Karen M Sandler

Karen M. Sandler is Executive Director of the Software Freedom Conservancy, the nonprofit home of dozens of essential free software projects. She is known for her advocacy for free and open source software, particularly in relation to the software on medical devices. She was previously the Executive Director of the GNOME Foundation. Karen co-organizes Outreachy (formerly Outreach Program for Women). She received an O'Reilly Open Source Award and is co-host of the oggcast "Free and in Freedom".

I have been a longtime user of debian, with a break when I switched to Fedora as ED of GNOME in order to have the most recent version during the period when debian lagged. Debian is now my primary distribution and I could not be happier. I am very impressed with the debian community. It's so unique to have such a large and independent community, and I believe this directly influences the good choices that debian makes as a community. I am Executive Director of Software Freedom Conservancy, which is the home of the debian copyright aggregation project. As someone with proprietary software sewn into my body and screwed into my heart, I'm acutely aware of the importance of software freedom and how key debian is to that story.