Showing archives for July 2025

New Debian Developers and Maintainers (May and June 2025)

On Wed 30 July 2025 with tags project
Written by Jean-Pierre Giraud

Translations: ar ca es fr hi-IN pl pt sv vi zh-CN

The following contributors got their Debian Developer accounts in the last two months:

Cordell Bloor (cgmb)
Enkelena Haxhija (enkelenah)

The following contributors were added as Debian Maintainers in the last two months:

Karsten Schöke
Lorenzo Puliti
Nick Rosbrook
Nicolas Peugnet
Yifei Zhan
Glenn Strauss
Fab Stz
Matheus Polkorny
Manuel Elias Guerra Figueroa

Congratulations!

DebConf25 closes in Brest and DebConf26 announced

On Sat 26 July 2025 with tags debconf25 debconf26 announce debconf
Written by Publicity team
Artwork by Aigars Mahinovs

On Saturday 19 July 2025, the annual Debian Developers and Contributors Conference came to a close.

Over 443 attendees representing 50 countries from around the world came together for a combined 169 events (including some which took place during the DebCamp) including more than 50 Talks, 39 Short Talks, 5 Discussions, 59 Birds of a Feather sessions ("BoF" – informal meeting between developers and users), 10 workshops, and activities in support of furthering our distribution and free software, learning from our mentors and peers, building our community, and having a bit of fun.

The conference was preceded by the annual DebCamp hacking session held 7 through 13 July where Debian Developers and Contributors convened to focus on their individual Debian-related projects or work in team sprints geared toward in-person collaboration in developing Debian.

This year, a session was dedicated to prepare the BoF "Dealing with Dormant Packages: Ensuring Debian's High Standards"; another, at the initiative of our DPL, to prepare suggestions for the BoF “Package Acceptance in Debian: Challenges and Opportunities"; and an afternoon around Salsa-CI.

As has been the case for several years, a special effort has been made to welcome newcomers and help them become familiar with Debian and DebConf by organizing a sprint "New Contributors Onboarding" every day of Debcamp, followed more informally by mentorship during DebConf.

The actual Debian Developers Conference started on Monday 14 July 2025.

In addition to the traditional "Bits from the DPL" talk, the continuous key-signing party, lightning talks, and the announcement of next year's DebConf26, there were several update sessions shared by internal projects and teams.

Many of the hosted discussion sessions were presented by our technical core teams with the usual and useful "Meet the Technical Committee", the "What's New in the Linux Kernel" session, and a set of BoFs about Debian packaging policy and Debian infrastructure. Thus, more than a quarter of the discussions dealt with this theme, including talks about our tools and Debian's archive processes. Internationalization and Localization have been the subject of several talks. The Python, Perl, Ruby, Go, and Rust programming language teams also shared updates on their work and efforts. Several talks have covered Debian Blends and Debian-derived distributions and other talks addressed the issue of Debian and AI.

More than 17 BoFs and talks about community, diversity, and local outreach highlighted the work of various teams involved in not just the technical but also the social aspect of our community; four women who have made contributions to Debian through their artwork in recent years presented their work.

The one-day session "DebConf 2025 Academic Track!", organized in collaboration with the IRISA laboratory was the first session welcoming fellow academics at DebConf, bringing together around ten presentations.

The schedule was updated each day with planned and ad hoc activities introduced by attendees over the course of the conference. Several traditional activities took place: a job fair, a poetry performance, the traditional Cheese and Wine party (this year with cider as well), the Group Photos, and the Day Trips.

For those who were not able to attend, most of the talks and sessions were broadcasted live and recorded; currently the videos are made available through this link.

Almost all of the sessions facilitated remote participation via IRC and Matrix messaging apps or online collaborative text documents which allowed remote attendees to "be in the room" to ask questions or share comments with the speaker or assembled audience.

DebConf25 saw over 441 T-shirts, 3 day trips, and up to 315 meals planned per day.

All of these events, activities, conversations, and streams coupled with our love, interest, and participation in Debian and F/OSS certainly made this conference an overall success both here in Brest, France and online around the world.

The DebConf25 website will remain active for archival purposes and will continue to offer links to the presentations and videos of talks and events.

Next year, DebConf26 will be held in Santa Fe, Argentina, likely in July. As tradition follows before the next DebConf the local organizers in Argentina will start the conference activities with DebCamp with a particular focus on individual and team work towards improving the distribution.

DebConf is committed to a safe and welcome environment for all participants. See the web page about the Code of Conduct on the DebConf25 website for more details on this.

Debian thanks the commitment of numerous sponsors to support DebConf25, particularly our Platinum Sponsors: AMD, EDF, Infomaniak, Proxmox, and Viridien.

We also wish to thank our Video and Infrastructure teams, the DebConf25 and DebConf committees, our host nation of France, and each and every person who helped contribute to this event and to Debian overall.

Thank you all for your work in helping Debian continue to be "The Universal Operating System".

See you next year!

About Debian

The Debian Project was founded in 1993 by Ian Murdock to be a truly free community project. Since then the project has grown to be one of the largest and most influential Open Source projects. Thousands of volunteers from all over the world work together to create and maintain Debian software. Available in 70 languages, and supporting a huge range of computer types, Debian calls itself the universal operating system.

About DebConf

DebConf is the Debian Project's developer conference. In addition to a full schedule of technical, social and policy talks, DebConf provides an opportunity for developers, contributors and other interested people to meet in person and work together more closely. It has taken place annually since 2000 in locations as varied as Scotland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, India, Korea. More information about DebConf is available from https://debconf.org/.

About AMD

The AMD ROCm platform includes programming models, tools, compilers, libraries, and runtimes for AI and HPC solution development on AMD GPUs. Debian is an officially supported platform for AMD ROCm and a growing number of components are now included directly in the Debian distribution. For more than 55 years AMD has driven innovation in high-performance computing, graphics and visualization technologies. AMD is deeply committed to supporting and contributing to open-source projects, foundations, and open-standards organizations, taking pride in fostering innovation and collaboration within the open-source community.

About EDF

EDF is a leading global utility company focused on low-carbon power generation. The group uses advanced engineering and scientific computing tools to drive innovation and efficiency in its operations, especially in nuclear power plant design and safety assessment. Since 2003, the EDF Group has been using Debian as its main scientific computing environment. Debian's focus on stability and reproducibility ensures that EDF's calculations and simulations produce consistent and accurate results.

About Infomaniak

Infomaniak is Switzerland's leading developer of Web technologies. With operations all over Europe and based exclusively in Switzerland, the company designs and manages its own data centers powered by 100% renewable energy, and develops all its solutions locally, without outsourcing. With millions of users and the trust of public and private organizations across Europe - such as RTBF, the United Nations, central banks, over 3,000 radio and TV stations, as well as numerous cities and security bodies - Infomaniak stands for sovereign, sustainable and independent digital technology. The company offers a complete suite of collaborative tools, cloud hosting, streaming, marketing and events solutions, while being owned by its employees and self-financed exclusively by its customers.

About Proxmox

Proxmox develops powerful, yet easy-to-use Open Source server software. The product portfolio from Proxmox, including server virtualization, backup, and email security, helps companies of any size, sector, or industry to simplify their IT infrastructures. The Proxmox solutions are built on Debian, we are happy that they give back to the community by sponsoring DebConf25.

About Viridien

Viridien is an advanced technology, digital and Earth data company that pushes the boundaries of science for a more prosperous and sustainable future. Viridien has been using Debian-based systems to power most of its HPC infrastructure and its cloud platform since 2009 and currently employs two active Debian Project Members.

Contact Information

For further information, please visit the DebConf25 web page at https://debconf25.debconf.org/ or send mail to press@debian.org.

DebConf25 starts today in Brest on Monday, July 14, 2025

On Mon 14 July 2025 with tags debconf debconf25
Written by The Debian Publicity Team

DebConf25, the 25th annual Debian Developer Conference, is taking place in Brest, France from 14 to 19 July 2025. Debian contributors from all over the world have come together at the Campus of IMT Atlantique Bretagne-Pays de la Loire, Brest, to participate and work in a conference exclusively ran by volunteers.

As the conference begins on July 14, the French National Day, Debian can make France's motto its own: "Liberté, égalité, fraternité", Freedom for Free and Open Source Software, Equity for the equal right (and duties) of everyone to use, modify and share Free Software, Fraternity which perfectly covers what our code of conduct defines.

Today the main conference starts with around 500 expected attendants and over 140 scheduled activities, including 45-minute and 20-minute talks, Bird of a Feather ("BoF") team meetings, workshops, a job fair, as well as a variety of other events. The full schedule is updated each day, including activities planned ad-hoc by attendees over the course of the conference.

If you would like to engage remotely, you can follow the video streams available from the DebConf25 website for the events happening in the three talk rooms: Méridienne, Grand amphi and Petit amphi accessible from the DebConf25 homepage. Or you can join the conversations happening inside the talk rooms via the OFTC IRC network in the #debconf-meridienne, #debconf-grandamphi, #debconf-petitamphi, and #debconf-bof channels. Please also join us in the #debconf channel for common discussions related to DebConf.

You can also follow the live coverage of news about DebConf25 provided by our micronews service or the @debian profile on your favorite social network.

DebConf is committed to a safe and welcoming environment for all participants. Please see our Code of Conduct page for more information on this.

Debian thanks the commitment of numerous sponsors to support DebConf25, particularly our Platinum Sponsors: Infomaniak, Proxmox, Viridien, EDF, and AMD.

Debconf25 welcomes its sponsors

On Sat 12 July 2025 with tags debconf debconf25 sponsors
Written by The Debian Publicity Team

DebConf25 logo

DebConf25, the 26th edition of the Debian conference is taking place in Brest Campus of IMT Atlantique Bretagne-Pays de la Loire, France. We appreciate the organizers for their hard work, and hope this event will be highly beneficial for those who attend in person as well as online.

This event would not be possible without the help from our generous sponsors. We would like to warmly welcome the sponsors of DebConf 25, and introduce them to you.

We have five Platinum sponsors.

Our first Platinum sponsor is Infomaniak. Infomaniak is Switzerland’s leading developer of Web technologies. With operations all over Europe and based exclusively in Switzerland, the company designs and manages its own data centers powered by 100% renewable energy, and develops all its solutions locally, without outsourcing. With millions of users and the trust of public and private organizations across Europe - such as RTBF, the United Nations, central banks, over 3,000 radio and TV stations, as well as numerous cities and security bodies - Infomaniak stands for sovereign, sustainable and independent digital technology. The company offers a complete suite of collaborative tools, cloud hosting, streaming, marketing and events solutions, while being owned by its employees and self-financed exclusively by its customers.
Proxmox is the second Platinum sponsor. Proxmox develops powerful, yet easy-to-use Open Source server software. The product portfolio from Proxmox, including server virtualization, backup, and email security, helps companies of any size, sector, or industry to simplify their IT infrastructures. The Proxmox solutions are built on Debian, we are happy that they give back to the community by sponsoring DebConf25.
Viridien is our third Platinum sponsor. Viridien is an advanced technology, digital and Earth data company that pushes the boundaries of science for a more prosperous and sustainable future. Viridien has been using Debian-based systems to power most of its HPC infrastructure and its cloud platform since 2009 and currently employs two active Debian Project Members.
EDF is our fourth Platinum sponsor. EDF is a leading global utility company focused on low-carbon power generation. The group uses advanced engineering and scientific computing tools to drive innovation and efficiency in its operations, especially in nuclear power plant design and safety assessment. Since 2003, the EDF Group has been using Debian as its main scientific computing environment. Debian's focus on stability and reproducibility ensures that EDF's calculations and simulations produce consistent and accurate results.
AMD is our fifth Platinum sponsor. The AMD ROCm platform includes programming models, tools, compilers, libraries, and runtimes for AI and HPC solution development on AMD GPUs. Debian is an officially supported platform for AMD ROCm and a growing number of components are now included directly in the Debian distribution. For more than 55 years AMD has driven innovation in high-performance computing, graphics and visualization technologies. AMD is deeply committed to supporting and contributing to open-source projects, foundations, and open-standards organizations, taking pride in fostering innovation and collaboration within the open-source community.

Our Gold sponsors are:

Ubuntu, the Operating System delivered by Canonical.
Freexian, a services company specialized in Free Software and in particular Debian GNU/Linux, covering consulting, custom developments, support and training.
Lenovo, a global technology leader manufacturing a wide portfolio of connected products including smartphones, tablets, PCs and workstations as well as AR/VR devices, smart home/office and data center solutions.
Collabora, a global consultancy delivering Open Source software solutions to the commercial world.
Vyos Networks provides a free routing platform that competes directly with other commercially available solutions and VyOS is an open source network operating system based on Debian.

Our Silver sponsors are:

Google, one of the largest technology companies in the world, providing a wide range of Internet-related services and products such as online advertising technologies, search, cloud computing, software, and hardware.
Arm: leading technology provider of processor IP, Arm powered solutions have been supporting innovation for more than 30 years and are deployed in over 280 billion chips to date.
The Bern University of Applied Sciences with around 7,925 students enrolled, located in the Swiss capital.
Siemens is a technology company focused on industry, infrastructure and transport.
Linagora develops ethical Free and Open Source Software, supports Open Source products that helps humans and boosts digital progress. They promote Free Software in France.
Pexip brings the ease of commercial video platforms to secure and sovereign environments without compromising control or performance.
Sipgate offers cloud telephony that automates routine tasks, recognizes customer needs, and enables deep CRM integrations.
evolix is a french company specialized in Hosting and Managed Services Provider (MSP) working only with Open Source softwares.
Civil Infrastructure Platform, a collaborative project hosted by the Linux Foundation, establishing an open source “base layer” of industrial grade software.
credativ: a consulting and services company offering comprehensive services and technical support for the implementation and operation of Open Source Software in business applications.
Wind River is a leader in delivering the highest levels of secure, safe, and reliable solutions for mission-critical intelligent systems.
NovaCustom is a company that lets you configure your own laptop with various hardware and software options, focusing on privacy and security.
Microsoft who enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.
McKay Brothers is the acknowledged leader in providing extreme low latency microwave private bandwidth for firms trading in financial markets.
Matanel Foundation, whose first concern is to preserve the cohesion of a society and a nation plagued by divisions.
Qualcomm Technologies one of the world's leading companies in field of mobile technology, sponsors and contributes to Open Source developer communities that drive collaboration.

Bronze sponsors:

And finally, our Supporter level sponsors:

A special thanks to the IMT Atlantique Bretagne-Pays de la Loire, our Venue Partner and our Network Partner ResEl!

Thanks to all our sponsors for their support! Their contributions enable a diverse global community of Debian developers and maintainers to collaborate, support one another, and share knowledge at DebConf25.

Bits from the DPL

On Sun 06 July 2025 with tags dpl funding mentoring contributors LLM AI API
Written by Andreas Tille

Dear Debian community,

This is bits from the DPL for June.

The Challenge of Mentoring Newcomers

In June there was an extended discussion about the ongoing challenges around mentoring newcomers in Debian. As many of you know, this is a topic I’ve cared about deeply--long before becoming DPL. In my view, the issue isn’t just a matter of lacking tools or needing to “try harder” to attract contributors. Anyone who followed the discussion will likely agree that it’s more complex than that.

I sometimes wonder whether Debian’s success contributes to the problem. From the outside, things may appear to “just work”, which can lead to the impression: “Debian is doing fine without me--they clearly have everything under control.” But that overlooks how much volunteer effort it takes to keep the project running smoothly.

We should make it clearer that help is always needed--not only in packaging, but also in writing technical documentation, designing web pages, reaching out to upstreams about license issues, finding sponsors, or organising events. (Speaking from experience, I would have appreciated help in patiently explaining Free Software benefits to upstream authors.) Sometimes we think too narrowly about what newcomers can do, and also about which tasks could be offloaded from overcommitted contributors.

In fact, one of the most valuable things a newcomer can contribute is better documentation. Those of us who’ve been around for years may be too used to how things work--or make assumptions about what others already know. A person who just joined the project is often in the best position to document what’s confusing, what’s missing, and what they wish they had known sooner.

In that sense, the recent "random new contributor’s experience" posts might be a useful starting point for further reflection. I think we can learn a lot from positive user stories, like this recent experience of a newcomer adopting the courier package. I'm absolutely convinced that those who just found their way into Debian have valuable perspectives--and that we stand to learn the most from listening to them.

We should also take seriously what Russ Allbery noted in the discussion: "This says bad things about the project's sustainability and I think everyone knows that." Volunteers move on--that’s normal and expected. But it makes it all the more important that we put effort into keeping Debian's contributor base at least stable, if not growing.

Project-wide LLM budget for helping people

Lucas Nussbaum has volunteered to handle the paperwork and submit a request on Debian’s behalf to LLM providers, aiming to secure project-wide access for Debian Developers. If successful, every DD will be free to use this access--or not--according to their own preferences.

Kind regards Andreas.