9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, I have to be honest 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I'm really honored to be here 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I don't say that to just every conference 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I care a lot about Debian 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is my 3rd Debconf I've ever been to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 There have been a lot of them so I obviously haven't been to that many 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But I was at Debconf1 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 which I just learned today that it was zero based so that it wasn't the first Debconf 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 which I should have known but didn't for some reason 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but so I was at the 2nd Debconf and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 by accident somewhat because I was going to Libre Software meeting 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and just happened to book my flights so that I could be at Debconf as well 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and because it was in New York city where I was living at the time 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I gave a regular track talk at Debconf10 about the GPL v3 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and here I'm giving an invited speaker talk 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 or a keynote or whatever else it is called here 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That really means a lot to me 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I'm a fan of Debian, I'm a user of Debian. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I don't actually consider myself part of the Debian community 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 because other than filing a few bugs over the years 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I haven't contributed all that much to Debian 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but I've relied on it and used it and been a fan of it for so long 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that I really love your project. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So I am really honored to be invited to speak here 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and I really believe that Debian is a very special project 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 for a lot of reasons 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 First of all it has thrived for longer than almost any free software project in existence 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in a lot of ways. There are top 10 lists of projects that Debian is certainly on as far as longevity goes, maybe the top 5 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's governance is one of the few 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 democratically elected and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 democratically controlled 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 governance processes in free software 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Everyone is a fan of talking about this 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 'benevolent dictator' stuff 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 which I think is really horrible 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The fact that somebody would call 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 themselves a 'self appointed benevolent 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 dictator for life' is really disturbing. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You are democratic. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You elect your leadership. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You have referendums on major issues 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that everyone can vote on. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That is amazingly rare, impressive 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and important for free software. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The other thing that really impresses me, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in particular being somebody from the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 non-profit world, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is that Debian has been staunchly 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 non-commercial for it's entire existence 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Of course I don't mean that Debian 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 can't be used in commercial settings 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 DFSG free means that things can be put 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 into commercial products. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 What I mean is the project itself has 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 always been non-commercial, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 meaning that the people that work on it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 are volunteering, and even if their 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 employers are paying them to work on it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 they are part of a community 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and are not doing their work inside Debian 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 as officially part of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 some commercial activity. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Most free software projects these days 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 are controlled by 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 some commercial entity or another. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Debian is not. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I was at Debconf1 which was really 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 exciting for me. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I was a young executive director of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Free Software. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I showed this picture to Karen Sandler who 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I work with and said how different I look. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 She said I don't look different at all, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but, speaking as the person that looks 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 at that face in the mirror every morning, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 there are a lot more lines on my face 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 than there.