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

[Bradley Kuhn] 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

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.

I was at the 2nd DebConf 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

I gave a regular track talk at DebConf10
about the GPL v3

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

Here I'm giving an invited speaker talk or
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 that 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 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.

That is a smooth looking baby face that I
had 14 years ago that I don't have anymore

I was pretty casual back then.
I'm not in short trousers any more.

It's hard to see and you can see it in
some of the other photos that I was.

Even in this heat like this I haven't
worn short trousers in a very long time.

What's that? [bdale heckles]

Bdale, I was thinking about mentioning you
and now I have to because you are heckling

me [laughter]. Bdale is the one adult
in the room who can dress like

everybody else but I can't pull it off

I respect Bdale that he can.
The tie-dye still works for him.

And I stopped wearing t-shirts years ago
at conferences

and here I'm sweating in my long sleeves
halfway between hacker and suit attire.

And there [in the photo] I'm talking to
Martin Michmayer

I'm going to do questions at the end Lars,
if that's ok.

I'm not good with questions because I
get off topic easy.

I left 17 minutes at the end for questions
which Bdale just took 3 of [laughter]

There I'm talking to Martin Michlmayer
when I first met him.

A lot of things have changed since I
looked at this photo.

But one thing that hasn't changed,
you see this face that Martin is making.

He still makes that face at me every time
I talk to him, which sort of says like

"You do not know what you are talking
about". That hasn't changed, which is good

[laughter]. I'm glad he is laughing in the
back there.

Some things have stayed the same.
Martin still thinks I'm full of it.

And I probably am, so that's ok.
I like people to keep me honest.

Other than jokes, the thing that hasn't
really changed since I was first

introduced to the Debian community, in
person, back in 2001,

is the ethos of this community is still
the same one that I remember

even though a lot of the developers
have changed.

I talked to somebody who had never
even installed Debian when they were at

DebConf1. I talked to someone who was
12 years old at the time of DebConf1.

I find it impressive that what I call the
'morality of the hobbyist contributor'

still lives strongly in Debian.

The people in Debian want to do what is
right for other people -

their users, co-developers,
co-contributors.

They also volunteer to do that.

As I said before, that doesn't mean that
they aren't being paid to do their work.

It's the classic free software thing: lots
of people get paid to write free software.

What I've seen recently, in many free
software projects, is that

companies have used that. I think
OpenStack is one of the worst examples

of this. To control the project by hiring
lots of it's developers.

They have this kindof pull over the
project. I think that a lot of people that

work at OpenStack would say they are
employers employee first and an

OpenStack contributor second.

I don't know anyone in Debian who would
not say 'I am a Debian developer' first

and then I happen to be employed as a
second issue.

Debian is their first priority.
Their job is their second.

That hobbyist culture of 'my volunteer
work matters more to me than

what actually pays me for a living'
is the kind of mentality that I am such a

fan of. I try to live that in my own work
as well.

I like interacting with the community.
I usually find conferences very stressful.

This one I do not find as stressful
other than I'm standing in a room with a

huge number of people. Other than that
I don't find it stressful

because this is the kind of community
that thinks that way.

I think a lot of it has to do with the
other structures you have set up around

yourselves. The idea of having charities
that you work with

which you have chosen to do a multi
charity situation where you have lots

around the world that you can interact
with.

One of them was founded by a Debian
developer initially.

You reach out to other partnerships or
charities as a non-commercial community

That allows you to have an infrastructure
that you can rely on that helps

you maintain that community.
I'm very glad that you do that.

I used to work for the FSF and am still on
the board of directors.

Early in the project Debian was more or
less a GNU project for a while.

It was part of the FSF. I know that
relationship has never been perfect

sometimes rocky and sometimes better,
but the FSF saw this in Debian too

very early on. That it was a really
important way to begin the whole

distribution thing of free software and
that culture was a match with

FSF's culture.

I know where the issues are and I'm
sure John is here to talk about them.

But I think there is a lot of cultural
connect between FSF and Debian.

I'm a little obsessed about this quote.
I saw it in real time.

I was subscribed to comp.os.minux in Aug
of '91 when it was posted

Part of it was that when I started working
for the FSF I started thinking about it

and the FSF when I worked there had 7
employees and still has under 20

That's not big.

So I don't think of it as big and I guess
strictly speaking,

since the FSF is a very professional
organisation, and to take the

strict definition professional means you
get paid to do this thing,

you do it for a living - yes, the FSF
staff are professionals

in all the ways you might use the word
professional,

but I don't think that's what Linus
was going for in this quote

I don't think he meant those normal things
about professional

I think what he was going for is he was
trying to create Linux back when he was
humble

Because people forget Linus used to be
really humble. Once upon a time.

[laughter]

I don't know... ok. I think some of his
early posts were humble

but we can debate that I suppose.

One of the things that Linus understood
well was that he wanted to create

a project where individuals collaborated
together in their own capacity.

He wanted a hobbyist kind of culture and
was interested in that kind of culture.

I think that what he got wrong was not
realising how important charities are

to that culture and I think Debian has
always got that right.

You've always interacted with charities
in good ways.

I think you keep them at arms length,
which is OK and reasonable, but

you've always seen the value,
always seen the connection between being

a non-commercial hobbyist controlled
project, very professional I think, but

still hobbyist controlled in a sense that
you are volunteers doing the right things

for everyone in your community.

At the same time reaching out to these
charities and letting them help you

get done what you need to get do in the
logistical world outside of your project.

What I've seen in other projects that
Debian has not suffered from

is the politics of the projects have
bifurcated.

There's the technical politics which is
the usual arguments about

this technology verses that technology

say, systemd verses upstart, something
like that

and that, I think in almost every project
still remains under developer control.

People who are developers decide
technical decisions like that.

But the political governance in most other
projects has been hijacked in my view.

By various different groups, depending on
the project

but usually some mix of lawyers or
business type people who are somehow

in for profit companies or industry
associations,

that have taken over the political
governance.

The reason they've succeeded in doing this
I think is because most developers

care deeply about the technical politics,
but not so much about the other politics.

They want to make those decisions once
and leave them alone.

A lot of my work in Conservancy is to help
developers make those decisions right once

and then be able to leave them alone
without it having bite them later.

I think a lot of projects have faced that
situation, where the non technical

politics of their projects are under the
control of people who are

not members of the community, not really.

I think that has really happened to Linux.

I think that the Linux non technical
politics are out of the hands of

the developers and it's a very sad thing,
from my point of view

I think the companies control those
politics

and they don't keep developers out
entirely, but they gate keep

from letting certain developers into the
politics of what's really going on in the

non technical space.

I've met many Linux developers who feel
disenfranchised.

It's why Conservancy has a GPL enforcement
project for Linux.

Because they've come to us to ask for
someone who has a charitable mission

to do the right thing for the public good,
as opposed to the what companies want.

I think that's what these charities serve.

If you look at any of these charities that
we have out there,

Conservancy, Software in the Public
Interest, FSF,

they do things for hobbyist developers
that are the morally right thing to do

but are sometimes controversial

that developers actually really need,

maybe sometimes don't want to spend too
much time on

because they're more interested in other
things,

but companies and trade associations don't
need them and in fact

they often oppose them.

As I said, we're doing at Conservancy the
GPL enforcement for Linux

because it is not in the business interest
of the companies who invest in Linux

to see the GPL enforced.

In many cases they actually oppose it
being enforced at all.

Which brings me to copyleft generally.

My last talk to all of you was at DebConf
10,

where I told you about GPL v3 and how
wonderful it is and

how much I respected Debian's commitment
to copyleft.

Now that's not to say everything in the
archive is copyleft, I would guess that

most things in the archive aren't, as it
turns out.

But there are many, many important things
in Debian's archive that are copylefted

and many Debian meta-projects that you
rely on every day as part of your

development that you have chosen to
copyleft.

So I see Debian as a strongly connected
project to the broader copyleft community

which I am heavily involved in.

Excessively involved in you might say.

The organisation I work for is funding
a lawsuit, here in Germany

against VMware for violating the GPL for
a very long time and refusing to comply.

Christoph Hellwig is the plaintiff. It is
in a Berlin court.

Till Jaeger is his lawyer and you have to
read the FAQ.

I am, admittedly, not as comfortable with
the German legal system as the US.

I am used to the US where everything is
public.

The German legal system doesn't work
that way.

I respect the cultural difference and
therefore we put what we could in the FAQ

so you could go read it.

So if you were hoping to hear all about
the VMware lawsuit in this talk this is

the only slide that covers it, sorry to
say.

You can load your browser and look at the
FAQ I guess.

The interesting thing that I can talk
about is the aftermath in the politics in

the community that I think a lot of
people, even people in this room got wrong

about what was going to happen after we
sued VMware.

I have myself been a little bit surprised
that the response by many for profit

companies (in the back channels, this has
not been in press releases, obviously)

has been to attempt to eradicate copyleft
entirely, or at the very least

stop its enforcement.

At this point, for anybody who wants to
make a strong commitment like Christoph,

like me, to spend a lot of time enforcing
GPL, it is an extremely, politically

treacherous decision.

We have people in our GPL enforcement
project for Linux at Conservancy who

insist on anonymity because they are
terrified it will affect their ability to

get jobs, and other things if they're even
heard to be talking to people who do

enforcement.

I think what's happened is that the people
who have always been against copyleft

subtly and quietly now see there's some
chinks in the armour.

There are very few people still enforcing
the copyleft.

The only two organisations doing it as
part of a charity are the FSF and

Conservany.

It's a time for the sharks to circle and
see if they can finish off the rest.

That's what I think is happening.

Now, this matters to you.

Even if you don't care that much about
copyleft, it matters.

Ubuntu was violating your copyrights for
two years.

They had a trademark policy that
contradicted the GPL.

It's a violation of the GPL.

The Free Software Foundation and
Conservacy worked very, very hard for two

years to get it resolved.
It's been resolved.

The trademark policy, as it stands - you
can read the statements on both

Conservancy and FSF's websites - is in
compliance with the GPL.

I'm glad that Canonical eventually did the
right thing.

However, you've got to read the
fine print.

Because what they've done is they've said
"Well, by using this trump clause thing to

comply", it means that all the non
copylefted software (from Debian which of

course then ends up in Ubuntu) is then
propitiatorized, effectively, when it goes

into Ubuntu, because all these additional
restrictions and terms in the trademark

policy that are contradictory to copyleft,
the trump clause passes them out for

copyleft so you can't have those
contradicting copyleft, but they happily

don't contradict the two clause BSD
license, or the Apache software license or

various other licenses.

A lot is being proprietarized, now it's
totally permissible by the copyright