Debian's New Project Leader Hits The Ground Running With Ideas

Sam Hartman, Debian's new Project Leader, has issued his first (partial) monthly report with his initial activities serving in the "DPL" role.

Sam Hartman won this year's Debian Project Leader elections by campaigning on keeping Debian fun and is now working to implement some of the ideas he proposed but also other proposals voiced by those that were running against him in the elections.

While some other groups/committees may need to be drawn in to enact some of these ideas as well as ensuring Debian developers are interested in such moves, among the initial ideas being looked at include:

- Switching to Dh (Debhelper) as the preferred package build system.

- Moving to Git repositories on Debian Salsa as the preferred location for all Debian source packages.

- Turning Git push into an upload and move away from source packages.

In looking at ideas raised by other DPL candidates during the campaign, other items being evaluated are:

- Periodic community meetings, which will begin with a "DPL ask anything meeting" starting in May.

- Collecting and addressing the top "100 paper cuts" affecting Debian's development. The hope is to address these minor issues that slow down the development of Debian.

- Seeing about encouraging companies to fund employee time to work on Debian.

- Collecting a list of available grants to Debian developers that they could apply for to continue their work.

- A broad discussion about funding Debian work.

More details on the initial activities of new DPL Sam Hartman can be found in the Bits from the DPL (April 2019) report.