Re: questions

[amacater@galactic.demon.co.uk (Andrew M.A. Cater)]

On Thu, Jun 02, 2005 at 10:18:52PM -0700, Andrew Swerdlow wrote:
> Hi I just have a few questions, which I could not quite find on the web
> site. 
> 
> 1) how many active developer work on debian?
> 
Round about 1000, spread worldwide. [A few are relatively inactive,
there is always an amount of maintainer churn, with new people joining
and a few retiring. Some Debian developers are much more visible on
the mailing lists than others, for example, so it's not easy to see
just how many there are at any one time.]

> 2) How can I contribute code to the project? (what is the process)

Read mailing lists for a month or so, perhaps contribute bug fixes.
Apply through the Debian New Maintainer process: look at www.debian.org
and check out the Developers link as a starting point.

> 
> 3) what is the organizational structure of the organization?
> 
All developers are effectively equal. Some take on onerous tasks like
being ftpmasters / release managers / application managers for new
maintainers. Some of these roles are now being taken up by teams of 
developers. The Debian project leader is elected by the developers:
[his] - we haven't had a woman yet - role is to be a spokesperson /
point of contact and whatever else we need him to be. In general,
Debian is NOT hierarchical or heavily structured :) Every DD is a
volunteer.

If you're interested in becoming a developer, it may help to read
the debian mentors list - which is designed for people to help and
advise prospective developers. While it is natural to post to
debian-project at first sight, this may not be the most appropriate
list.

Andy
> 
> Thank you
> 
> Andrew S
> 
> 
> 
> 
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