Ian Jackson

Not to be confused with Ian Murdock.
For the basketball player, see Ian Jackson (basketball).

Ian Jackson is a longtime free software author and Debian developer. Jackson wrote dpkg[1][2][3] (replacing a more primitive Perl tool with the same name), SAUCE (Software Against Unsolicited Commercial Email), userv and debbugs. He used to maintain the Linux FAQ. He runs chiark.greenend.org.uk, a Linux system which is home to PuTTY among other things.

Jackson has a PhD in Computer Science[4] from Cambridge University. As of October 2021, he works for the Tor Project.[5][6] He has previously worked for Citrix[7][8] for Canonical Ltd.[9] and nCipher Corporation.[10]

Jackson became Debian Project Leader in January 1998, before Wichert Akkerman took his place in 1999.[11][2] Debian GNU/Linux 2.0 (hamm) was released during his term. During that time he was also a vice-president and then president of Software in the Public Interest in 1998 and 1999.

Jackson was a member of the Debian Technical Committee[12] until November 2014 when he resigned[13] as a result of controversies around the proposed use of systemd in Debian.[14]

  1. ^ "dpkg/dpkg.git/blob - AUTHORS". anonscm.debian.org. 2010-02-20. Retrieved 2013-05-17.
  2. ^ a b "A Brief History of Debian: Chapter 4 - A Detailed History". Debian. 2013-05-04. Retrieved 2013-05-17.
  3. ^ Perens, Bruce (1995-09-05). "redhat packaging system and dpkg". Retrieved 2013-05-17.
  4. ^ "Who goes here ? Confidentiality of location through anonymity". chiark.greenend.org.uk. 1998-06-29. Retrieved 2013-05-17.
  5. ^ "diziet | Going to work for the Tor Project". diziet.dreamwidth.org. Retrieved 2022-05-20.
  6. ^ "Tor Project | Software Developer, Rust". 2021-07-21. Archived from the original on 2021-07-21. Retrieved 2022-05-20.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  7. ^ Sharwood, Simon. "No, we're not sorry for Xen security SNAFUs says Ian Jackson". theregister.co.uk. Retrieved 18 September 2018.
  8. ^ "FOSDEM 2013 - Ian Jackson". fosdem.org. Retrieved 10 April 2015.
  9. ^ online, heise (20 January 2014). "Künftiges Init-System der Linux-Distribution Debian: Zwischen Patt und allgemeiner Abstimmung". heise online (in German). Retrieved 18 September 2018.
  10. ^ Hertzog, Raphaël; Mas, Roland (2015). The Debian Administrator's Handbook: Debian Jessie From Discovery To Mastery. Freexian. p. 99. ISBN 9791091414012. Retrieved 18 September 2018.
  11. ^ "Debian GNU/Linux -- Debian's Organizational Structure (05 December 2000)". Archived from the original on 5 December 2000. Retrieved 21 September 2018.
  12. ^ "Debian's Organizational Structure". Retrieved 13 June 2013.
  13. ^ Jackson, Ian (19 November 2014). "Resignation". Debian Mailing List. Retrieved 19 November 2014. I am resigning from the Technical Committee with immediate effect. While it is important that the views of the 30-40% of the project who agree with me should continue to be represented on the TC, I myself am clearly too controversial a figure at this point to do so. I should step aside to try to reduce the extent to which conversations about the project's governance are personalised.
  14. ^ Gold, Jon (19 November 2014). "Open-source devs vote down anti-systemd measure, sponsor steps down". Network World. Retrieved 18 September 2018.