Session title
-------------

ProteanOS Workshop: Liberating Embedded Systems

Session description
-------------------

Software is everywhere, affecting every aspect of our lives.  Unfortunately, we
have no control over most of the systems that have become critical to society
and life.  Most such embedded systems run a free software boot loader, operating
system, and libraries, but usually they are locked down, come with proprietary
application software, or are sold in violation of free software licenses.

The ProteanOS project aims to help free software in embedded systems.  Born in
late 2011, this fully free BusyBox/Linux-libre distribution is developed from
scratch with inspiration from other projects like Debian, OpenWrt, Gentoo, and
OpenEmbedded.  Despite being a self-hosting and easily installable binary
distribution, ProteanOS can be configured for a wide variety of embedded
applications.

Contributions of all kinds are welcome, including preparation and maintenance of
software packages, development of distribution tools in UNIX shell command
language and C, and documentation drafting.  In this workshop, lead developer
P. J. MᶜDermott will demonstrate how to set up a development environment and
prepare software packages for ProteanOS.  Come to the workshop and join the
growing ProteanOS community!

Organizational notes:

 1. This proposed session will consist of a workshop to guide prospective new
contributors through ProteanOS development, following a brief introductory talk
summarizing the state of software freedom in embedded systems and introducing
the ProteanOS project.  In the event that there aren't enough workshop slots for
this proposal to be accepted as it is, please consider it for a presentation
session.
 2. ProteanOS is not yet endorsed by the FSF and GNU as a free system
distribution, but the evaluation process is underway.  I made an inquiry to the
GNU webmasters on 2014-03-26 (RT #904018), posted to the gnu-linux-libre mailing
list on 2014-05-16, and contacted FSF licensing about evaluation on 2014-07-24
(RT #932529, awaiting reply).  I hope that ProteanOS can be evaluated and
endorsed in time for LibrePlanet.

Presenter bio(s)
----------------

P. J. MᶜDermott founded the ProteanOS embedded operating system distribution
project in late 2011 with an interest in software freedom in personal
electronics and other embedded systems.  He has also contributed to Debian
(including as a Google Summer of Code student), the GNU C Library, the Time Zone
Database, and GNU FM.

A programmer since high school, P. J. is mostly self-taught in software
development, Web design, game design, systems administration, and copyright law.
In 2012 P. J. received his cum laude B.S. degree in Computer Science from the
New Jersey Institute of Technology, where he led a GNU/Linux group and gave
presentations and workshops on free software and UNIX.  P. J. has presented
ProteanOS in a lightning talk at LibrePlanet 2014 and a full talk at FOSSCON
2014.  His other interests include listening to free and semi-free music (mostly
of the metal, rock, electronic, and symphonic genres), photography, linguistics,
and karate.