Bits_from_the_DPL.webm

[Talk meister] Grab a seat please, there's
lots of seats around here, or there.

It's my pleasure to introduce our current
and new DPL,

Neil McGovern for his annual bits from
the DPL

[Applause]

[Neil] Thanks very much, hi everyone.

I'm aware that this talk is due to cut in
to lunch so I'll try and keep it slightly

... in to dinner, so I'll keep it slightly
more refined [laughter]

so people can get their food early.

Hopefully everyone's ok with that anyway.

I'm also kind of glad that it's in this
slot when it was originally proposed

and I got my initial time slot it was
going to be a 9am slot just after the

cheese and wine party so I [laughter]

probably wouldn't expect quite so many
people as we have here today.

So, welcome everyone, this final day of
the open weekend. Anyone who isn't a

regular person, hi and welcome to Debian!

Welcome to the huge Debian family which
is certainly growing all the time and

is something that's really good to see.

It's quite fantastic that there's just so
many people involved, especially this year

When I last checked the stats I think we
had 383 people who had so far checked in

slightly less than for DebConf 7, but I'm
certain... [laughter]

I'm certain over the next few days that'll
go up and definitely surpass us.

I just want to remind everyone what the
size of the project we are.

It's such a huge effort, one of the
biggest open source and free software

projects in the world.

Combining around 1000 developers, a few
thousand maintainers and contributors as

well, and also our users.

It's really a huge effort that we manage
to still be here after 22 years and still

be going strong.

Hopefully a DebConf in future will look
a little bit like that

I think the orga team might be slightly
more stressed if we end up with numbers

but what a fantastic thing.

Also over the last few years we've had 42
new project members have joined us.

This is over the last year, we've had all
these people.

Huge welcome to everyone there. [Applause]

Especially one or two on there which I
decided to get back into doing application

management, especially for our non-
uploading developers as well, which has

been a huge boost to really grow where
we're going.

Also welcome back. I've noticed a few
people this year who I haven't seen in a

few years, so stand up if you've been away
for a few years and you're returning

I know there's certainly some people,
excellent,

Tolimar? [laughter] There he is!
[Applause]

Kris Rose? Is he here? [points] Excellent.

Was active before I even joined Debian,
and essentially has come back again, so

it's great to see everyone back and thanks
very much for remembering us.

There's been a few new people as well.

Very, very new people who I haven't kinda
seen around before in previous DebConfs

Where did all these children come from?
I think there must have been something...

[laughter]

I think the Switzerland DebConf, there
might have been something in the water,

because it's suddenly been a huge... it's
absolutely fantastic to see not only

our usual developers around, but their
families as well, and new people being

introduced to Debian and to technology.

The TecKids workshops I think are
absolutely fantastic initiative I think

that really helps broaden Debian and what
we do.

So, when I first became DPL, I always knew
Debian was a big thing in free software,

in the communities and things we do.

I went along to my running club

and we went for a run,

went to the pub afterwards as you do in
the UK,

you can't have sport without excessive
alcohol consumption afterwards so it seems

and about 7 or 8 people all came up to me

and said "Hey, congratulations on being
DPL, I'm going to buy you a pint!", which

[laughter]

which is great

So if anyone wants to run for DPL you get
free beer, this is a good thing.

But it did really impress on me that

Debian's a big deal, it's a really huge
deal.

If you have a look at some of the latest
server stats for web servers,

Debian's number one.

It's about 32% of Linux distributions, and
and if you combine Ubuntu as well, and

all our derivatives, we're about 62% of
all linux servers out there

Basically Debian really does run the world

Not only that, but the amount of embedded
devices that Debian's involved with

from, as mentioned before, the HP talk,
running huge teleco systems

to assistive devices. I know Andy's around
somewhere.

That product is essentially being based on
Debian and it's a speak and spell type

device.

It's for people who can't talk.

You have a little keyboard, you type in
what you want to say, it has predictive

technology in there, and then it gives
people a voice.

Debian is literally being used to give
people voices who can't speak.

This is the sort of impact that Debian
have, and free software can have

on the world.

A few things happened, certainly over the
last year.

Apparently we released.

I was only DPL for about a week, but I'm
going to take credit for this

like any good politician, anyway.
[laughter]

I've already had a stable release.

This has hugely welcomed.

I don't know if anyone followed the DevOps
Reactions tumblr page, but they were

following along and huge cheers from
everyone when Debian releases.

It is a big deal.

Strangely I also saw a press release that
that said they're

having a party to celebrate the release
of Debian 8 at Linux Fest North West,

But this press release was from Microsoft
[laughter]

I thought it might be a spoof at first,
but I diligently checked the certificates

and domains and made sure it went back.

I think people, certainly large
organisations are realising now that this

open source, free software thing isn't
going away

This isn't something that they can just
ignore, or they can fight against.

This is something that they have to
embrace

Certainly for someone like Microsoft to
throw away a load of cake and do a press

release because Debian's released is
something I never thought I'd see when I

first joined the Debian Project.

We've had some new good things which have
started recently as well

Fantastic areas if anyone knows what this
might be for a current initiative that's

going on?

[Picture of four similar potted plants]

I was trying to do reproducible builds.

They all sort of look the same, so near
enough [laughter]

It's the nearest I could find on Flickr to
something being reproducible.

These are all CC by the way.

So this is perhaps a bit of a better slide
to explain just how impressive it is

where we've got.

I don't know if everyone here's aware of
reproducible builds and what this is

trying to do, and the importance of it.

When you get a source package

and you produce a binary from that

there hasn't traditionally been a way of
knowing that what you've produced here

comes from this source package and it
hasn't been tampered with.

This is incredibly important for the trust
that people have in Debian

and how we produce things

So if we're able to say "Look, this thing
here has definitely come from here,

look we've rebuilt it again, you can check
for yourself, it comes from here.",

then people can trust Debian as this
platform for where we run everyone's

computers.

I'm quite impressed with the remarkable
progress we've seen here.

From zero to a huge share of things being
reproducable and that work I'm sure will

continue, especially thanks to the Linux
Foundation's grants as well in supporting

this progress.

I did a "ask me anything" recently and it
was one of the things that came up as

being a hugely popular thing that Debian
is doing and that we're driving forward.

Not just for Debian itself but for all
distributions and making sure we're

able to do that.

Interestingly I was also asked what I'm
most jealous of other distributions and

I think I said the Arch wiki because it is
pretty good. [laughter]

Often when I'm on #debian and answering
questions then it comes up with the best

answers a lot of the time.

But, hey, I'm rubbish at writing
documentation so...

Another effort we've come up with is ddebs

Ability to automatically have debug
symbols

Something which a few other distributions
have had for a while and it's really,

really good to see that this sort of
effort is happening as well.

If Niels is around.... well done!
[applause]

Not the only one but.

So, what's next?

What's the next things that Debian can do?

Where can we go from here and what sort of
ideas can we have?

There's a whole range of things we can do

but I'm just going to pick up two or three

that we want to kinda concentrate on and
see where we're going.

First, PPAs. [picture of a parcel]

It's near enough a package, that'll do me.

I've got a BoF scheduled on Friday, to try
and look at what we're doing with this and

trying to finish it off.

It was in my platform as something I want
push and it's something I believe will

really help the development of Debian.

Now, it's slightly different from Ubuntu
PPAs as they're well known.

It's not going to be somewhere that you
can just dump random software and people

install various quality packages.

This is going to be a very useful tool to
aid Debian development itself.

As far as I remember, most of the work is
actually done now.

Huge thanks to the FTP Masters and DSA
etc for this.

So the actual code is there in DAK.

The only missing bits is the control
functions,

how you create new PPAs and the wannabuild
system and we build stuff and

touch releases.

So it is going to, hopefully, come any
minute now

and something that we will hopefully be
able to use and will ease the,

sometimes the pain of when we freeze.

Sometimes the ability to easily create
backports

or even to ease library transitions.

If you can create a PPA where you stage
your library, check everything works and

you can fix all your breakages then that
should help unstable and testing as well.

One on outreach I guess is near enough.

It's kinda interesting, I've mentioned
that Debian is in a huge position to touch

many people's lives and it was slightly
worrying that compared to the amount of

Jessie release parties we had all over the
world,

I video called into one in India for
example and it was globally popular.

But all of our sprints have been in
Europe.

So we haven't had some in North America.

We haven't had any in South America.

And there's huge areas here we can really
try and push and bring free software

and really help push Debian to be the go
to place in various countries rather

thank keeping it a Europe or sometimes
even North American market.

And Debian's in a great place because we
are a community distribution.

We try and aim to be the universal
operating system.

Someone that anyone can come along, join,
help out in whatever way they want to,

be it packaging, or doing wonderful press
work for example.

[pointed look to the side] Not mentioning
that press work at all.

She's not even looking at me.
[Francesca] Hey!

[Laughter]

[Neil] She's going to volunteer to do more
press work in future again.

So it's an area people can get involved in
really easily and because we're

distributed, because we work online, it is
natural that people can come and join us

and we should encourage that, and we
should try and reach out and try and reach

more people.

Third area, the final one here is around
accessibility.

It's kind of a sad fact that free software
is about 10 years behind proprietary and

commercial offerings.

There's a reason that iPhones are hugely
popular with people who need accessibility

options - they are just fantastic compared
with what you can get normally.

I don't believe that it is right that
people should have to use proprietary

software, which they pay for, to access
computing, and to access the web, and to

be able to explore what we all have.

We should be able to put in effort, so
there's certainly an area which we can

really make a difference to people and try
and drive forward.

To bring computing to everyone, rather
than those who are fortunate enough to be

able to see a screen well, or be rich
enough to be able to pay for a license or

buy a computer or system from a
proprietary company.

There is no reason why we shouldn't be
able to do this.

We are able to speak and work directly
with people who require accessibility

features, and let those people design it
in a way that is much easier than any

proprietary company.

So it's an area I think we can try and
try and sort of push quite a bit.

Finally, a bit of a huge thank you from me
really.

It was about... So I've been involved with
Debian since about 2001 or so, and doing

loads of different roles.

Originally doing the web apps policy,
which never really got beyond draft

because web apps are terrible, terrible
things that don't really work with

distributions that well.

Then with Joey Hess, doing testing
security team and setting up that,

eventually that led in to many, many years
of release management. [shakes head]

[heckling]

And then many years of being release
manager as well.

And then after that Tolimar found me at
DebConf in Banja Luka and found out I

could write a press release and roped me
in to doing bits there

but after that I was sort of feeling a
bit, I don't know, burned out.

I didn't really know what else to do with
the project.

I think this happens to everyone.

It's a huge reminder each time when I come
to DebConf and I meet people and how

fortunate I am, and we all are to be
involved with such a fantastic project,

something that really is changing people's
lives,

something that is breaking the
traditional proprietary market

and enabling people to have greater access
to computing

and it's really fortunate that I'm in a
position to help lead this project

and to do everything for you.

Finally, I think I mentioned, I think Phil
Hands - is he around?

He probably has a small child trying to
throw-up on him for anyone who saw the

morning announcements today.

He did kind of joke about the next DPL
hustings,

he can just write an auto-responder bot to
any questions which is

"That sounds interesting, I look forward
to seeing the results"

[laughter]

Generally I think that we should be able
to try things,

so if anyone has any ideas, stuff they
want to do, Debian has the money,

let's go try some stuff.

If we want a sprint to work on
accessibility in say, Hong Hong

as there's a huge issue there, or to
improve our localisation, then let's

do that.

We have the money to do it.

We have, hopefully, the interest around,
so let's go try things.

As promised, I thought I'd keep things
nice and short.

As everyone seemed to be getting hungry.

I was going to leave a bit for Q&A, if
anyone had any questions,

or wanted to put me on the spot about
anything or random thoughts anyone had,

then I'd certainly be very happy to answer
any of those.

Someone has to be first.

Otherwise my timing's really, really out.

Oh good. [clappiung]

Lucky me.

Hello! What's your name and where are you
from? [laughter]

[Steve] Oh, you want me to say something?
[Neil] Yeah, go on.

[Steve] What is your single highest
priority thing that you think we should

all be working on?

[Neil] Getting the next stable release
out, to be honest.

This is what we do, as a distribution.

We release things.

We make software.

We give it to our users, Debian is famed
for its stability.

We backport our security fixes.

People can rely on Debian, they can trust
us to produce a rock solid distribution.

Something that people can, in some cases,
yes, derive works from.

If they don't like what we're doing they
can tweak it.

There was the huge thing that came up when
Devuan came up saying that

"Oh, we're going to fork Debian and it's
going to be terrible"

It's like fine! There's over 120 forks of
Debian out there already, that's fine!

Please, come and do this, we're happy with
that.

Being able to produce this reliable,
stable operating system that we only

release when we're ready, which happens to
apparently be about every two years now

is something that everyone relies on us
being able to do,

and they can trust us to produce that for
them.

Essentially putting out releases is one of
the main reasons we're here.

To get that software into the hands of
users.

There's loads of other stuff of course
which we can do to try and improve and

push forward free software in general, but
we are essentially a distribution.

Our aim is to collect software, and then
distribute it,

and one of the best ways to do that is
releases.

[Steve] Good answer.
[Neil] Good!

[Joshua] What's your favourite thing about
Debian?

[laughter]

[Unknown] You're not allowed to say
releases.

[Neil] I'm apparently not allowed to say
the kilt as well

[Bdale] You also already said free beer so

[Neil] And free beer, yeah.

It has to be the people that I'm involved
with.

The project has enabled me to meet so
many awesome people and basically have

the career I've had so far as well.

There has always been a thing about being
involved visibly with and open source

project that helps you professionally as
well.

I got my first job because I was involved
with free software.

I then got my next job because I was a
Debian developer and could put together

Linux systems easily, and knew how to
munge these various crazy different

projects which are written in a hundred
different libraries,

using different compatibilities together
to make something whole.

Then my current job I got because
essentially I was involved in doing

management-y type functions in Debian.

As I say to people when they ask

"Where's the money in free software? How
can I create a career with it?"

It's basically fairly easy. Get stuck in.

Go and do something.

Find something interesting that interests
you,

and that you're able to be the world
expert at, and you can do that.

On an entirely personal view, some of my
closest friends are the Debian people I've

worked with for many many years and I
certainly wouldn't have moved to my

current city, or know half the people I do
if it wasn't for that.

The Debian family is a large one, that
occasionally gets together at DebConf

and Christmas, and sometimes has huge blow
up arguments,

possibly over the turkey or the init
system, something like that [laughter]

but we do all come together.

We have huge contentious decisions

but we're still here.

We've had huge arguments with everyone
trying to stab each other, but at the end

of the day we're still here, we're still
the Debian project.

And sort of like that it's something we
love to be associated with

and it's everyone around that really makes
that.

[Joshua] Thank you
[Applause]

[Neil] Anyone else? No?

Oh oh.

I'll just stop you there - backups are
really really important, [laughter]

so we should definitely concentrate on
backups.

[Lars] So what's the biggest risk to
Debian you see in the 5-10 year span?

[[[25:48]]]