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<chapt id="contributing">Contributing to the Debian project
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<p>Donations of time (to develop new packages, maintain existing packages,
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or provide user support), resources (to mirror the FTP and WWW archives),
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and money (to pay for new testbeds as well as hardware for the archives)
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<sect id="contrib">How can I become a Debian software developer?
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<p>The development of Debian is open to all, and new users with the right
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skills and/or the willingness to learn are needed to maintain existing
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packages which have been "orphaned" by their previous maintainers, to
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develop new packages, and to provide user support.
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<p>The description of becoming a Debian developer can be found at the
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<url name="New Maintainer's Corner" id="http://www.debian.org/devel/join/newmaint">
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at the Debian web site.
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<sect id="contribresources">How can I contribute resources to the Debian
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<p>Since the project aims to make a substantial body of software rapidly
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and easily accessible throughout the globe, mirrors are urgently needed.
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It is desirable but not absolutely necessary to mirror all of the archive.
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Please visit the <url id="http://www.debian.org/mirror/size" name="Debian
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mirror size"> page for information on the disk space requirements.
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<p>Most of the mirroring is accomplished entirely automatically by scripts,
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without any human intervention. However, the occasional glitch or system
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change occurs which requires human intervention.
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<p>If you have a high-speed connection to the Internet, the resources to
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mirror all or part of the distribution, and are willing to take the time
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(or find someone) who can provide regular maintenance of the system,
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then please contact <email/debian-admin@lists.debian.org/.
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<sect id="supportingorganizations">How can I contribute financially to the
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<p>One can make individual donations to one of two organizations that
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are critical to the development of the Debian project.
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<sect1 id="SPI">Software in the Public Interest
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<p>Software in the Public Interest (SPI) is an IRS 501(c)(3) non-profit
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organization, formed when FSF withdrew their sponsorship of Debian.
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The purpose of the organization is to develop and distribute free software.
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<p>Our goals are very much like those of FSF, and we encourage programmers
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to use the GNU General Public License on their programs. However, we have
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a slightly different focus in that we are building and distributing
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a Linux system that diverges in many technical details from the GNU system
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planned by FSF. We still communicate with FSF, and we cooperate in sending
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them changes to GNU software and in asking our users to donate to FSF and
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<p>SPI can be reached at: <url id="http://www.spi-inc.org/">.
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<sect1 id="FSF">Free Software Foundation
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<p>At this time there is no formal connection between Debian and the Free
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Software Foundation. However, the Free Software Foundation is
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responsible for some of the most important software components in
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Debian, including the GNU C compiler, GNU Emacs, and much of the C
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run-time library that is used by all programs on the system. FSF pioneered
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much of what free software is today: they wrote the General Public
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License that is used on much of the Debian software, and they invented
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the "GNU" project to create an entirely free Unix system. Debian should
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be considered a descendent of the GNU system.
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<p>FSF can be reached at: <url id="http://www.fsf.org/">.
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