http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/ - Official Work-Needing and Prospective Packages page.
Work-Needing and Prospective Packages (WNPP) holds list of :
- Packages in need of a new maintainer:
- Packages up for adoption (RFA)
- Packages up for adoption, by maintainer
- Orphaned packages (O)
- Packages currently being adopted
- Packages in need of help (RFH)
- Prospective packages:
- Packages being worked on (ITP)
Requested packages (RFP)
The difference between "packages up for adoption" and "orphaned packages" is the fact that the latter no longer has an active maintainer.
For more information on the above items, read http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/
See also
The list of WNPP packages is available on http://wnpp.debian.net/ (redirects to http://debian.binera.de/wnpp/ )