The Debian project is hoping to address challenges of mentoring newcomers to contribute to the Debian Linux distribution as well as making it more known that open-source contributors can do more than just work on Debian packaging but that help is needed for documentation writing, web page creation, sorting out licensing issues, finding project sponsors, and more. Debian is also looking to attain OpenAI sponsorship or open-source funds from other large language model (LLM) / AI providers to help Debian developers for those wanting to use AI to help accelerate their Debian workflows.
Andreas Tille this morning posted to the mailing list with the latest project efforts as the Debian Project Leader. He first sought to address the challenges for newcomers in the Debian world. Andreas Tille explained:
“In June there was an extended discussion about the ongoing challenges around mentoring newcomers in Debian. As many of you know, this is a topic I’ve cared about deeply–long before becoming DPL. In my view, the issue isn’t just a matter of lacking tools or needing to “try harder” to attract contributors. Anyone who followed the discussion will likely agree that it’s more complex than that.
I sometimes wonder whether Debian’s success contributes to the problem. From the outside, things may appear to “just work”, which can lead to the impression: “Debian is doing fine without me–they clearly have everything under control.” But that overlooks how much volunteer effort it takes to keep the project running smoothly.
We should make it clearer that help is always needed–not only in packaging, but also in writing technical documentation, designing web pages, reaching out to upstreams about license issues, finding sponsors, or organising events. (Speaking from experience, I would have appreciated help in patiently explaining Free Software benefits to upstream authors.) Sometimes we think too narrowly about what newcomers can do, and also about which tasks could be offloaded from overcommitted contributors.
In fact, one of the most valuable things a newcomer can contribute is better documentation. Those of us who’ve been around for years may be too used to how things work–or make assumptions about what others already know. A person who just joined the project is often in the best position to document what’s confusing, what’s missing, and what they wish they had known sooner.”
Debian developers have also been discussing a budget or sponsorship for making use of AI/LLM in their Debian workflows either for help with code completion, technical documentation writing, and similar. For that they may pursue OpenAI’s Open-Source Fund so Debian developers would be able to ChatGPT and similar for those that want to leverage large language models / AI to help with their Debian contributions. Andreas Tille commented on that topic:
“Project-wide LLM budget for helping people
==========================================Lucas Nussbaum has volunteered to handle the paperwork and submit a request on Debian’s behalf to LLM providers, aiming to secure project-wide access for Debian Developers. If successful, every DD will be free to use this access–or not–according to their own preferences.”
More details on the Debian mailing list.
