Bruce Perens

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Bruce Perens is a prominent figure in the open source movement and to some extent in the free software movement. He is a former Debian GNU/Linux Project Leader, the primary author of the Open Source Definition, a founder of Software in the Public Interest, founder and first project leader of the Linux Standard Base project, the initial author of BusyBox, a founder of the UserLinux project, and co-founder of the Open Source Initiative (OSI). Perens also has a book series with Prentice Hall PTR called the Bruce Perens' Open Source Series. He is an avid amateur radio enthusiast and maintains technocrat.net, which he styles 'a more mature forum than Slashdot'. He is also the founder of No Code International which is an organization whose primary purpose is to eliminate morse code proficiency as a requirement to obtain an amateur radio license.

Perens left OSI a year after co-founding it, with reasons explained in an email titled "It's Time to Talk About Free Software Again".

Since June 2005 he is an employee of SourceLabs.

Perens suffered from a speech impediment until 18 years of age, which was thought to be a mild form of congenital cerebral palsy.<ref>Perens, Bruce (1996). My use of "brain-damage" as a metaphor. Mailing list archive of debian-user. Retrieved on March 16, 2006.</ref>