Quick Facts
Biography
Ian Jackson is a long time free software author and Debian developer. Jackson wrote dpkg (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 popular server, home to PuTTY among other things.
Jackson has a PhD in Computer Science from Cambridge University. He currently works for Citrix and previously worked for Canonical Ltd. and nCipher Corporation.
Jackson became Debian Project Leader in January 1998, before Wichert Akkerman took his place in 1999. 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 until November 2014 when he resigned as a result of controversies around the proposed use of systemd in Debian.