I have such fond memories of sneaking printouts of The Debian Policy Guide and A Brief History of Debian into my boring high school classes and reading them tuc

I have such fond memories of sneaking printouts of The Debian Policy Guide and A Brief History of Debian into my boring high school classes and reading them tucked into my binders labeled "Spanish" and "Pre-Calc". I still remember how I marveled at the Debian Developers Map (http://www.debian.org/devel/developers.loc http://www.debian.org/devel/developers.loc), which showed in one image a collaboration of hundreds of talented individuals across the globe, working to make computers better and freer. I remember reading these words in the "Debian Manifesto", which seemed like an ideal for all life, not just software: "The Debian design process is open to ensure that the system is of the highest quality and that it reflects the needs of the user community. By involving others with a wide range of abilities and backgrounds, Debian is able to be developed in a modular fashion. Its components are of high quality because those with expertise in a certain area are given the opportunity to construct or maintain the individual components of Debian involving that area." Yep, Debian is 19 years old today, but its effect on my philosophy toward software engineering just as strong now as it was over a decade ago. Cheers to a great project: http://www.pixelmonkey.org/2012/08/16/the-debian-manifesto http://www.pixelmonkey.org/2012/08/16/the-debian-manifesto