Mixed Emotions On Debian Anniversary

Thu, 16 Aug 2018 11:26:54 -0600
tags/debian, tags/music

When I woke up this morning, my first conscious thought was that today is the 25th anniversary of a project I myself have been dedicated to for nearly 24 years, the Debian GNU/Linux distribution. I knew it was coming, but beyond recognizing the day to family and friends, I hadn't really thought a lot about what I might do to mark the occasion.

Before I even got out of bed, however, I learned of the passing of Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul. I suspect it would be difficult to be a caring human being, born in my country in my generation, and not feel at least some impact from her mere existence. Such a strong woman, with amazing talent, whose name comes up in the context of civil rights and women's rights beyond the incredible impact of her music. I know it's a corny thing to write, but after talking to my wife about it over coffee, Aretha really has been part of "the soundtrack of our lives". Clearly, others feel the same, because in her half-century-plus professional career, "Ms Franklin" won something like 18 Grammy awards, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and other honors too numerous to list. She will be missed.

What's the connection, if any, between these two? In 2002, in my platform for election as Debian Project Leader, I wrote that "working on Debian is my way of expressing my most strongly held beliefs about freedom, choice, quality, and utility." Over the years, I've come to think of software freedom as an obvious and important component of our broader freedom and equality. And that idea was strongly reinforced by the excellent talk Karen Sandler and Molly de Blanc gave at Debconf18 in Taiwan recently, in which they pointed out that in our modern world where software is part of everything, everything can be thought of as a free software issue!

So how am I going to acknowledge and celebrate Debian's 25th anniversary today? By putting some of my favorite Aretha tracks on our whole house audio system built entirely using libre hardware and software, and work to find and fix at least one more bug in one of my Debian packages. Because expressing my beliefs through actions in this way is, I think, the most effective way I can personally contribute in some small way to freedom and equality in the world, and thus also the finest tribute I can pay to Debian... and to Aretha Franklin.