WEBVTT

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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 in existence

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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

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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 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
they are part of a community

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and are not doing their work inside Debian

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as officially part of
some commercial activity.

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Most free software projects these days

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are controlled by
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

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Free Software.

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I showed this picture to Karen Sandler who

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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

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at that face in the mirror every morning,

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there are a lot more lines on my face

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than there.

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That is a smooth looking baby face that I

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had 14 years ago that I don't have anymore

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I was pretty casual back then.

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I'm not in short trousers any more.

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It's hard to see and

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you can see it in some of the other photos

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that I was.

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Even in this heat I haven't worn short

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trousers in a very long time.

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[bdale heckles] What's that?

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Bdale, I was thinking about mentioning you

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and now I have to because you are heckling

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me [laughter]. Bdale is the one adult

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in the room that can dress like

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everyone 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

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and here I'm sweating in my long sleeves

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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.
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
If you look, 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

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"You do not know what you are talking
about"

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That hasn't changed, which is good.
[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.
And I probably am, so that's ok.

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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
introduced to the Debian community

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in person back in 2001, 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.