Bruce Perens is one of the founders of the Open Source movement in software, and created the Open Source Definition, the rules for Open Source licensing that have stood for two decades. He created the modern Linux distribution as project leader of Debian, where he was the first to distribute development of the most critical parts of an operating system to an Open Source community rather than relying on centralized development.

He created the embedded Linux system as author of Busybox, which is distributed in billions of products today. He changed international law as founder of No-Code International, lobbying for change in the International Telecommunications Union treaty to remove the Morse Code test for Amateur Radio licensing worldwide. He was one of the pioneers of 3D animated feature film at Pixar and its academic predecessor. Today he is executive director of Open Research Institute, which is developing space communication systems as Open Source software and Open Hardware. He operates Algoram, a company which produces digital radio systems, and Legal Engineering, an intellectual property consultancy.