Neil is being modest when he calls Debian Project Leader a figurehead position. The reality is he coordinates a lot of work. Linux Voice did a nice interview with him and one of the things that came up is that while in his day-to-day work he can tell people what to do, he doesn’t have that option in Debian, which is a community project. To me, that makes his job that much harder. You can see Neil’s commitment to leadership in his choice of essential software. He went for an IRC client! Neil’s Debian role is about leading and collaborating and Linux gives him the tools to do that effectively.