Bruce Perens
Encyclopedia
Bruce Perens is a computer programmer and advocate in the open source community. He created the Open Source Definition
and published the first formal announcement and manifesto of open source
. He co-founded the Open Source Initiative
(OSI) with Eric S. Raymond
.
In 2005, Perens represented Open Source at the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society
, at the invitation of the United Nations Development Program. He has appeared before national legislatures and is often quoted in the press, advocating for open source and the reform of national and international technology policy.
Perens is also a ham, with callsign K6BP. He is well known in the amateur radio
community for his efforts towards open radio communications standards.
philosophy of Richard Stallman
to business people who are more concerned with profit than freedom, and states that open source and free software are only two ways of talking about the same phenomenon. This differs from Stallman and Raymond. Perens postulates an economic theory for business use of Open Source in his paper The Emerging Economic Paradigm of Open Source and his speech Innovation Goes Public. This differs from Raymond's theory in The Cathedral and the Bazaar
, which having been written before there was much business involvement in open source, explains open source as a consequence of programmer motivation and leisure.
Project Leader, a founder of Software in the Public Interest
, founder and first project leader of the Linux Standard Base
project, the initial author of BusyBox
, and founder of the UserLinux
project. Perens also has a book series with Prentice Hall PTR called the Bruce Perens' Open Source Series
. He is an avid amateur radio
enthusiast (callsign K6BP) and maintained technocrat.net, which he closed in late 2008 because its revenues did not cover its costs. He is also the founder of No Code International, an organization whose primary purpose was to eliminate morse code
proficiency as a requirement to obtain an amateur radio license. This goal has been reached with the removal of code requirements from international law (International Telecommunications Union treaty provision S25.5), the new "code-free" rules introduced on 2007-02-23, and similar legal changes in almost all nations worldwide.
Perens left OSI a year after co-founding it, with reasons explained in an email titled "It's Time to Talk About Free Software Again". In February 2008, for the 10th anniversary of the Open Source, Perens published a message to the community called "State of Open Source Message: A New Decade For Open Source". For the same event, the 10th anniversary of Open Source, the ezine RegDeveloper published an interview with Bruce Perens where he revives an updated view on the past and the future, and the dangers of the Open Source, especially the useless proliferation of OSI approved licenses and the strength of the GPL 3. In addition, the interview covered Linus Torvalds
' refusal to adopt the GPLv3 for the Linux kernel.
He was an employee of SourceLabs from June 2005 until December 2007. He is currently CEO of Kiloboot.
, itself part of the Debian Social Contract
. Perens proposed a draft of the Debian Social Contract to the Debian developers on the debian-private mailing list early in June, 1997. Debian developers contributed discussion and changes for the rest of the month while Perens edited, and the completed document was then announced as Debian project policy. On February 3, 1998, a group of people met at VA Linux Systems (without Perens) to discuss the promotion of Free Software to business from pragmatic terms, rather than the moral terms preferred by Richard Stallman. Christine Petersen of the nanotechnology organization Foresight Institute was present because Foresight took an early interest in Free Software, and Petersen suggested the term "Open Source". The next day, Eric Raymond recruited Perens to work with him on the formation of Open Source. Perens modified his Debian document into the Open Source Definition by removing Debian references and replacing them with "Open Source".
The original announcement of the Open Source Definition
was made on February 9, 1998 on Slashdot
and elsewhere; the definition was given in Linux Gazette
on February 10, 1998.
for 12 years before leaving to work full-time on Open Source issues, and before then at the New York Institute of Technology Computer Graphics Lab, spending a total of 19 years in the computer graphics and feature film industry. These two decades were the genesis of the 3-dimensional feature film animation that is taken for granted today. He is credited as a studio tools engineer on Toy Story 2
and A Bug's Life
. He is featured in two documentaries on Open Source: Revolution OS
and The Code-Breakers
. He produced a video commercial, Impending Security Breach, for Sourcelabs in 2007.
.
, a distribution whose stated goal was, "Provide businesses with freely available, high quality Linux operating systems accompanied by certifications, service, and support options designed to encourage productivity and security while reducing overall costs."
(the lower house of parliament) in Italy and testimony to the Culture Committee of the Chamber of Deputies; a keynote speech at the foundation of Norway's Open Source Center, following Norway's Minister of Governmental Reform (Perens is on the advisory board of the center); he provided input on the revision of the European Interoperability Framework
; and he was keynote speaker at a European Commission conference on Digital Business Ecosystems at the Centre Borschette, Brussels, on November 7.
on open source in the Jacobsen v. Katzer
U.S. Federal lawsuit. His report, which was made publicly available by Jacobsen, presented the culture and impact of open source software development to the federal courts.
Open Source Definition
The Open Source Definition is a document published by the Open Source Initiative, to determine whether or not a software license can be labeled with the open-source certification mark....
and published the first formal announcement and manifesto of open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
. He co-founded the Open Source Initiative
Open Source Initiative
The Open Source Initiative is an organization dedicated to promoting open source software.The organization was founded in February 1998, by Bruce Perens and Eric S. Raymond, prompted by Netscape Communications Corporation publishing the source code for its flagship Netscape Communicator product...
(OSI) with Eric S. Raymond
Eric S. Raymond
Eric Steven Raymond , often referred to as ESR, is an American computer programmer, author and open source software advocate. After the 1997 publication of The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Raymond was for a number of years frequently quoted as an unofficial spokesman for the open source movement...
.
In 2005, Perens represented Open Source at the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society
World Summit on the Information Society
The World Summit on the Information Society was a pair of United Nations-sponsored conferences about information, communication and, in broad terms, the information society that took place in 2003 in Geneva and in 2005 in Tunis...
, at the invitation of the United Nations Development Program. He has appeared before national legislatures and is often quoted in the press, advocating for open source and the reform of national and international technology policy.
Perens is also a ham, with callsign K6BP. He is well known in the amateur radio
Amateur radio
Amateur radio is the use of designated radio frequency spectrum for purposes of private recreation, non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, and emergency communication...
community for his efforts towards open radio communications standards.
Viewpoint
Perens poses Open Source as a means of marketing the free softwareFree software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
philosophy of Richard Stallman
Richard Stallman
Richard Matthew Stallman , often shortened to rms,"'Richard Stallman' is just my mundane name; you can call me 'rms'"|last= Stallman|first= Richard|date= N.D.|work=Richard Stallman's homepage...
to business people who are more concerned with profit than freedom, and states that open source and free software are only two ways of talking about the same phenomenon. This differs from Stallman and Raymond. Perens postulates an economic theory for business use of Open Source in his paper The Emerging Economic Paradigm of Open Source and his speech Innovation Goes Public. This differs from Raymond's theory in The Cathedral and the Bazaar
The Cathedral and the Bazaar
The Cathedral and the Bazaar is an essay by Eric S. Raymond on software engineering methods, based on his observations of the Linux kernel development process and his experiences managing an open source project, fetchmail. It examines the struggle between top-down and bottom-up design...
, which having been written before there was much business involvement in open source, explains open source as a consequence of programmer motivation and leisure.
Organizations
Perens is a former DebianDebian
Debian is a computer operating system composed of software packages released as free and open source software primarily under the GNU General Public License along with other free software licenses. Debian GNU/Linux, which includes the GNU OS tools and Linux kernel, is a popular and influential...
Project Leader, a founder of Software in the Public Interest
Software in the Public Interest
Software in the Public Interest, Inc. is a non-profit organization formed to help other organizations create and distribute free/open-source software and open-source hardware...
, founder and first project leader of the Linux Standard Base
Linux Standard Base
The Linux Standard Base is a joint project by several Linux distributions under the organizational structure of the Linux Foundation to standardize the software system structure, including the filesystem hierarchy, used with Linux operating system...
project, the initial author of BusyBox
BusyBox
BusyBox provides several stripped-down Unix tools in a single executable. It runs in a variety of POSIX environments such as Linux, Android, FreeBSD and others, such as proprietary kernels, although many of the tools it provides are designed to work with interfaces provided by the Linux kernel. It...
, and founder of the UserLinux
UserLinux
UserLinux was a project to create a operating system based on Debian, and targeted at business customers. The goal was to provide businesses with a freely available, high quality operating system accompanied by certifications, service, and support options....
project. Perens also has a book series with Prentice Hall PTR called the Bruce Perens' Open Source Series
Bruce Perens' Open Source Series
The Bruce Perens' Open Source Series is a series of books edited by Bruce Perens as series editor and published by Prentice Hall PTR. Principal topics are Linux and Open Source. These books are intended for professional software developers, system and network administrators, and power users...
. He is an avid amateur radio
Amateur radio
Amateur radio is the use of designated radio frequency spectrum for purposes of private recreation, non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, and emergency communication...
enthusiast (callsign K6BP) and maintained technocrat.net, which he closed in late 2008 because its revenues did not cover its costs. He is also the founder of No Code International, an organization whose primary purpose was to eliminate morse code
Morse code
Morse code is a method of transmitting textual information as a series of on-off tones, lights, or clicks that can be directly understood by a skilled listener or observer without special equipment...
proficiency as a requirement to obtain an amateur radio license. This goal has been reached with the removal of code requirements from international law (International Telecommunications Union treaty provision S25.5), the new "code-free" rules introduced on 2007-02-23, and similar legal changes in almost all nations worldwide.
Perens left OSI a year after co-founding it, with reasons explained in an email titled "It's Time to Talk About Free Software Again". In February 2008, for the 10th anniversary of the Open Source, Perens published a message to the community called "State of Open Source Message: A New Decade For Open Source". For the same event, the 10th anniversary of Open Source, the ezine RegDeveloper published an interview with Bruce Perens where he revives an updated view on the past and the future, and the dangers of the Open Source, especially the useless proliferation of OSI approved licenses and the strength of the GPL 3. In addition, the interview covered Linus Torvalds
Linus Torvalds
Linus Benedict Torvalds is a Finnish software engineer and hacker, best known for having initiated the development of the open source Linux kernel. He later became the chief architect of the Linux kernel, and now acts as the project's coordinator...
' refusal to adopt the GPLv3 for the Linux kernel.
He was an employee of SourceLabs from June 2005 until December 2007. He is currently CEO of Kiloboot.
Creation of the Open Source Definition
The Open Source Definition was first created by Perens as the Debian Free Software GuidelinesDebian Free Software Guidelines
The Debian Free Software Guidelines is a set of guidelines that the Debian Project uses to determine whether a software license is a free software license, which in turn is used to determine whether a piece of software can be included in Debian...
, itself part of the Debian Social Contract
Debian Social Contract
The Debian Social Contract is a document which frames the moral agenda of the Debian project. The values outlined in the Social Contract provide the basic principles for the rules set forth in the Debian Free Software Guidelines...
. Perens proposed a draft of the Debian Social Contract to the Debian developers on the debian-private mailing list early in June, 1997. Debian developers contributed discussion and changes for the rest of the month while Perens edited, and the completed document was then announced as Debian project policy. On February 3, 1998, a group of people met at VA Linux Systems (without Perens) to discuss the promotion of Free Software to business from pragmatic terms, rather than the moral terms preferred by Richard Stallman. Christine Petersen of the nanotechnology organization Foresight Institute was present because Foresight took an early interest in Free Software, and Petersen suggested the term "Open Source". The next day, Eric Raymond recruited Perens to work with him on the formation of Open Source. Perens modified his Debian document into the Open Source Definition by removing Debian references and replacing them with "Open Source".
The original announcement of the Open Source Definition
Open Source Definition
The Open Source Definition is a document published by the Open Source Initiative, to determine whether or not a software license can be labeled with the open-source certification mark....
was made on February 9, 1998 on Slashdot
Slashdot
Slashdot is a technology-related news website owned by Geeknet, Inc. The site, which bills itself as "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters", features user-submitted and ‑evaluated current affairs news stories about science- and technology-related topics. Each story has a comments section...
and elsewhere; the definition was given in Linux Gazette
Linux Gazette
The Linux Gazette is a monthly self-published Linux computing webzine.-History:It was started in 1995 by John M. Fisk as a free service. He went on to pursue his studies and become a medical doctor. At Mr. Fisk's request, the publication was sponsored and managed by SSC...
on February 10, 1998.
Film
Perens worked at PixarPixar
Pixar Animation Studios, pronounced , is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California. The studio has earned 26 Academy Awards, seven Golden Globes, and three Grammy Awards, among many other awards and acknowledgments. Its films have made over $6.3 billion worldwide...
for 12 years before leaving to work full-time on Open Source issues, and before then at the New York Institute of Technology Computer Graphics Lab, spending a total of 19 years in the computer graphics and feature film industry. These two decades were the genesis of the 3-dimensional feature film animation that is taken for granted today. He is credited as a studio tools engineer on Toy Story 2
Toy Story 2
Toy Story 2 is a 1999 American computer animated film directed by John Lasseter and co-directed by Lee Unkrich and Ash Brannon. It is the sequel to the 1995 film Toy Story, released by Walt Disney Pictures and the third film to be produced by Pixar...
and A Bug's Life
A Bug's Life
A Bug's Life is a 1998 American computer animated adventure comedy film produced by Pixar and released by Walt Disney Pictures in the United States on November 25, 1998. A Bug's Life was the second Disney·Pixar feature film after Toy Story, and the third American computer-animated film after Toy...
. He is featured in two documentaries on Open Source: Revolution OS
Revolution OS
Revolution OS is a 2001 documentary film that traces the twenty-year history of GNU, Linux, open source, and the free software movement.Directed by J. T. S. Moore, the film features interviews with prominent hackers and entrepreneurs including Richard Stallman, Michael Tiemann, Linus Torvalds,...
and The Code-Breakers
The Code-Breakers
Code Breakers is a two-part BBC World Documentary on FOSS and Development that started on BBC World TV on 10 May 2006. Code Breakers investigates how poor countries are using FOSS applications for development, and includes stories and interviews from around the world...
. He produced a video commercial, Impending Security Breach, for Sourcelabs in 2007.
Academia
Perens is finishing a three-year grant from the Competence Fund of Southern Norway. With this funding, he spent part of the summer as a visiting lecturer and researcher at University of Agder in 2006 and 2007, and does other work remotely. During this time he consulted the Norwegian Government and other entities on government policy issues related to computers and software. He previously worked remotely as Senior Scientist for Open Source with the Cyber Security Policy Research Institute of George Washington UniversityGeorge Washington University
The George Washington University is a private, coeducational comprehensive university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States...
.
UserLinux
In 2003 Bruce Perens founded UserLinuxUserLinux
UserLinux was a project to create a operating system based on Debian, and targeted at business customers. The goal was to provide businesses with a freely available, high quality operating system accompanied by certifications, service, and support options....
, a distribution whose stated goal was, "Provide businesses with freely available, high quality Linux operating systems accompanied by certifications, service, and support options designed to encourage productivity and security while reducing overall costs."
2007 activities
Perens remained active in representing open source to the world and advising several national governments and multinational corporations regarding Open Source. In 2007 some of his government advisory roles included: a meeting with the President of the Chamber of DeputiesChamber of Deputies
Chamber of deputies is the name given to a legislative body such as the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or can refer to a unicameral legislature.-Description:...
(the lower house of parliament) in Italy and testimony to the Culture Committee of the Chamber of Deputies; a keynote speech at the foundation of Norway's Open Source Center, following Norway's Minister of Governmental Reform (Perens is on the advisory board of the center); he provided input on the revision of the European Interoperability Framework
EIF
EIF stands for:* Echogenic intracardiac focus, a term related to an ultrasound exam* Eclaireurs israélites de France, a French Scouting organization* Edinburgh International Festival, a festival of performing arts...
; and he was keynote speaker at a European Commission conference on Digital Business Ecosystems at the Centre Borschette, Brussels, on November 7.
2009 activities
In 2009, Perens acted as an expert witnessExpert witness
An expert witness, professional witness or judicial expert is a witness, who by virtue of education, training, skill, or experience, is believed to have expertise and specialised knowledge in a particular subject beyond that of the average person, sufficient that others may officially and legally...
on open source in the Jacobsen v. Katzer
Jacobsen v. Katzer
Jacobsen v. Katzer was a lawsuit between Robert Jacobsen and Matthew Katzer , filed March 13, 2006 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California...
U.S. Federal lawsuit. His report, which was made publicly available by Jacobsen, presented the culture and impact of open source software development to the federal courts.
External links
- Bruce Perens' homepage
- Project Proposal and Call for Participation: The Linux Standard Base
- "It's Time to Talk About Free Software Again", 1999
- Video with Bruce Perens at Hannover Industry Trade Fair, Germany, May 2008
- Linux Link Tech Show interview (audio), 2006, 2008
- No Code International
- Interview (audio) at Defrag Ohio with Meet the Bloggers
- A talk about open source recorded in Rome in June 2007
- Interview in ogg format on The Gutsy Geeks recorded 2009/07/25
- "Maybe you should read about me. Wikipedia is a good place to start" Meme