Dear Debian community,
This is bits from the DPL for September.
My Debian Birthday gift
=======================
In September I finally had a good reason to upgrade one of my servers.
It had been running for more than 1,000 days without a reboot (thanks to
Debian 11 and LTS!), but eventually I could no longer import the UDD
dump because the format had changed.
So, in parallel with my normal day-to-day work, I went ahead with the
migration. Moving from Debian 11 through Debian 12 and on to Debian 13
turned out to be as simple as adjusting sources.list and running the
familiar apt update, upgrade, and dist-upgrade - three jumps, and done.
It truly felt like a birthday gift: not having to worry, just letting it
run and ending up with a fully working machine. That experience saved
both time and nerves, and I want to share my appreciation with everyone
who made it possible.
Kielux
======
At the long-running Kielux event[k01], which has been organized with
great dedication in Northern Germany for over 20 years, I was finally
able to join in person after many years of invitations. I gave a
talk[k02] and a packaging workshop[k03] (both in German) and helped
staff the Debian booth.
To my surprise, the audience ended my talk by singing "Happy Birthday
dear Debian" and presenting a cake[k04], which I happily shared with
attendees (including some from other distributions ;-) ). Later I even
won prizes in the raffle and a riddle contest, making the day extra
memorable.
What I enjoyed most, though, was the friendly atmosphere - plus a few
special moments outside the talks: a swim in the Baltic Sea, the Friday
evening barbecue, and the Software Freedom breakfast, complete with
excellent homemade rolls from my host, Christian Steigies.
[k01] https://www.kielux.de/
[k02] https://people.debian.org/~tille/talks/20250919_kiel_geburtstag/index_de.html
[k03] https://people.debian.org/~tille/talks/20250920_kiel_packaging/index_de.html
[k04] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDFQogDfWzY#t=2042
Planning future delegations
===========================
My last delegation showed that copy-pasting old texts is not the
best approach. Thanks to a helpful suggestion from Guillem Jover[d01], I
have now moved delegations to Git[d02] and will begin developing them
there together with the community.
Since the current ftpmaster team plays such a central role, and we have
already discussed possible changes at length during DebConf, I want to
start this work in public.
At last year's DebConf in Busan, Sean Whitton suggested splitting the
ftpmaster team into two separate teams. I have drafted delegation texts
accordingly (team names may change; suggestions are welcome, but I would
prefer discussion to focus on content):
Archive Operations Team (or Archive Team)
https://salsa.debian.org/debian-dpl/dpl-helpers/-/blob/master/delegations/ftpmaster/archive_team?ref_type=heads
DFSG, Licensing & New Packages Team (or DFSG Team)
https://salsa.debian.org/debian-dpl/dpl-helpers/-/blob/master/delegations/ftpmaster/dfsg_team?ref_type=heads
One task not yet covered in the draft is package removals. These were
missing from the last delegation, though they remain an important
responsibility. Most are routine, but exceptional cases may need faster
action:
* If a copyright holder claims a package infringes their rights,
Debian should be able to withdraw it quickly (e.g. within 48h) until
the claim is clarified or resolved. This requires a clearly
responsible team and a visible contact point (e.g. e-mail or web form).
* If a package has a severe, unfixable security vulnerability, it may
also need prompt removal to meet legal or security requirements.
The main motivations for this split are:
1. Volunteer progression: contributors can join DFSG/licensing work
without also doing archive operations.
2. Clearer focus: separating routine archive operations from
DFSG/licensing decisions lets each team concentrate on its specific
role.
3. Greater predictability: structured responsibilities and open
processes help maintainers understand where decisions stand.
4. Sustainable activity: with smaller, well-defined scopes, it is
easier for new contributors to get involved and keep the work moving.
5. Faster urgent removals: with a dedicated team in charge, Debian can
respond quickly when exceptional cases require immediate action.
DFSG/licensing and archive operations are handled by the same team for
historical reasons. There is no intrinsic need for them to be handled
together.
I very much welcome feedback, especially from current ftpmaster team
members. The debian-project mailing list is probably the best place
for discussion of the future delegation.
Thank you to Sean Whitton for the original idea to split the teams this
way.
[d01] https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2025/08/msg00464.html
[d02] https://salsa.debian.org/debian-dpl/dpl-helpers/-/tree/master/delegations?ref_type=heads
Kind regards
Andreas.
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