Help Debian!

Contributing to Debian isn't as hard as it looks. There are many ways to make a difference, but it's sometimes difficult to find your way. This page tries to give directions.

Why should you contribute to Debian?

If you are reading this page, you are probably already using Debian, so you already know part of the answer. For a developer, Debian is really a fantastic project to work on. Debian gathers more than 500 active developers and many more contributors from all over the world ([http://www.debian.org/devel/developers.loc see this map]), all dedicated to building an high-quality, free and universal operating system. Debian Developers are volunteers (the project is totally controlled by the Developers) and form a friendly and welcoming community (pictures from the seven past annual Debconfs are a good proof of that).

Inside Debian, it is possible to work on very different aspects (and to work on several of those at the same time). You could work on low-level stuff while helping porting Debian to exotic architectures (Debian supports more than 10 architectures), or package the next cool scripting language. You can work on server stuff, or desktop stuff. You can also work on things that are not stricto sensu programming, like translations (Debian's installer supports more than 60 languages). In short: join Debian, you can always find an interesting project inside it!

What do you want to do?

You want to work on a specific package (or some specific packages) already in Debian

Many packages are maintained by teams. There are teams for games, GNOME, KDE, Python, Ruby, fonts, ... Most teams are listed on [:Teams:the Teams wiki page]. If the packages you are interested in are already maintained by a team, it's easy: just contact the team members and see how you can help. Teams usually welcome new contributors, and are very responsive.

If the package you are interested in is not maintained by a team, it might be harder. While many maintainers are very responsive, and will welcome your help, some maintainers might be too busy or inactive, and might ignore your help. Don't allow this to discourage you!

You want to package new software for Debian

You can maintain packages in Debian, even without being a Debian Developer (your uploads will be sponsored by a Debian Developer). You have to read the documentation (start with the [http://www.debian.org/doc/maint-guide/ Debian New Maintainers' Guide] and the [http://www.debian.org/doc/developers-reference/ Debian Developers Reference]), then prepare your package, and finally, to find a sponsor. Be aware that finding a sponsor is a very difficult step: this is a big bottleneck in Debian currently. So it is important to make your sponsor's task as easy as possible, by preparing a perfect package ;)

If your package could be maintained by a team ([:Teams:list of teams on the Teams page]), it is a very good idea to contact it. They could help you with specific problems, and it will probably be easier to find a sponsor inside the team.

You want to improve Debian in general, not focus on a specific package

There are many ways to help Debian without focusing on a specific package, like Quality Assurance (-> [:qa.debian.org/Join:how to help the QA team]), translations, documentation, ... but the easiest one is to help with bugs. Most newcomers in Debian don't understand how central the Bug Tracking System is. Actually, it's where most of the interesting stuff happens.

When looking for a bug to fix, there are several things to consider:

To help you, some lists of bugs are available:

Useful IRC channels:

Tools:

Documentation:

The authors of this page: