Did you play a major role in HPs selection of the Debian distribution?
Bruce: No. I told them I liked Debian. I told them why. I actually recused myself from the decision. The reason was that I still have an advisory role for Progeny Linux Systems. By the way, Progeny Linux is a healthy Linux vendor. I still am on advisory boards or boards of other open source companies that have something to do with Debian. Progeny is definitely very deep into Debian. For me to change HP’s policy to use Debian for its internal development system would have gone straight against their standard business practices about conflicts of interest. In every one of the meetings concerning this decision that I attended, I always announced, “Guys, you keep me honest. I have a potential conflict of interest here. I can’t push you. I can only say what I like.” It turned out that the Director of the Linux Labs and the Linux System Operation, Steve Geary, really spear-headed the use of Debian for an internal development system. Martin Fink, who is the general manager, was also very much
