2.3. Registering as a Debian member

Before you decide to register with Debian, you will need to read all the information available at the New Members Corner. It describes in detail the preparations you have to do before you can register to become a Debian member. For example, before you apply, you have to read the Debian Social Contract. Registering as a member means that you agree with and pledge to uphold the Debian Social Contract; it is very important that member are in accord with the essential ideas behind Debian. Reading the GNU Manifesto would also be a good idea.

The process of registering as a member is a process of verifying your identity and intentions, and checking your technical skills. As the number of people working on Debian has grown to over 1000 and our systems are used in several very important places, we have to be careful about being compromised. Therefore, we need to verify new members before we can give them accounts on our servers and let them upload packages.

Before you actually register you should have shown that you can do competent work and will be a good contributor. You show this by submitting patches through the Bug Tracking System and having a package sponsored by an existing Debian Developer for a while. Also, we expect that contributors are interested in the whole project and not just in maintaining their own packages. If you can help other maintainers by providing further information on a bug or even a patch, then do so!

Registration requires that you are familiar with Debian’s philosophy and technical documentation. Furthermore, you need a OpenPGP key which has been signed by an existing Debian maintainer. If your OpenPGP key is not signed yet, you should try to meet a Debian Developer in person to get your key signed. There’s a Key Signing Coordination page which should help you find a Debian Developer close to you. (If there is no Debian Developer close to you, alternative ways to pass the ID check may be permitted as an absolute exception on a case-by-case-basis. See the identification page for more information.)

If you do not have an OpenPGP key yet, generate one. Every developer needs an OpenPGP key in order to sign and verify package uploads. You should read the manual for the software you are using, since it has much important information that is critical to its security. Many more security failures are due to human error than to software failure or high-powered spy techniques. See Maintaining your public key for more information on maintaining your public key.

Debian uses the GNU Privacy Guard (package gnupg version 1 or better) as its baseline standard. You can use some other implementation of OpenPGP as well. Note that OpenPGP is an open standard based on RFC 2440.

Your key length must be greater than 2048 bits (4096 bits is preferred); there is no reason to use a smaller key, and doing so would be much less secure.

If your public key isn’t on a public key server such as subkeys.pgp.net, please read the documentation available at NM Step 2: Identification. That document contains instructions on how to put your key on the public key servers. The New Maintainer Group will put your public key on the servers if it isn’t already there.

Some countries restrict the use of cryptographic software by their citizens. This need not impede one’s activities as a Debian package maintainer however, as it may be perfectly legal to use cryptographic products for authentication, rather than encryption purposes. If you live in a country where use of cryptography even for authentication is forbidden then please contact us so we can make special arrangements.

To apply as a new member, you need an existing Debian Developer to support your application (an advocate). After you have contributed to Debian for a while, and you want to apply to become a registered developer, an existing developer with whom you have worked over the past months has to express their belief that you can contribute to Debian successfully.

When you have found an advocate, have your OpenPGP key signed and have already contributed to Debian for a while, you’re ready to apply. You can simply register on our application page. After you have signed up, your advocate has to confirm your application. When your advocate has completed this step you will be assigned an Application Manager who will go with you through the necessary steps of the New Member process. You can always check your status on the applications status board.

For more details, please consult New Members Corner at the Debian web site. Make sure that you are familiar with the necessary steps of the New Member process before actually applying. If you are well prepared, you can save a lot of time later on.