Chapter 2. Prerequisites

There are several types of people interacting around Debian with different roles:

Please note that you can’t become an official Debian Developer (DD) overnight, because it takes more than technical skill. Please do not be discouraged by this. If it is useful to others, you can still upload your package either as a maintainer through a sponsor or as a Debian Maintainer.

Please refer to the following to learn how to contribute to Debian:

Please understand Debian’s social dynamics to prepare yourself for interactions with Debian:

Since we focus only on the technical aspects of the packaging in the rest of this guide, please refer to the following to understand the social dynamics of Debian:

Here are some technical reminders to accommodate other maintainers to work on your package easily and effectively to maximize the output of Debian as a whole.

Please make yourself ready to read the pertinent part of the official Debian documentation together with this guide as needed to generate perfect Debian packages:

Before you decide to ask your question in some public place, please do your parts of efforts, i.e., read the fine documentation:

Please realize the situation of the Debian archive.

Thus, contributions to packages already in the archive are far more appreciated (and more likely to receive sponsorship for the uploading) by other maintainers.

	Tip
	The wnpp-alert command from the devscripts package can check for installed packages up for adoption or orphaned.

Here is a pseudo-Python code for your contribution approaches to Debian with a program:

if exist_in_debian(program):
  if is_team_maintained(program):
    join_team(program)
  if is_orphaned(program) # maintainer: Debian QA Group
    adopt_it(program)
  elif is_RFA(program) # Request for Adoption
    adopt_it(program)
  else:
    if need_help(program):
      contact_maintainer(program)
      triaging_bugs(program)
      preparing_QA_or_NMU_uploads(program)
    else:
      leave_it(program)
else: # new packages
  if not is_good_program(program):
    give_up_packaging(program)
  elif not is_distributable(program):
    give_up_packaging(program)
  else: # worth packaging
    if is_ITPed_by_others(program):
      if need_help(program):
        contact_ITPer_for_collaboration(program)
      else:
        leave_it_to_ITPer(program)
    else: # really new
      if is_applicable_team(program):
        join_team(program)
      if is_DFSG(program) and is_DFSG(dependency(program)):
        file_ITP(program, area="main") # This is Debian
      elif is_DFSG(program):
        file_ITP(program, area="contrib") # This is not Debian
      else: # non-DFSG
        file_ITP(program, area="non-free") # This is not Debian
      package_it_and_close_ITP(program)

Here:

The novice maintainer should avoid packaging programs with the high security exposure:

When you gain more experience in packaging, you’ll be able to package such programs.