The DCC Alliance (DCCA) was an industry association designed to promote a common subset of the Debian

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, w ...

operating system that multiple companies within the consortium could distribute. It was founded by

Ian Murdock Ian Ashley Murdock (April28, 1973 – December 28, 2015) was an American software engineer, known for being the founder of the Debian project and Progeny Linux Systems, a commercial Linux company. Life and career Although Murdock's parents we ...

in 2005 and was wound up in 2007.

History

The main force behind the DCC Alliance was

, the original founder of the Debian project. The DCC Alliance was formed whilst Murdock was CEO of Progeny Linux Systems, and he remained the key spokesperson for the consortium during their visible existence. The founding of the DCC Alliance was announced at

LinuxWorld LinuxWorld has various meanings: * LinuxWorld Conference and Expo - a series of Linux conferences worldwide that became OpenSource World in 2009 * LinuxWorld Magazine - a print publication produced from 2003 to 2006 * LinuxWorld.com Internation ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

on the 9 August 2005, following a number of pre-announcements. The stated intention was to assemble a standards-based core of Debian, provide a predictable release cycle and Linux Standards Base compliance. DCC Alliance shipped their first code 6 months after the original pre-announcements, providing a Linux Standards Base (LSB) 3.0 compliant set of program packages based on those available from Debian. The Alliance's primary goals were to: *Assemble a 100 percent Debian common core that addresses the needs of enterprise business users *Maintain certification of the common core with the

Free Standards Group The Free Standards Group was an industry non-profit consortium chartered to primarily specify and drive the adoption of open source standards. It was founded on May 8, 2000. All standards developed by the Free Standards Group (FSG) were released ...

open specification, the

Linux Standard Base The Linux Standard Base (LSB) was a joint project by several Linux distributions under the organizational structure of the Linux Foundation to standardize the software system structure, including the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard used in the ...

*Use the Alliance's combined strength to accelerate the commercial adoption of Debian *Work with the Debian project to ensure predictable release cycles and features important to commercial adoption

Membership

There were two classes of membership in the DCC Alliance: *Members, those organisation creating products based on the DCC-provided core subset of packages. ** Knoppix, LinEx,

Linspire Linspire (formerly Lindows) is a commercial operating system based on Debian and Ubuntu and currently owned by PC/OpenSystems LLC. It had been owned by Linspire. Inc. from 2001 to 2008, and then by Xandros from 2008 to 2017. On July 1, 2008, Li ...

MEPIS MEPIS was a set of Linux distributions, distributed as Live CDs or DVDs that could be installed onto a hard disk drive. MEPIS was started by Warren Woodford and MEPIS LLC. The most popular MEPIS distribution was SimplyMEPIS, which was based pri ...

, Progeny, Sun Wah Linux,

Xandros Xandros, Inc. was a software company which sold Xandros Desktop, a Linux distribution. The name Xandros was derived from the X Window System and the Greek island of Andros. Xandros was founded in May 2001 by Linux Global Partners (Will Roseman a ...

*Associate Members,

Independent software vendor An independent software vendor (ISV), also known as a software publisher, is an organization specializing in making and selling software, as opposed to computer hardware, designed for mass or niche markets. This is in contrast to in-house software, ...

s, hardware vendors,

OEM An original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is generally perceived as a company that produces non-aftermarket parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. It is a common industry term recognized and used by many professional or ...

s and community partners providing related support or business. ** credativ, Skolelinux, UserLinux Membership remained open to additional organizations with an interest in Debian-based solutions. The most visible absent from any involvement was the

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: '' Desktop'', ''Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All ...

distribution who declined to join the Alliance. The Ubuntu founder,

Mark Shuttleworth Mark Richard Shuttleworth (born 18 September 1973) is a South African and British entrepreneur who is the founder and CEO of Canonical, the company behind the development of the Linux-based Ubuntu operating system. In 2002, Shuttleworth became ...

, stated in 2006 that he did not believe that the DCC Alliance had any future. One of the founding members,

, later left the DCCA, citing "creative differences". MEPIS transitioned their SimplyMEPIS Linux distribution from a Debian Unstable/DCCA-provided core to an

-based one. In 2006

left the DCC Alliance to chair the

workgroup and later moved his employment to Sun Microsystems. In 2007, Progeny, the original driver behind the consortium was wound up. In 2006, Xandros was still claiming that Xandros "leads the engineering team at the DCCA".

Name

When originally formed, the names given to the media were that of the "''Debian Core Consortium''", and then "''Debian Common Core''". Following

trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from othe ...

notification from the Debian project, the name was withdrawn and replaced—without a formal announcement—by "''DCC Alliance''". Ian Murdock explained that the ''D'' should no longer be treated as an abbreviation of ''Debian'', but of ''DCC''—becoming a

recursive acronym A recursive acronym is an acronym that refers to itself, and appears most frequently in computer programming. The term was first used in print in 1979 in Douglas Hofstadter's book '' Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid'', in which Hofs ...

for "''DCC Common Core''". Notably, the "Debian" trademark that was being denied to Mr. Murdock and the DCC Alliance originates from a combination of the ''-ian'' part of Mr. Murdock's own

given name A given name (also known as a forename or first name) is the part of a personal name quoted in that identifies a person, potentially with a middle name as well, and differentiates that person from the other members of a group (typically a ...

concatenated In formal language theory and computer programming, string concatenation is the operation of joining character strings end-to-end. For example, the concatenation of "snow" and "ball" is "snowball". In certain formalisations of concatenat ...

to that of his wife's name; Debra Murdock, and the decision over the infringement of the trademark fell to Branden Robinson, then

Debian Project Leader This is a chronological list of Debian project leaders. Debian is a computer operating system composed of software packages released as free and open-source software primarily under the GNU General Public License, developed by a group of individu ...

(DPL), who was an employee of

Progeny Linux Systems Progeny Linux Systems was a company which provided Linux platform technology. Their Platform Services technology supported both Debian and RPM-based distributions for Linux platforms. Progeny Linux Systems was based in Indianapolis. Ian Murdock, ...

(and of Mr. Murdock) during the time at which the decision was made. Mr. Robinson stated that this would not represent a conflict of interest. SPI (Legal owner of Debian trademark
Board Meeting, August 16th, 2005
"Debian Core Consortium issues".

References

{{Debian Debian Linux organizations