Bdale Garbee () is an American computer specialist who works with

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

particularly

Debian Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of D ...

. He is also an

amateur radio Amateur radio, also known as ham radio, is the use of the radio frequency spectrum for purposes of non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, private recreation, radiosport, contesting, and emergency communic ...

hobbyist (''KB0G''), and a member of

AMSAT AMSAT is a name for amateur radio satellite organizations worldwide, but in particular the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT) with headquarters at Washington, D.C. AMSAT organizations design, build, arrange launches for, and then opera ...

Tucson Amateur Packet Radio TAPR is an international amateur radio organization. It was founded in Tucson, Arizona, in 1981 by a group of amateurs interested in developing a terminal node controller (TNC) for amateur use. Thus, the group was named Tucson Amateur Packet Rad ...

(former vice-president), and the

American Radio Relay League The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) is the largest membership association of amateur radio enthusiasts in the United States. ARRL is a non-profit organization, and was co-founded on April 6, 1914, by Hiram Percy Maxim and Clarence D. Tuska of ...

Free software

Garbee has been a Debian developer since October 1994, the earliest days of the project. He set up the original developer machine (named ''master.debian.org'') in 1995. He served as a

Project Leader (DPL) for one year (2002–2003), and served as chairman of the Debian Technical Committee. Garbee has served on the board of directors of

Software in the Public Interest Software in the Public Interest, Inc. (SPI) is a US 501(c)(3) non-profit organization domiciled in New York State formed to help other organizations create and distribute free open-source software and open-source hardware. Anyone is eligible to ...

, the non-profit organization that collects donations for Debian and many other

Free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...

projects, since July 29, 2004, and was elected president on August 1, 2006. Garbee was formerly on the board of directors of the

Linux Foundation The Linux Foundation (LF) is a non-profit technology consortium founded in 2000 as a merger between Open Source Development Labs and the Free Standards Group to standardize Linux, support its growth, and promote its commercial adoption. Additi ...

where he represented the interests of individual members and developers. In September 2008, he received a "Lutèce d'Or" during the French event Paris Capitale du Libre as the

FLOSS Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

personality of the year. In March 2011, Bdale Garbee agreed to join the

FreedomBox FreedomBox is a free software home server operating system based on Debian, backed by the FreedomBox Foundation. Launched in 2010, FreedomBox has grown from a software system to an ecosystem including a DIY community as well as some commercial p ...

Foundation's board of directors and chair its technical advisory committee. He retired at the end of August 2012 from long service as the

Open Source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

& Linux Chief Technologist at

Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...

. From September to December 2013 he was a part-time Senior Adviser to the Open Source Group at

Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...

. He was hired back by HP as Fellow in the Office of the CTO in 2014, with the goal to help driving HP's Open Source strategy. He retired for the second time in September 2016.

Personal

The name "Bdale" is an abbreviation of "Barksdale", given in honor of his maternal grandfather, Judge

Alfred D. Barksdale Alfred Dickinson Barksdale (July 17, 1892 – August 16, 1972), frequently known as A. D. Barksdale, was an American soldier, Virginia lawyer, state senator, state court judge, and a United States district judge of the United States District Cour ...

. At linux.conf.au 2009, Garbee's 27-year-old beard was removed by

Linus Torvalds Linus Benedict Torvalds ( , ; born 28 December 1969) is a Finnish software engineer who is the creator and, historically, the lead developer of the Linux kernel, used by Linux distributions and other operating systems such as Android. He also c ...

to raise funds for Tasmanian

Devil facial tumour disease Devil facial tumour disease (DFTD) is an aggressive non-viral clonally transmissible cancer which affects Tasmanian devils, a marsupial native to Australia. DFTD was first described in 1996. In the subsequent decade the disease ravaged Tasmania's ...

research. They raised between AU$35,000 and AU$40,000. His house in

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

was destroyed by the

Black Forest Fire The Black Forest Fire was a forest fire that began near Highway 83 and Shoup Road in Black Forest, Colorado around 1:00 p.m. on June 11, 2013. As of June 20, 2013, the fire was 100 percent contained, were burned, at least 509 homes were sa ...

in June 2013.

References

External links

Bdale Garbee's homepage

podcast of Garbee's keynote at OSCON, 2004.
''A conversation with Bdale Garbee''
iTWire, January 2009 {{DEFAULTSORT:Garbee, Bdale Debian Project leaders Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Hewlett-Packard people American computer scientists Amateur radio people