Zusammenfassung
With over 800 official Debian developers, more than 200 contributors and almost 10.000 packages, Debian is one of the largest Free Software projects in existence today. An important question is how Debian actually works. How can so many volunteers, distributed all over the world, work together effectively and produce a distribution with such a high degree of complexity?
In the talk, Debian's infrastructure will be shown, which allows the large body of participants to work together and produce an integrated system. Furthermore, management activities going on in the project are discussed. It is often claimed that Free Software projects are not centrally managed or that such project manage themselves - however, someone has to do these coordination efforts which are clearly visible and without nothing would work. Therefore, it will be investigated who is involved in coordination efforts within Debian and which mechanisms they employ to carry out their management work. In particular, the tasks of the Release Manager and the Debian Project Leader will be investigated. However, it will also be asked whether there are more, perhaps less central, efforts of coordination.
ﾜber den Autor
Martin Michlmayr has participated in various free software projects and organizations, including Linux International and GNUstep. He is an advisor to Software in the Public Interest, a non-profit organization which helps others develop and distribute freely available software and has been a member of the Debian Project since 2000. In March 2003, he was elected Debian Project Leader (DPL). He has an active interest in the social, psychological, and philosophical implications of free and open source development. He holds an MPhil in Philosophy and an MSc in Psychology. He's currently doing a Master in Software Engineering at the University of Melbourne.
