Bruce Perens was the second DPL. He was the first to distribute the "base system" to a geographically distributed set of developers - when nobody knew that would work. Ian Murdock had maintained the entire base system on his own. By distributing development this way, and for other innovations while he was DPL, he is said to be creator of the modern Linux distribution. He also created Busybox (and thus embedded Linux), for the Debian installer. He was the principal author of the Debian Social Contract and the Debian Free Software Guidelines, which became the Open Source Definition. He was one of the founders of Software in the Public Interest.
Accepted Talks:
What comes after Open Source?
You’re going to think I am nuts for saying this.
I think I have worked out what comes after Open Source.
It preserves the goals of Free Software and Open Source, preserves the reasons we succeeded, and deals with the ways in which we’ve failed. Which are:
We wanted to give people freedom, but we never won the hearts and minds of the common people, they still use proprietary software.
We created our own extractive industries, and both income and control went to those who exploited the developer, rather than the developers themselves.
We were never able to deal with the problem of software patents effectively. We have no good troll defense. OIN is at least as much for protecting the software patent system from Open-Source-driven reform as it is for protecting us from software patents.
We created a tower of babel of licenses. We did not design-in license compliance, and we have a tremendous noncompliance problem that isn’t getting better. We can’t afford to sue our copyright infringers.
We did not design a good framework for where proprietary software can go, and where it never should. Our license loopholes are exploited.
I think I have worked out the next step after Open Source, which addresses these things while preserving the good of Open Source and furthering the original goals of Free Software.
Listen, and see if you agree.
Leadership in Debian BoF/Panel
In this session, we will host a panel of people who hold (or who have held) leadership positions within Debian.
We’ll go through a few questions for the panel and then continue with open questions and discussion.