Debian Elects A New Project Leader For 2020

The results of the 2020 Debian Project Leader election are in.

The new Debian Project Leader for the year is Jonathan Carter. Of Debian's 1011 developers, 339 casted votes in this year's elections which continues their trend in recent of 300~400 casting ballots and down from years ago when they had a much higher participation rate. Jonathan Carter was running against Sruthi Chandran and Brian Gupta for this year's Debian elections.

Carter's platform is centered on "we should focus on stability within our community, and aspire to an environment where contributors and their ideas are allowed to flourish."

Under his leadership, he wants to initiate a public discussion on the "Debian Developer" membership nomenclature, promote mentorship opportunities within the Debian project, improve online participation, encourage more local teams, provide a better onboarding experience for new developers, improve the reporting/transparency about how Debian is spending its funds, and other planned efforts for the year. Rather than "Debian Developer" and its derivatives, Carter is interested in finding new terminology like potentially referring to them as "Debian Project Member" (DPM) or other alternatives for better reported clarity.

Jonathan Carter succeeds Sam Hartman as the DPL.