ftp.acc.umu.se/.../Debians_Central_Role_in_the_Future_of_Software_Freedom.webm

So, I have to be honest

I'm really honored to be here

I don't say that to just every conference

I care a lot about Debian

This is my 3rd Debconf I've ever been to

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

But I was at Debconf1

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

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

but so I was at the 2nd Debconf and

by accident somewhat because I was going to Libre Software meeting

and just happened to book my flights so that I could be at Debconf as well

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

I gave a regular track talk at Debconf10 about the GPL v3

and here I'm giving an invited speaker talk

or a keynote or whatever else it is called here

That really means a lot to me

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

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

because other than filing a few bugs over the years

I haven't contributed all that much to Debian

but I've relied on it and used it and been a fan of it for so long

that I really love your project.

So I am really honored to be invited to speak here

and I really believe that Debian is a very special project

for a lot of reasons

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

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

It's governance is one of the few

democratically elected and

democratically controlled

governance processes in free software

Everyone is a fan of talking about this

'benevolent dictator' stuff

which I think is really horrible

The fact that somebody would call

themselves a 'self appointed benevolent

dictator for life' is really disturbing.

You are democratic.

You elect your leadership.

You have referendums on major issues

that everyone can vote on.

That is amazingly rare, impressive

and important for free software.

The other thing that really impresses me,

in particular being somebody from the

non-profit world,

is that Debian has been staunchly

non-commercial for it's entire existence

Of course I don't mean that Debian

can't be used in commercial settings

DFSG free means that things can be put

into commercial products.

What I mean is the project itself has

always been non-commercial,

meaning that the people that work on it

are volunteering, and even if their

employers are paying them to work on it

they are part of a community

and are not doing their work inside Debian

as officially part of

some commercial activity.

Most free software projects these days

are controlled by

some commercial entity or another.

Debian is not.

I was at Debconf1 which was really

exciting for me.

I was a young executive director of

Free Software.

I showed this picture to Karen Sandler who

I work with and said how different I look.

She said I don't look different at all,

but, speaking as the person that looks

at that face in the mirror every morning,

there are a lot more lines on my face

than there.