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Is Debian Project a home for my programming skills?
It depends on your developer characteristics and skill.
For maximum results and satisfaction, it is better to have many or all characteristics below.
Want to do things the right way
You have pride of your well done work. No low quality short cuts. Do not want ugly hacks. No lazy programming. You want to create technically sound solutions.
You are not affraid to follow a strict development process (Debian Policy [7] and related / derived policies [8]) evolved for many years targeting the best resulting systems.
Want to create and implement the best solution
You want to create high quality solutions [9].
The highest standards attainable.
The reference others compare to.
Want to learn a lot every day
You are not affraid of reading really LOTS of documentation before asking. You do your homework before.
You are not affraid of asking for help and hints from other developers to learn different approaches.
You are willing to try different solutions in programming. Not affraid of non-ortodoxus ways of thinking.
You are a commited people
Users depend on your work.
Other developers depend on your work.
Community depends on your work.
Debian Project depends on your work.
Are you willing to be there when needed?
You are a disciplined people for the work
You may like and practice radical sports. Or defend unusual ways of living, politcs, religions,etc. It does not matter at Debian Project (written in the Debian Social Contract [0]).
But Debian Policy needs a disciplined developer for the work.
Able to work into a community
It is highly recommendable you have enough social skill to work in communities or at least small groups and teams.
Debian Project has some guides [5] and rules [3], [0] that warrant your rights [4] and tell you some limitations for working and living into a social group.
You have rights and duties [6] for a peaceful and productive work and learning experience.
You have a place to guide you at the first steps [10] and a place to ask for hints [11] at initial phase.
Sure, you can talk with (almost) no one and only code [13]. Many very skilled developers do not have (almost) any people communication skill. Some have unpredictable reactions to human contact or socializing. It is not an obligation. But you may miss some oportunities to teach and learn interesting things from / to other very skilled people like you. These already justifies some efforts [14] to some minimal communication skill learning.
Want to work in the Project not for money
Debian Project is not for profit entity. Maybe you get some (temporary?) financial sponsoring from third parties. Or your employer pays you in order to push foward some working solution. Or your company wants to reduce development and maintenance risks offering code to the Debian Project and invoicing your customers for technical support. Or you work on some programming bounties. Or got a kind of Summer of Code sponsoring.
But Debian Project was founded on pure community spirit and do not have resources for paying you. Debian Project has limited resources coming from donations and sponsoring. Most of developers do not work on Debian Project for any (direct) money. You have to have other (direct) work motivations. It is not cast in stone, but the "Debian culture" accepts sponsoring companies, donations, some indirect funding (travel, hosting, machines...), employers funding, etc.
You will not work for free for a company.
Not affraid of hard work
What are Debian Project advantages for a developer?
The ["WhyDebian"] applies for you. And more.
Social Contract
Debian Project has a social contract [0] and a Constitution [3] and it is not a commercial entity, nor controlled by one.
Debian Project is not controlled by a board of investors, or board of directors (it is a meritocracy with yearly elected leader [3], [4]), or a benevolent dictator, or a private owner.
It does not have to pursue profits, nor practice censorship for commercial advantages [1], nor can go out of business (it is not even a business)[2]. It can not be sold, nor go bankrupt.
Debian Project does not want to sell you anything, nor invoice you anything.
Debian Project does not change directions at market profit trends. Does not shut the door at you because you are not profitable anymore. Does not abandon users in light of profit margins or trends. It does not want to "milk" users as hostages, forcing continuous un-needed upgrades, or have programmed obsolescence to keep profits.
- You will not work for free for a company.
Nor will be dependent of sponsorship goodwill from a specific (steering) company / sponsor / donator / group. And eager to appease them.
Debian Project is fully commited to user needs, in written [0],[3].
Debian Policy
The enforced Debian Policy is the real technical differential of Debian Project.
And it is practiced by the developers.
The tools and infrastructure only ease the repetitive work, freeing the developer to the really creative work and clever programming.
Following the Debian Policy, developers can achieve the high standards the distribution are known of.
Developer tool chain
Project infrastructure
Debian Project even has a team dedicated to improve the quality [9].
Developer community
Useful links
[0] Debian Social Contract http://www.debian.org/social_contract
[2] Progeny Linux went out of business http://www.osnews.com/story.php/17820/Progeny-Linux-Shuts-Down/
[3] Constitution for the Debian Project http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution
[4] Debian Voting Information http://vote.debian.org
[5] Debian Community Guidelines http://people.debian.org/~enrico/dcg/index.html
[6] Debian minimal mailing list code of conduct http://www.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct
[7] Debian Policy http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy
[8] Debian Developer Corner http://www.debian.org/devel/
[9] Debian Quality Assurance team http://qa.debian.org/
[10] Debian Mentors http://mentors.debian.net
[11] Debian mentors mailing list http://lists.debian.org/debian-mentors/
[12] Five geek social fallacies http://sean.chittenden.org/humor/www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html
[13] Asperger's syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome
[14] Aspires : Climbing the mountain together http://www.aspires-relationships.com/articles_social_skills.htm