We're excited to announce that Debian has selected seven interns to work with us during the next months: two people for Outreachy, and five for the Google Summer of Code.
Here is the list of projects and the interns who will work on them:
Congratulations and welcome to all the interns!
The Google Summer of Code and Outreachy programs are possible in Debian thanks to the efforts of Debian developers and contributors that dedicate part of their free time to mentor interns and outreach tasks.
Join us and help extend Debian! You can follow the interns weekly reports on the debian-outreach mailing-list, chat with us on our IRC channel or on each project's team mailing lists.
You have heard about Debian Edu or Skolelinux, but do you know exactly what we are doing?
Join us on the #debian-meeting channel on the OFTC IRC network on 03 June 2019 at 12:00 UTC for an introduction to Debian Edu, a Debian pure blend created to fit the requirements of schools and similar institutions.
You will meet Holger Levsen, contributing to Debian Edu since 2005 and member of development team. Ask him anything you ever wanted to know about Debian Edu!
Your IRC nick needs to be registered in order to join the channel. Refer to the Register your account section on the oftc website for more information on how to register your nick.
You can always refer to the debian-meeting wiki page for the latest information and up to date schedule.
We are very pleased to announce that Lenovo has committed to supporting DebConf19 as a Platinum sponsor.
"Lenovo is proud to sponsor the 20th Annual Debian Conference." said Egbert Gracias, Senior Software Development Manager at Lenovo. "We’re excited to see, up close, the great work being done in the community and to meet the developers and volunteers that keep the Debian Project moving forward!”
Lenovo is 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 solutions and data center solutions.
With this commitment as Platinum Sponsor, Lenovo is contributing to make possible our annual conference, and directly supporting the progress of Debian and Free Software, helping to strengthen the community that continues to collaborate on Debian projects throughout the rest of the year.
Thank you very much Lenovo, for your support of DebConf19!
Become a sponsor too!DebConf19 is still accepting sponsors. Interested companies and organizations may contact the DebConf team through sponsors@debconf.org, and visit the DebConf19 website at https://debconf19.debconf.org.
The following contributors got their Debian Developer accounts in the last two months:
The following contributors were added as Debian Maintainers in the last two months:
Congratulations!
We have a new DPL! On 21 April 2019 Sam Hartman started his term as Debian Project Leader.
Join us on the #debian-meeting channel on the OFTC IRC network on 10 May 2019 at 10:00 UTC for an introduction to our new DPL, and also to have the chance to ask him any questions that you may have.
Your IRC nick needs to be registered in order to join the channel. Refer to the Register your account section on the oftc website for more information on how to register your nick.
We plan to have many more project-wide IRC sessions in the future.
You can always refer to the debian-meeting wiki page for the latest information and up to date schedule.
The Debian Project Leader elections just finished and the winner is Sam Hartman!
His term as project leader starts immediately today April 21st and expires on April 20th 2020.
Of a total of 1003 developers, 378 developers voted using the Condorcet method. More information about the result is available in the Debian Project Leader Elections 2019 page.
Many thanks to Joerg Jaspert, Jonathan Carter and Martin Michlmayr for running.
And special thanks to Chris Lamb for his service as DPL during these last twenty-four months!
The Debian Web team held a sprint for the first time, in Madrid (Spain) from March 15th to March 17th, 2019.
We discussed the status of the Debian website in general, review several important pages/sections and agreed on many things how to improve them.
For the sections we want to reorganise (mainly the homepage and a new section "download" which will group our current "CD" and "distrib" sections), we have designed this workflow:
We also agreed that the press delegates should decide what new News entry is worth to be posted in the homepage instead of showing the last 6 entries.
For some other pages or areas (e.g. doc/books, misc/merchandise, /users) we found that the content is outdated and the team can not maintain it, we agreed in issuing a call for help (request for adoption) and if we cannot find volunteers for those pages/areas, we'll remove the content or move it to wiki.debian.org at the end of 2019.
We have agreed that we'll need to reduce the size (number of pages) of the website (*see some numbers about statistics at bottom) so it's more sustainable to keep the whole website up-to-date (content wise), so we'll remove some pages having content already covered in other pages, having content that currently is easy discoverable with a web search engine, can be maintained better in the wiki, etc.
We have talked a bit about certain other aspects like point release workflow, the build time of the website, team memberships and governance. In general the sprint has shown that for most of the discussed topics the migration to git as VCS and the existence of Salsa is a huge step forward for the usability and attractiveness for contributors of the webwml repository.
The core webteam is happy that the sprint has also attracted new people to jump in and which are also members of the webteam now. We welcome Thomas Lange and Carsten Schoenert in our team!
Finally, we have passed time together to socialize and knowing each other better, and got very motivated to continue working on the web.
Left to right: Rhonda D'Vine, Laura Arjona Reina, Thomas Lange, Carsten Schoenert, Steve McIntyre
A more detailed report has been sent to the debian-www mailing list.
The participants would like to thank all donors to the Debian project who helped to cover a large part of our expenses.
If you intend to apply for a DebConf19 bursary and have not yet done so, please proceed as soon as possible!
Bursary applications for DebConf19 will be accepted until April 15th at 23:59 UTC. Applications submitted after this deadline will not be considered.
You can apply for a bursary when you register for the conference.
Remember that giving a talk or organising an event is considered towards your bursary; if you have a submission to make, submit it even if it is only sketched-out. You will be able to detail it later. DebCamp plans can be entered in the usual Sprints page at the Debian wiki.
Please make sure to double-check your accommodation choices (dates and venue). Details about accommodation arrangements can be found on the accommodation page.
See you in Curitiba!
Debian is dedicated to increasing the diversity of contributors to the project and improving the inclusivity of the project. We strongly believe working towards these goals provides benefits both for people from backgrounds that are currently under-represented in free software, and for the wider movement, by increasing the range of skills, experiences and viewpoints contributing to it.
As part of this outreach effort, Debian is participating in the next round of Outreachy.
The application period for the May 2019 to August 2019 round has been extended until April 2, and Debian offers the following projects:
Outreachy invites applicants who are women (both cis and trans), trans men, and genderqueer people to apply. Anyone who faces systemic bias or discrimination in the technology industry of their country is also invited to apply.
Don't wait up! You can learn more details on how to submit your application or get help in our wiki page for Outreachy and the Outreachy website.
Debian is also participating in the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) with eight projects, and the student application period is open until April 9.
You can learn more details on how to submit your GSoC application or get help for in our wiki page for GSoC and the Google Summer of Code website.
We encourage people who are elegible for Outreachy and GSoC to submit their application to both programs.
The DebConf Content team would like to call for proposals in the DebConf 19 conference, which will take place in Curitiba, Brazil, between July 21th and 28th. It will be preceded by DebCamp from July 14th to 19th, and Open Day on the 20th.
You can find this Call for Proposals, in its latest form, online:
https://debconf19.debconf.org/cfp/
Please refer to this URL for updates on the present information.
Submitting an EventYou can now submit an event proposal. Events are not limited to traditional presentations or informal sessions (BoFs): we welcome submissions of tutorials, performances, art installations, debates, or any other format of event that you think would be of interest to the Debian community.
Regular sessions may either be 20 or 45 minutes long (including time for questions), other kinds of sessions (workshops, demos, lightning talks, ...) could have different durations. Please choose the most suitable duration for your event and explain any special requests.
You will need to create an account on the site, to submit a talk. We suggest that Debian account holders (including DDs and DMs) to use Debian SSO when creating an account. However, this isn't required, as you can sign up with an e-mail address and password.
TimelineIf you depend on having your proposal accepted in order to attend the conference, please submit it in a timely fashion so that it can be considered (and potentially accepted) as soon as possible.
All proposals must be submitted before Sunday April 28th, 2019 to be evaluated for the official schedule.
Topics and TracksThough we invite proposals on any Debian or FLOSS related subject, we have some broad topics on which we encourage people to submit proposals, including but not limited to:
You are welcome to either suggest more tracks, or to become a coordinator for any of them. For more information, see the Content team wiki.
Open DayThis call for proposals also targets Open Day, a day of activities targeted at the general public on July 20th. Topics of interest range from topics specific to Debian to the greater Free Software community and maker movement. The idea of Open Day is to bring the general public closer to Debian and vice-versa, so activity proposals that go in that direction are more than welcome.
If you are interested in presenting on Open Day, let us know in the "Notes" field of your submission. We might also invite proponents that are not specifically targeting Open Day to present in it if we find that the topic fits the above goals.
The Open Day will host activities in multiple languages. We expect to have activities in English, Portuguese, and Spanish.
If your talk will be in portuguese, you can write the Abstract field in portuguese too.
Talk proposal help on IRCThis year we will be holding holding office hours on IRC. Those will be designated times where the DebConf content team will be available to help potential speakers prepare their talk proposals for DebConf.
Dates and times for those will be announced later.
Code of ConductOur event is covered by a Code of Conduct designed to ensure everyone’s safety and comfort. The code applies to all attendees, including speakers and the content of their presentations. Do not hesitate to contact us at content@debconf.org if you have any questions or are unsure about certain content you’d like to present.
Video CoverageProviding video is one of the conference goals, as it makes the content accessible to a wider audience. Unless speakers opt-out, scheduled talks may be streamed live over the Internet to promote remote participation, and recordings will be published later under the DebConf license (MIT/Expat), as well as presentation slides and papers whenever available.
Closing noteDebConf 19 is still accepting sponsors; if you are interested, or think you know of others who would be willing to help, please get in touch with sponsors@debconf.org.
In case of any questions, or if you wanted to bounce some ideas off us first, please do not hesitate to reach out to the content team at content@debconf.org.
We hope to see you in Curitiba!
The DebConf team
We are very pleased to announce that Google has committed to support DebConf19 as a Platinum sponsor.
"The annual DebConf is an important part of the Debian development ecosystem and Google is delighted to return as a sponsor in support of the work of the global community of volunteers who make Debian and DebConf a reality" said Cat Allman, Program Manager in the Open Source Programs and Making & Science teams at Google.
Google is one of the largest technology companies in the world, providing a wide range of Internet-related services and products as online advertising technologies, search, cloud computing, software, and hardware.
Google has been supporting Debian by sponsoring DebConf since more than ten years, and is also a Debian partner sponsoring parts of Salsa's continuous integration infrastructure within Google Cloud Platform.
With this additional commitment as Platinum Sponsor for DebConf19, Google contributes to make possible our annual conference, and directly supports the progress of Debian and Free Software helping to strengthen the community that continues to collaborate on Debian projects throughout the rest of the year.
Thank you very much Google, for your support of DebConf19!
Become a sponsor too!DebConf19 is still accepting sponsors. Interested companies and organizations may contact the DebConf team through sponsors@debconf.org, and visit the DebConf19 website at https://debconf19.debconf.org.
Registration for DebConf19 is now open. The event will take place from July 21st to 28th, 2019 at the Central campus of Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná - UTFPR, in Curitiba, Brazil, and will be preceded by DebCamp, from July 14th to 19th, and an Open Day on the 20th.
DebConf is an event open to everyone, no matter how you identify yourself or how others perceive you. We want to increase visibility of our diversity and work towards inclusion at Debian Project, drawing our attendees from people just starting their Debian journey, to seasoned Debian Developers or active contributors in different areas like packaging, translation, documentation, artwork, testing, specialized derivatives, user support and many other. In other words, all are welcome.
To register for the event, log into the registration system and fill out the form. You will be able to edit and update your registration at any point. However, in order to help the organisers have a better estimate of how many people will attend the event, we would appreciate if you could access the system and confirm (or cancel) your participation in the Conference as soon as you know if you will be able to come. The last day to confirm or cancel is June 14th, 2019 23:59:59 UTC. If you don't confirm or you register after this date, you can come to the DebConf19 but we cannot guarantee availability of accommodation, food and swag (t-shirt, bag…).
For more information about registration, please visit Registration Information
Bursary for travel, accomodation and mealsIn an effort to widen the diversity of DebConf attendees, the Debian Project allocates a part of the financial resources obtained through sponsorships to pay for bursaries (travel, accommodation, and/or meals) for participants who request this support when they register.
As resources are limited, we will examine the requests and decide who will receive the bursaries. They will be destined:
Giving a talk, organizing an event or helping during DebConf19 is taken into account when deciding upon your bursary, so please mention them in your bursary application. DebCamp plans can be entered in the usual Sprints page at the Debian wiki.
For more information about bursaries, please visit Applying for a Bursary to DebConf
Attention: the registration for DebConf19 will be open until Conference, but the deadline to apply for bursaries using the registration form before April 15th, 2019 23:59:59 UTC. This deadline is necessary in order to the organisers use time to analyze the requests, and for successful applicants to prepare for the conference.
To register for the Conference, either with or without a bursary request, please visit: https://debconf19.debconf.org/register
DebConf would not be possible without the generous support of all our sponsors, especially our Platinum Sponsors Infomaniak and Google. DebConf19 is still accepting sponsors; if you are interested, or think you know of others who would be willing to help, please get in touch!
The following contributors got their Debian Developer accounts in the last two months:
The following contributors were added as Debian Maintainers in the last two months:
Congratulations!
We are very pleased to announce that Infomaniak has committed to support DebConf19 as a Platinum sponsor.
"Infomaniak is proud to support the annual Debian Developers' Conference", said Marc Oehler, Chief Operating Officer at Infomaniak. "The vast majority of our hostings work using Debian and we share this community's values: promoting innovation whilst ensuring that security, transparency and user freedom remains top priority."
Infomaniak is Switzerland's largest web-hosting company, also offering backup and storage services, solutions for event organizers, live-streaming and video on demand services. It wholly owns its datacenters and all elements critical to the functioning of the services and products provided by the company (both software and hardware).
With this commitment as Platinum Sponsor, Infomaniak contributes to make possible our annual conference, and directly supports the progress of Debian and Free Software helping to strengthen the community that continues to collaborate on Debian projects throughout the rest of the year.
Thank you very much Infomaniak, for your support of DebConf19!
Become a sponsor too!DebConf19 is still accepting sponsors. Interested companies and organizations may contact the DebConf team through sponsors@debconf.org, and visit the DebConf19 website at https://debconf19.debconf.org.
Debian is applying as a mentoring organization for the Google Summer of Code 2019, an internship program open to university students aged 18 and up, and will apply soon for the next round of Outreachy, an internship program for people from groups traditionally underrepresented in tech.
Please join us and help expanding Debian and mentoring new free software contributors!
If you have a project idea related to Debian and can mentor (or can coordinate the mentorship with some other Debian Developer or contributor, or within a Debian team), please add the details to the Debian GSoC2019 Projects wiki page by Tuesday, February 5 2019.
Participating in these programs has many benefits for Debian and the wider free software community. If you have questions, please come and ask us on IRC #debian-outreach or the debian-outreach mailing list.
The Debian Installer team is happy to report that the Buster Alpha 5 release of the installer includes some initial support for UEFI Secure Boot (SB) in Debian's installation media.
This support is not yet complete, and we would like to request some help! Please read on for more context and instructions to help us get better coverage and support.
On amd64 machines, by default the Debian installer will now boot (and install) a signed version of the shim package as the first stage boot loader. Shim is the core package in a signed Linux boot chain on Intel-compatible PCs. It is responsible for validating signatures on further pieces of the boot process (GRUB and the Linux kernel), allowing for verification of those pieces. Each of those pieces will be signed by a Debian production signing key that is baked into the shim binary itself.
However, for safety during the development phase of Debian's SB support, we have only been using a temporary test key to sign our GRUB and Linux packages. If we made a mistake with key management or trust path verification during this development, this would save us from having to revoke the production key. We plan on switching to the production key soon.
Due to the use of the test key so far, out of the box Debian will not yet install or run with SB enabled; Shim will not validate signatures with the test key and will stop, reporting the problem. This is correct and useful behaviour!
Thus far, Debian users have needed to disable SB before installation to make things work. From now on, with SB still disabled, installation and use should work just the same as previously. Shim simply chain-loads GRUB and continues through the boot chain without checking signatures.
It is possible to enrol more keys on a SB system so that shim will recognise and allow other signatures, and this is how we have been able to test the rest of the boot chain. We now invite more users to give us valuable test coverage on a wider variety of hardware by enrolling our Debian test key and running with SB enabled.
If you want to help us test our Secure Boot support, please follow the instructions in the Debian wiki and provide feedback.
With help from users, we expect to be able to ship fully-working and tested UEFI Secure Boot in an upcoming Debian Installer release and in the main Buster release itself.
The theme "futurePrototype" by Alex Makas has been selected as default theme for Debian 10 'buster'.
After the Debian Desktop Team made the call for proposing themes, a total of eleven choices have been submitted, and any Debian contributor has received the opportunity to vote on them in a survey. We received 3,646 responses ranking the different choices, and futurePrototype has been the winner among them.
We'd like to thank all the designers that have participated providing nice wallpapers and artwork for Debian 10, and encourage everybody interested in this area of Debian, to join the Design Team.
Congratulations, Alex, and thank you very much for your contribution to Debian!
DebConf19 will be held in Curitiba, Brazil from July 21th to 28th, 2019. It will be preceded by DebCamp, July 14th to 19th, and Open Day on the 20th.
DebConf, Debian's annual developers conference, is an amazing event where Debian contributors from all around the world gather to present, discuss and work in teams around the Debian operating system. It is a great opportunity to get to know people responsible for the success of the project and to witness a respectful and functional distributed community in action.
The DebConf team aims to organize the Debian Conference as a self-sustaining event, despite its size and complexity. The financial contributions and support by individuals, companies and organizations are pivotal to our success.
There are many different possibilities to support DebConf and we are in the process of contacting potential sponsors from all around the globe. If you know any organization that could be interested or who would like to give back resources to FOSS, please consider handing them the sponsorship brochure or contact the fundraising team with any leads. If you are a company and want to sponsor, please contact us at sponsors@debconf.org.
Let’s work together, as every year, on making the best DebConf ever. We are waiting for you at Curitiba!
The following contributors got their Debian Developer accounts in the last two months:
The following contributors were added as Debian Maintainers in the last two months:
Congratulations!
The Debian Cloud team held a sprint for the third time, hosted by Amazon at its Seattle offices from October 8th to October 10th, 2018.
We discussed the status of images on various platforms, especially in light of moving to FAI as the only method for building images on all the cloud platforms. The next topic was building and testing workflows, including the use of Debian machines for building, testing, storing, and publishing built images. This was partially caused by the move of all repositories to Salsa, which allows for better management of code changes, especially reviewing new code.
Recently we have made progress supporting cloud usage cases; grub and kernel optimised for cloud images help with reducing boot time and required memory footprint. There is also growing interest in non-x86 images, and FAI can now build such images.
Discussion of support for LTS images, which started at the sprint, has now moved to the debian-cloud mailing list). We also discussed providing many image variants, which requires a more advanced and automated workflow, especially regarding testing. Further discussion touched upon providing newer kernels and software like cloud-init from backports. As interest in using secure boot is increasing, we might cooperate with other team and use work on UEFI to provide images signed boot loader and kernel.
Another topic of discussion was the management of accounts used by Debian to build and publish Debian images. SPI will create and manage such accounts for Debian, including user accounts (synchronised with Debian accounts). Buster images should be published using those new accounts. Our Cloud Team delegation proposal (prepared by Luca Fillipozzi) was accepted by the Debian Project Leader. Sprint minutes are available, including a summary and a list of action items for individual members.