- Debian Organization
- Debian has many access points, and many people
are involved. This page explains who to contact about a specific aspect
of Debian, and tells you who might respond.
- The
People
- This is a comprehensive listing of all the
Debian developers accompanied with a list of packages they maintain.
You
can also see the world
map of Debian developers.
- Joining
Debian
- The Debian Project consists of volunteers, and
we are generally looking for new developers who have some technical
knowledge, an interest in free software, and some free time. You too
can
help Debian, just see the page linked above.
- Developer
Database
- The database contains basic data accessible to
everybody, and the more private data available only for other
developers
to see. Use the SSL version to
access it if you're going to log in.
Using the database, you can see the list of project machines, get any developer's GPG
key, change your
password or learn how
to set up mail forwarding for your Debian account.
If you are going to be using one of the Debian
machines make sure you have read the Debian Machine Usage Policies.
- The Constitution
- The document of utmost importance to the
organization, describing the organizational structure for formal
decision-making in the Project.
- Voting
Information
- Everything you ever wanted to know on how we
elect our leaders, choose our logos and in general,
how we vote.
- Releases
- This is the list of old and current releases,
some of which have detailed information on separate web pages.
You can also go directly to the current stable release and testing distribution
web pages.
- Different
Architectures
- Debian runs on many kinds of computers
(Intel-compatible was just the first kind), and maintainers
of
our `ports' have some useful web pages. Take a look, maybe you'll want
to get another weirdly named piece of metal for yourself.
|
- Debian Policy Manual
- This manual describes the policy requirements
for the Debian GNU/Linux distribution. This includes the structure and
contents of the Debian archive, several design issues of the operating
system, as well as technical requirements that each package must
satisfy
to be included in the distribution.
In short, you need to read
it.
There are several documents related to the Policy
that you might be interested in, such as:
- Filesystem
Hierarchy Standard (FHS)
The FHS is a list of directories (or files) where
things have to be put, and compatibility with it is
required by Policy 3.x.
- List of build-essential
packages
The build-essential packages are packages you are
expected to have before you try to build any package, or a set of
packages that you don't have to include in your package's Build-Depends
line.
- Menu
system
Programs that have an interface that need not be
passed any special command line arguments for normal operation should
have a menu entry registered. Check the menu
system documentation, too.
- MIME
support
MIME type handlers are used by other programs to
view, edit or display MIME types they don't support directly.
- Emacs
policy
The packages related to Emacs are expected to abide by their own
sub-policy document.
- Java
policy
The proposed equivalent for the above, for Java-related packages.
- Perl
policy
A sub-policy that covers everything regarding Perl
packaging.
Take a look at proposed updates to Policy,
too.
Note that the old Packaging Manual has mostly been
integrated into the recent versions of the Policy Manual.
- Developers'
Reference
- The purpose of this document is to provide an
overview of the recommended procedures and the available resources for
Debian developers. Another must-read.
- New Maintainers' Guide
- This document describes building of a Debian
package in common language, and is well covered with
working examples. If you are a wannabe developer
(packager), you will most definitely want to read
this.
|
- Release Critical Bugs
- This is a list of bugs which may cause a
package to be removed from the "testing"
distribution, or in some cases even cause a delay in
releasing the distribution. Bug reports with a
severity higher or equal than `serious' qualify for
the list -- be sure to fix any such bugs against your packages as soon
as you can.
Also, take a look at the list of bugs that are more than two
years old, and help us fix them.
- Packages
that need help
- Work-Needing and Prospective Packages, WNPP for
short, is a list of Debian packages in need of new maintainers, and
also
the packages that have yet to be included in Debian. Check it out if
you
want to create, adopt or orphan packages.
- Package overviews, from a developer's
point of view
- The package
information and package
tracking web pages
provide collections of valuable information to maintainers.
For some amusing statistics and ratings, check
the ratings
based on the number of packages and bugs and the Debian Karma.
- Lintian
reports
- Lintian
is a program that checks whether a package conforms to the Policy. You
should use it before every upload; there are reports on the
aforementioned page about every package in the distribution.
- The
testing distribution
- The `testing' distribution is where you need to
get your packages in order for them to be considered
for releasing next time Debian makes a release.
- Incoming
directory
- Instead of the hassle of ssh-ing into
ftp-master.debian.org to get something from the incoming directory, you
can now access it over HTTP. Note: Due to the nature
of Incoming, we do not recommend mirroring it.
- The
Package Tracking System
- For developers that wish to keep up-to-date
with other packages, the package tracking system
allows them to subscribe (through email) to a
service that will send them copies of BTS mails and
notifications for uploads and installations
concerning the packages subscribed to.
- The
general to-do page
- Whether you are a developer or not, there are
many projects and tasks in Debian that need some work. If you are
looking for something to do to help the project, this is the right
place
to start.
|
