The information on this page, while public, will primarily be of interest to future Debian developers.
The current registration process of New Maintainers is divided into 4 parts:
Normally, the process is started with an application through the
New Maintainer Application
web interface.
After this step, the Applicant is known to the system and the Debian
New Maintainer Front Desk is the primary contact for questions
concerning the Application. The Front Desk manages or supervises
all other steps and will try to help with all upcoming issues.
After the application is submitted to the system, an official Debian Developer who has worked with the Applicant advocates them. This is done with a signed email, containing a short text about the Applicant. Normally, this mail covers topics like the background of the Applicant, what (s)he has done for Debian and a few bits about future plans.
Then the Front Desk has a look to what the Applicant has already done in the project. For the NM process to be the most efficient, Applicants should have already contributed significantly to Debian. This can be done through packaging, documentation, Quality Assurance, ...
As soon as an Application Manager is available, the Front Desk assigns one to the Applicant. The Application Manager's task is to collect the information needed as a foundation for the decision of the Debian Account Manager. This is divided into 4 parts:
To maintain the strong Web of Trust that connects all Debian Developers, Applicants need to identify themselves by providing an OpenPGP key that is signed by at least one official Developer. To further ensure their identity, signatures by other people (who do not need to be DDs, but should be well connected in the overall Web of Trust) are strongly recommended.
As Debian is known for its strong ethical and philosophical background, Applicants have to explain their own view about the topic of Free Software. Debian has also evolved quite complicated standard procedures to handle the problems of working in a large group, so Applicants need to show that they know them and are able to apply them to concrete situations.
To ensure the overall quality of the Debian distribution, Applicants need to show that they know their tasks in the area they plan to work on (either documentation and internationalisation or package maintenance). They also have to show their skills by submitting examples of their work and answering some questions about it.
If the Application Manager is satisfied with the performance of the Applicant, an Application Report is prepared and submitted to the Front Desk and Debian Account Managers.
The Application Report is checked by a member of the Debian Front Desk for formal problems. If these are grave, the report is rejected and the Application Manager has to correct the issue. If there are only minor errors, these are reported to the Applicant and Application Manager.
At this last stage of the process, the Application Report is judged. If needed, further checks are either done by the Account Manager or an Application Manager is asked to carry out a recheck. Sometimes a Phone Call is required to finish the application.
If all possible problems are resolved, the Debian Account Managers assign an account to the Applicant and add their OpenPGP key to the Debian keyring.