This is my 3rd DebConf I've ever been to. 4 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 There have been a lot of them so I obviously haven't been to that many 5 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 But I was at DebConf1 6 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I just learned today that it was zero based so that it wasn't the first DebConf 7 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 which I should have known but didn't for some reason. 8 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I was at the 2nd DebConf by accident somewhat because I was going to 9 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Libre Software Meeting and just happened to 10 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 book my flights so that I could be at DebConf as well 11 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I gave a regular track talk at DebConf10 about the GPL v3 12 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 because it was in New York City where I was living at the time 13 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Here I'm giving an invited speaker talk or keynote or whatever else it is called here 14 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 That really means a lot to me. 15 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I'm a fan of Debian, I'm a user of Debian. 16 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I don't actually consider myself part of the Debian community 17 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 because other than filing a few bugs over the years 18 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I haven't contributed all that much to Debian but I've relied on it and used it 19 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and been a fan of it for so long that I really love your project. 20 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 So I am really honored to be invited to speak here 21 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and I really believe that Debian is a very special project for a lot of reasons. 22 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 First of all, it has thrived for longer than almost any free software project 23 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 in existence in a lot of ways. There are top 10 lists of projects that 24 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Debian is certainly on as far as longevity goes, maybe the top 5 25 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 It's governance is one of the few democratically elected and 26 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 democratically controlled governance processes in free software 27 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Everyone is a fan of talking about this 'benevolent dictator' stuff 28 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 which I think is really horrible The fact that somebody would call 29 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 themselves a 'self appointed benevolent dictator for life' is really disturbing. 30 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 You are democratic. 31 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 You elect your leadership. 32 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 You have referendums on major issues that everyone can vote on. 33 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 That is amazingly rare, impressive and important for free software. 34 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The other thing that really impresses me, 35 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 in particular being somebody from the non-profit world, 36 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 is that Debian has been staunchly non-commercial for it's entire existence. 37 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Of course I don't mean that Debian can't be used in commercial settings. 38 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 DFSG free means that things can be put into commercial products. 39 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 What I mean is that the project itself has always been non-commercial, 40 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 meaning that the people that work on it are volunteering, 41 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and, even if their employers are paying them to work on it, 42 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 they are part of a community and not doing their work inside Debian as 43 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 officially part of some commercial activity. 44 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Most free software projects these days are controlled by 45 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 some commercial entity or another. 46 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Debian is not. 47 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I was at Debconf1 which was really exciting for me. 48 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I was a young executive director of Free Software. 49 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I showed this picture to Karen Sandler who I work with and said how different I look. 50 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 She said I don't look different at all, 51 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 but, speaking as the person that looks at that face in the mirror every morning, 52 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 there are a lot more lines on my face than there. 53 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 That is a smooth looking baby face that I had 14 years ago that I don't have anymore 54 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I was pretty casual back then. I'm not in short trousers any more. 55 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 It's hard to see and you can see it in some of the other photos that I was. 56 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Even in this heat like this I haven't worn short trousers in a very long time. 57 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 What's that? [bdale heckles] 58 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Bdale, I was thinking about mentioning you and now I have to because you are heckling 59 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 me [laughter]. Bdale is the one adult in the room who can dress like 60 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 everybody else but I can't pull it off 61 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I respect Bdale that he can. The tie-dye still works for him. 62 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And I stopped wearing t-shirts years ago at conferences 63 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and here I'm sweating in my long sleeves halfway between hacker and suit attire. 64 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And there [in the photo] I'm talking to Martin Michmayer 65 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I'm going to do questions at the end Lars, if that's ok. 66 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I'm not good with questions because I get off topic easy. 67 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I left 17 minutes at the end for questions which Bdale just took 3 of [laughter] 68 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 There I'm talking to Martin Michlmayer when I first met him. 69 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 A lot of things have changed since I looked at this photo. 70 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 But one thing that hasn't changed, you see this face that Martin is making. 71 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 He still makes that face at me every time I talk to him, which sort of says like 72 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 "You do not know what you are talking about". That hasn't changed, which is good 73 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 [laughter]. I'm glad he is laughing in the back there. 74 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Some things have stayed the same. Martin still thinks I'm full of it. 75 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And I probably am, so that's ok. I like people to keep me honest. 76 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Other than jokes, the thing that hasn't really changed since I was first 77 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 introduced to the Debian community, in person, back in 2001, 78 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 is the ethos of this community is still the same one that I remember 79 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 even though a lot of the developers have changed. 80 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I talked to somebody who had never even installed Debian when they were at 81 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 DebConf1. I talked to someone who was 12 years old at the time of DebConf1. 82 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I find it impressive that what I call the 'morality of the hobbyist contributor' 83 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 still lives strongly in Debian. 84 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The people in Debian want to do what is right for other people - 85 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 their users, co-developers, co-contributors. 86 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 They also volunteer to do that. 87 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 As I said before, that doesn't mean that they aren't being paid to do their work. 88 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 It's the classic free software thing: lots of people get paid to write free software. 89 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 What I've seen recently, in many free software projects, is that 90 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 companies have used that. I think OpenStack is one of the worst examples 91 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 of this. To control the project by hiring lots of it's developers. 92 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 They have this kindof pull over the project. I think that a lot of people that 93 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 work at OpenStack would say they are employers employee first and an 94 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 OpenStack contributor second. 95 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I don't know anyone in Debian who would not say 'I am a Debian developer' first 96 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and then I happen to be employed as a second issue. 97 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Debian is their first priority. Their job is their second. 98 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 That hobbyist culture of 'my volunteer work matters more to me than 99 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 what actually pays me for a living' is the kind of mentality that I am such a 100 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 fan of. I try to live that in my own work as well. 101 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I like interacting with the community. I usually find conferences very stressful. 102 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 This one I do not find as stressful other than I'm standing in a room with a 103 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 huge number of people. Other than that I don't find it stressful 104 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 because this is the kind of community that thinks that way. 105 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I think a lot of it has to do with the other structures you have set up around 106 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 yourselves. The idea of having charities that you work with 107 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 which you have chosen to do a multi charity situation where you have lots 108 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 around the world that you can interact with. 109 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 One of them was founded by a Debian developer initially. 110 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 You reach out to other partnerships or charities as a non-commercial community 111 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 That allows you to have an infrastructure that you can rely on that helps 112 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 you maintain that community. I'm very glad that you do that. 113 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I used to work for the FSF and am still on the board of directors. 114 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Early in the project Debian was more or less a GNU project for a while. 115 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 It was part of the FSF. I know that relationship has never been perfect 116 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 sometimes rocky and sometimes better, but the FSF saw this in Debian too 117 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 very early on. That it was a really important way to begin the whole 118 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 distribution thing of free software and that culture was a match with 119 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 FSF's culture. 120 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I know where the issues are and I'm sure John is here to talk about them. 121 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 But I think there is a lot of cultural connect between FSF and Debian. 122 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I'm a little obsessed about this quote. I saw it in real time. 123 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I was subscribed to comp.os.minux in Aug of '91 when it was posted 124 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Part of it was that when I started working for the FSF I started thinking about it 125 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and the FSF when I worked there had 7 employees and still has under 20 126 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 That's not big. 127 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 So I don't think of it as big and I guess strictly speaking, 128 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 since the FSF is a very professional organisation, and to take the 129 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 strict definition professional means you get paid to do this thing, 130 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 you do it for a living - yes, the FSF staff are professionals 131 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 in all the ways you might use the word professional, 132 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 but I don't think that's what Linus was going for in this quote 133 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I don't think he meant those normal things about professional 134 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I think what he was going for is he was trying to create Linux back when he was humble 135 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Because people forget Linus used to be really humble. Once upon a time. 136 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 [laughter] 137 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I don't know... ok. I think some of his early posts were humble 138 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 but we can debate that I suppose. 139 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 One of the things that Linus understood well was that he wanted to create 140 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 a project where individuals collaborated together in their own capacity. 141 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 He wanted a hobbyist kind of culture and was interested in that kind of culture. 142 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I think that what he got wrong was not realising how important charities are 143 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 to that culture and I think Debian has always got that right. 144 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 You've always interacted with charities in good ways. 145 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I think you keep them at arms length, which is OK and reasonable, but 146 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 you've always seen the value, always seen the connection between being 147 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 a non-commercial hobbyist controlled project, very professional I think, but 148 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 still hobbyist controlled in a sense that you are volunteers doing the right things 149 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 for everyone in your community. 150 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 At the same time reaching out to these charities and letting them help you 151 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 get done what you need to get do in the logistical world outside of your project. 152 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 What I've seen in other projects that Debian has not suffered from 153 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 is the politics of the projects have bifurcated. 154 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 There's the technical politics which is the usual arguments about 155 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 this technology verses that technology 156 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 say, systemd verses upstart, something like that 157 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and that, I think in almost every project still remains under developer control. 158 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 People who are developers decide technical decisions like that. 159 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 But the political governance in most other projects has been hijacked in my view. 160 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 By various different groups, depending on the project 161 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 but usually some mix of lawyers or business type people who are somehow 162 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 in for profit companies or industry associations, 163 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 that have taken over the political governance. 164 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The reason they've succeeded in doing this I think is because most developers 165 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 care deeply about the technical politics, but not so much about the other politics. 166 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 They want to make those decisions once and leave them alone. 167 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 A lot of my work in Conservancy is to help developers make those decisions right once 168 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and then be able to leave them alone without it having bite them later. 169 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I think a lot of projects have faced that situation, where the non technical 170 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 politics of their projects are under the control of people who are 171 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 not members of the community, not really. 172 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I think that has really happened to Linux. 173 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I think that the Linux non technical politics are out of the hands of 174 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 the developers and it's a very sad thing, from my point of view 175 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I think the companies control those politics 176 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and they don't keep developers out entirely, but they gate keep 177 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 from letting certain developers into the politics of what's really going on in the 178 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 non technical space. 179 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I've met many Linux developers who feel disenfranchised. 180 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 It's why Conservancy has a GPL enforcement project for Linux. 181 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Because they've come to us to ask for someone who has a charitable mission 182 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 to do the right thing for the public good, as opposed to the what companies want. 183 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I think that's what these charities serve. 184 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 If you look at any of these charities that we have out there, 185 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Conservancy, Software in the Public Interest, FSF, 186 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 they do things for hobbyist developers that are the morally right thing to do 187 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 but are sometimes controversial 188 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 that developers actually really need, 189 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 maybe sometimes don't want to spend too much time on 190 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 because they're more interested in other things, 191 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 but companies and trade associations don't need them and in fact 192 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 they often oppose them. 193 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 As I said, we're doing at Conservancy the GPL enforcement for Linux 194 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 because it is not in the business interest of the companies who invest in Linux 195 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 to see the GPL enforced. 196 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 In many cases they actually oppose it being enforced at all. 197 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Which brings me to copyleft generally. 198 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 My last talk to all of you was at DebConf 10, 199 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 where I told you about GPL v3 and how wonderful it is and 200 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 how much I respected Debian's commitment to copyleft. 201 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Now that's not to say everything in the archive is copyleft, I would guess that 202 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 most things in the archive aren't, as it turns out. 203 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 But there are many, many important things in Debian's archive that are copylefted 204 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and many Debian meta-projects that you rely on every day as part of your 205 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 development that you have chosen to copyleft. 206 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 So I see Debian as a strongly connected project to the broader copyleft community 207 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 which I am heavily involved in. 208 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Excessively involved in you might say. 209 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The organisation I work for is funding a lawsuit, here in Germany 210 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 against VMware for violating the GPL for a very long time and refusing to comply. 211 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Christoph Hellwig is the plaintiff. It is in a Berlin court. 212 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Till Jaeger is his lawyer and you have to read the FAQ. 213 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I am, admittedly, not as comfortable with the German legal system as the US. 214 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I am used to the US where everything is public. 215 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The German legal system doesn't work that way. 216 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I respect the cultural difference and therefore we put what we could in the FAQ 217 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 so you could go read it. 218 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 So if you were hoping to hear all about the VMware lawsuit in this talk this is 219 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 the only slide that covers it, sorry to say. 220 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 You can load your browser and look at the FAQ I guess. 221 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The interesting thing that I can talk about is the aftermath in the politics in 222 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 the community that I think a lot of people, even people in this room got wrong 223 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 about what was going to happen after we sued VMware. 224 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I have myself been a little bit surprised that the response by many for profit 225 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 companies (in the back channels, this has not been in press releases, obviously) 226 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 has been to attempt to eradicate copyleft entirely, or at the very least 227 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 stop its enforcement. 228 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 At this point, for anybody who wants to make a strong commitment like Christoph, 229 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 like me, to spend a lot of time enforcing GPL, it is an extremely, politically 230 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 treacherous decision. 231 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 We have people in our GPL enforcement project for Linux at Conservancy who 232 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 insist on anonymity because they are terrified it will affect their ability to 233 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 get jobs, and other things if they're even heard to be talking to people who do 234 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 enforcement. 235 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I think what's happened is that the people who have always been against copyleft 236 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 subtly and quietly now see there's some chinks in the armour. 237 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 There are very few people still enforcing the copyleft. 238 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The only two organisations doing it as part of a charity are the FSF and 239 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Conservany. 240 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 It's a time for the sharks to circle and see if they can finish off the rest. 241 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 That's what I think is happening. 242 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Now, this matters to you. 243 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Even if you don't care that much about copyleft, it matters. 244 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Ubuntu was violating your copyrights for two years. 245 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 They had a trademark policy that contradicted the GPL. 246 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 It's a violation of the GPL. 247 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The Free Software Foundation and Conservacy worked very, very hard for two 248 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 years to get it resolved. It's been resolved. 249 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The trademark policy, as it stands - you can read the statements on both 250 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Conservancy and FSF's websites - is in compliance with the GPL. 251 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I'm glad that Canonical eventually did the right thing. 252 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 However, you've got to read the fine print. 253 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Because what they've done is they've said "Well, by using this trump clause thing to 254 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 comply", it means that all the non copylefted software (from Debian which of 255 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 course then ends up in Ubuntu) is then propitiatorized, effectively, when it goes 256 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 into Ubuntu, because all these additional restrictions and terms in the trademark 257 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 policy that are contradictory to copyleft, the trump clause passes them out for 258 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 copyleft so you can't have those contradicting copyleft, but they happily 259 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 don't contradict the two clause BSD license, or the Apache software license or 260 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 various other licenses. 261 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 A lot is being proprietarized, now it's totally permissible by the copyright 262 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 license, but I would encourage everyone in the Debian community to think about 263 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 how much you like that. 264 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Because your goal is to make everything in main be DFSG free, but when it gets into 265 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Ubuntu main it automatically (if it's not copylefted) falls under this trademark 266 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 policy that's unfriendly to free software and I would argue DFSG non-free. 267 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I think we're facing some really tough challenges. 268 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I believe free software has been largely co-opted by for profit companies. 269 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 That's why I still say free software and not open source, because I think 270 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 source (I actually agree with RMS about this) is a term that allows companies to 271 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 take the good parts they want from free software and leave the political stuff 272 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 that many of us care about and still be able to exploit it for their own purposes. 273 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Meanwhile, Debian is a hugely important political part of what's happening. 274 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Because Debian is this really important non-commercial project. 275 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Probably the largest non-commercial project of it's kind that's still 276 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 extremely relevant in the free software community. 277 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Your long history and your good governance have insulated you from a lot of these 278 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 politics that have happened in other projects. 279 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 What's happened to OpenStack would never happen to Debian, because you're too 280 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 old for it to happen to you. 281 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 It's just kinda nice that it works out that way. 282 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 There's some usefulness in being old. [laughter] 283 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Eventually the pressure will catch up to you. 284 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Somebody's going to do it. 285 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Canonical just tried it and didn't succeed thanks to the fact that we stopped them 286 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 but someone else will come along and try to do it next. 287 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I think it's just a harbinger of things to come at this point and copyleft is going 288 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 to matter more and more to Debian as time goes on because it is the thing standing 289 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 between these kinds of manoeuvres and free software. 290 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I always see Debian as a key building block of other free software. 291 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 People build stuff on top of Debian all the time. 292 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I find in my work investigating GPL violations plenty of times where it's a 293 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Debian system they just took and then gave no source code and moved it into a 294 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 product and violated the GPL. 295 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 That means that people who are powerful and corrupt will want to control it, 296 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 because it's essential and if they could somehow take control of Debian they could 297 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 control a lot of the software world. 298 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I think they can't get control of you, because of the way you're organised, but 299 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 that doesn't mean they're not going to try. 300 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Now, I think that is so successful because Debian has always been about people. 301 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The decision to make the Debian Developer - and I know it's different know, but 302 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 originally the Debian Developer was the pinnacle of how you became part of this 303 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 community, you passed your Debian Developer stuff, which I've never been 304 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 able to pass, because I'm lame - but I always believe that people oriented 305 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 manner of operating was essential to how that worked. 306 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Now since that first DebConf, I admit I've not spent much of my time with developers, 307 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 certainly not as much as I would have liked. 308 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I spend most of my time around lawyers and business people in the last 13 or 14 years 309 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and they look at Debian or in fact any free software very differently. 310 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Most of these people look at it not about the people, they see people as basically 311 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 fungible - any developer's good as the next, right? From a business person's 312 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 perspective. 313 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 But the assets that sit there, things like copyrights. 314 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 That they look at as the output of Debian, 315 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 the value that Debian generates. 316 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 There is a certain technical correctness to that, it's like until you write 317 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 something down it doesn't exist, kind of thing, 318 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 so the fact that Debian generates copyrights as you all are doing your work, 319 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 packaging packages, writing documentation, everything that you do. 320 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 That's the record of what you did, which is then copyrightable, so there's a 321 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 certain logic to this lawyer's way of looking at Debian, so say 322 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 "Oh, it's just the assets. There's some trademarks, some copyrights yada yada" 323 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 What I think you should all think about in response to that is maybe there's some 324 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 value to that, maybe you should leverage the assets we have as a way to fight for 325 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 ourselves, fight for good cause of free software. 326 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The one way to look at copyleft is and this is one I like almost the best, 327 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 is that it's really just a mechanism to leverage assets, which lots of us agree 328 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 shouldn't exist - I'm not a fan of copyright by any means, but you take those 329 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 assets that are forced upon you basically by the system we live in and try to 330 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 utilize them in some novel way to maximise fairness and goodness and benefit to other 331 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 people. 332 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I wrote an essay years ago with Richard Stallman about this, about how the power 333 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 to chose a license on software is this inappropriate power that people shouldn't 334 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 get. They get it anyway, so the only thing we can do is make a good choice about our 335 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 licenses to neutralise the power we should never have been given to start with. 336 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I often talk about this as using the tools of the oppressor against the oppressor. 337 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 If we're going to do that, that means we have to look at every tool they use with 338 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 regard to copyright. 339 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 We've generally just looked at the licensing tool. 340 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The tool of "what license do I put on my software", that's how I'll do it. 341 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I'll put a copyleft license so that I'm defending software freedom by putting 342 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 a copyleft licence on my code, but I think Debian could go even further and use these 343 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 tools in additional ways to help defend software freedom. 344 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 With that, I'd like to announce a thing that Conservancy is doing for Debian. 345 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 This was officially put into place in April. 346 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 We waited to announce it until my keynote here because we knew I was going to be 347 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 keynoting. 348 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 It's an agreement that has been signed between the DPL and the Conservancy 349 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 to offer the following services to the Debian project, 350 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 all of which are optional to all Debian Developers. 351 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 It's a programme begun under the Software Freedom Conservancy, and we recognise 352 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 that as a member of SPI we asked SPI if it's ok if we did this before we did it 353 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 because we wanted to make sure we weren't offending your other charity organisation 354 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 in the United States, and they agreed that this was fine. 355 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 It permits any Debian Developer who would like to, to optionally, and in a 356 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 configurable way, assign any copyrights in their Debian related works to Conservancy 357 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 if they would like to. 358 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 If they don't want to do that, it also permits them, if they would like, to sign 359 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 an enforcement agreement with Conservancy, to ask Conservancy to enforce free 360 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 software licenses on behalf of that developer and that's an agreement that 361 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 can be cancelled, I'll talk more about that in a minute. 362 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Probably of the most interest to a lot of you because it's going to come up the most 363 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 often is Conservancy will provide licensing support and advice on an ongoing 364 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 basis for the Debian Project, and I'll talk more later on how we're going to 365 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 do that. 366 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The whole reason this exists is because a key Debian contributor came to us and 367 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 asked us to do it and we were happy to do it, and I'll talk about who that was in a 368 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 few minutes. 369 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 First, I felt I have to talk about this, because I've spend a lot of years lately, 370 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 in fact the last time I was in Germany, I was here to debate Mark Shuttleworth about 371 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 copyright assignment. 372 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The fact that I've just pitched to you that copyright assignment is now available 373 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 for Debian Developers I'm sure is probably leaving you to wonder a little bit. 374 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 It's certainly true that the kinds of problems that I'm talking about 375 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 sometimes come out from the fact that for profit companies come to 376 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 free software developers and convince them to assign copyright to that company 377 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 or they ask them to sign some heavyweight contributor license 378 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 agreement which has the almost legal identical effect of a copyright assignment 379 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The reason they do that is because they want to, usually, make proprietary 380 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 versions of those copyrighted works, or otherwise exploit them in some way 381 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 that the free software license, that they would have got anyway, 382 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 would not allow them to do. 383 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I'm against all that. 384 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I'm opposed to using copyright assignment in that way. 385 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 But then when I think about the original motivations of copyleft it always was 386 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 using tools that were not totally comfortable with existing at all 387 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 against themselves. So why not look at copyright assignment this way: 388 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 If you only assign your copyright to charities that take a good strong stand 389 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 for software freedom you be able to maximize the benefits of your 390 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 copyrights allowing an organization that, say, enforces the GPL or otherwise 391 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 trying to do the right things with those copyrights to advance software freedom 392 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 you can help that work along by doing that. 393 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The other point I want to make is that the only reason those nefarious uses 394 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 of copyright assignment can ever work is because they collect 100% 395 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 of copyright. 396 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I think no project should have consolidated copyright at 100% 397 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 any more. I think that's an antiquated way of thinking. 398 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I would encourage Debian to have multi copyright held forever which it probably 399 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 will. There will never be a single copyright holder of Debian I'm sure. 400 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Even if you just took the parts that Debian developers had contributed, 401 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 not all of them are going to sign to one entity. 402 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Even if a few Debian developers assign to Conservancy or many there will still be 403 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 a nice diverse copyright base which I think creates a healthy community. 404 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 There's a very sad but simply true reason that copyright assignment is important. 405 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 This is from the Debian history file. We've lost people in our community. 406 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 We will lose more as time goes on. 407 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Most of this community is very young but I'm ageing and we are all ageing at the 408 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 same rate, more or less. 409 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 You need to think about that question. 410 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 What happens if something happens to me. 411 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 What happens to my contributions to the community? 412 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 What do they do? Where do they go? 413 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I think we should think about that. 414 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I've had to talk to developers heirs on the phone to get licensing problems 415 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 fixed. It's one of the most horrible things I've ever had to do on my job. 416 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Think for yourself about: do you want your heirs or people who are in charge 417 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 of your copyrights when you pass having to do that. 418 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The other less sad problem is that people forget to take care of things. 419 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 They put them off, especially when they are boring and annoying. 420 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 So things like copyright enforcement or copyleft enforcement tends 421 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 not to happen. 422 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I know from my years and years of experience doing it that 423 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 there are constantly hundreds and hundreds of violations all the time. 424 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 All of them are urgent, more or less, because they are all really 425 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 hurting users. 426 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I don't know about you, but when you have a bug queue 427 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 where every single bug is critical, none of them are critical, right? 428 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Because then it's ,like, over, the project is screwed. 429 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 That's how GPL enforcement has felt for years and years and years. 430 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 While you can think about how having your own copyrights is my privilege 431 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 (29:02)