Good evening, everyone. I would like to now give the words to Martin Mikkelmeier, a former Debian project leader.

So thanks for coming. It's really nice to see so many people here to remember Ian. The free software community was shocked and saddened

to hear that Ian had passed away just before the beginning of the new year. Ian Murdoch is, of course, best known as the founder of Debian, as the father of Debian.

And for those who don't know, Ian is the Ian in Debian. And in the name, we will always honor Ian.

I think one of the things, while thinking about what to say, one of the things that I just had to think about is how much Debian and Ian's work has influenced our lives. I mean, I can see a lot of people in here

who have been involved in Debian. And I know many of you are Debian users. And even though I wasn't involved in the Debian project when it was started, when I think about it, Debian has in some way or another shaped half of my life. Now, my life would be quite different without Debian.

So this tweet is something that really resonates with me. And maybe things wouldn't be quite as bleak. But I think everyone here can agree that Debian, that Ian Murdoch really

had a big impact on our lives in so many different ways. And there are a lot of good things to say about Ian. And I think I'm going to highlight three. The first one is that Ian really

had a foresight about creating a project based on community. So I have a number of quotes from Ian that really show what he was thinking. And a lot of those things are very hard to understand now

because they seem so obvious. But you have to see it in historical context. Back then, a Linux distribution was quite a new thing. And it was done by a few people.

And Ian really said, we want to do it in an open way. We want to do it in a way that the community, the people, different people are involved. And I think that really shows a lot of foresight. I really like these quotes.

So that was 10 years after Ian started Debian. And he said that the biggest contribution, it's not the software, but it's really about how the software is created.

That when he started the project, he started the project with community built in. That was always the idea that he sent out to do it that way intentionally. It wasn't, oh, I'm going to start a project. And suddenly it became a success.

And all those people came. He actually designed the project in a way to allow for that. And I particularly like the quote at the bottom, where he says, if you remove community from open source or free software, it's just software. And I think that's so true for Debian.

When I think about Debian, all the distros at the end of the day, it's all the same stuff. You take a Linux kernel, you take some other stuff, you throw it together. Sure, there are technical differences. But what's so unique about Debian

is the way it's developed, the processes we have in place, and the social contract, and the philosophy behind it. And if you remove all of those things from Debian, it would just be bits of software. But it wouldn't be Debian.

And I think that's remarkable that Ian created such a thing. And later on, Ian tried to bring that community idea to Solaris. And I don't know details, but I would imagine that it's much harder to add community later

on instead of having it built in. And it's interesting when people think about Debian, what Debian, the innovation that Debian brought, a lot of people think about the packaging system. And it's true. I mean, just imagine the old days

where you would just unpack TAPOs. You wouldn't know which files belonged where or to which packages. You couldn't upgrade stuff independently. So the packaging system was a true innovation. But again, Ian sees things in a very different way. So he says, it's not about technical stuff.

It's all about collaboration. The packaging system, what that allows is to have experts who each maintain their components and to integrate that into one system. And I think that's a really innovative idea

of how to structure things. And when I think about Debian, I don't think about a CD-ROM. When I think about Debian, I think about community. That's really what defines Debian, thanks to Ian.

And Brandon Robinson, a former Debian project leader who worked for Ian for many years, I think he also said it very well. It's about individual empowerment in a social environment. So he said, it's about taking responsibility while sharing responsibility.

I think that sums it up very well. And that's all thanks to Ian's foresight. I think the second thing I want to highlight is just the sheer humility that Ian showed. A lot of leaders these days are leaders for life,

leaders who say, I make the decisions. I know what's best. But if you read this tech, and just, again, to put things in, like a lot of the stuff

I just said about community, you may say, oh, gee, that sounds a lot like open source is being done today. What's new about that? But you have to realize it's over 20 years ago that Ian started Debian.

It might be obvious for us now, but it certainly wasn't obvious when Ian started the project. And this is actually a printout of the announcement that Ian made. And he had to print it out because his email quota was 500k, so he couldn't save it.

So not 500 megabytes, 500k. And I'm sure some of you in this room weren't even born when Ian had his ideas. So the second thing is, as I mentioned, the humility that Ian displayed.

So when you read this quote, obviously he doesn't talk about it. But when you read this quote, he doesn't say, I know what's best for users. I'm going to give you what you need. He says, we need different people from different backgrounds. We need users to be involved in developing the software.

And I think being a leader and showing and telling people, I don't know everything. I don't have the answers. We need all those people. I think that really shows character. And everyone I speak to about Ian, they say the same, how down to earth he was.

And I think we're going to see those in the pictures, in the video later on. He really liked interacting with people. He was just such a nice person to talk to. And there are some really interesting anecdotes. So someone talked about, there's a blog post about how he had an interview with Ian.

And Ian said, hey, let's go hiking. I mean, that's just very, very interesting. And also someone told me that he emailed Ian to ask for a short video to show at the Linux meeting. And he got a prompt reply with a video. So again, I think that's something really to admire.

And the third thing is actually related that Ian didn't set out to be a leader for life of Debian. He didn't say, I'm going to be in charge forever. He actually said, I want to design the project in a way

that the project doesn't need me. And that was his test for success. Can he step away while the project still goes on and flourishes?

And again, I think that shows such a strength, such leadership. I think that's true leadership if you can actually say the project doesn't need me. Because I see a lot of leaders who cling onto a project, even though maybe they

lost interest. Maybe they don't have the time. Or maybe they're not the right person. But Ian was different. He said, the project should exist without me. So I think there are so many things to admire.

So I think initially there was an idea of having a signing book. But in Debian, we like to do things in a virtual way. So there is an email address where you can send your faults and your condolences. And they will be shared with the family.

And if the family wishes, they will also be published. I'd like to thank Laura and Anna from the Debian team who organized everything behind the scenes.

I'd also like to thank Valessio Brito, who put together the video we're going to show. And that's based on photos that various people submitted. And also in the next edition of the Debian Project News,

there's going to be a highlight about Ian's life with a lot of links to blog posts that people have written about Ian. So if you wish, you can read some more about person anecdotes and other things that people have shared.

So again, if you want to express your faults, you can do that until the middle of next week. And even though this is about Ian, and we should remember Ian, I think it's also a good time to just reflect.

It seems that we have lost a lot of great minds recently. So please, take some time to thank the people you admire most while they're still around. And with this, so we have a short video prepared.

Thank you for coming.