 Okay, Micah is going to tell us how to get involved in Debian. Is that it? Off you go. Let's just wait for the last people to come in and find a place and get comfortable. Also, if you are all really silent, they start hurrying up. I've seen that in the past. So yeah, as Phil gently introduced me, my name is Micah Reichle. And I want to talk a bit about Debian and how to get involved. Questions already? Well, if it's an important question, I guess. Okay, so please ask your question. Oh, this person who I've never met before is just asking how to contribute to Debian. And this is a lucky accident because this is exactly the topic of this talk. So dear person who I never met before, why don't you come here and we talk about this a bit more? With pleasure. Yeah. How useful you are wearing a microphone already. Yeah, and I think by accident it's already working. Oh, very good. So dear person, what's your name? My name is Alexander. Oh, it's nice to meet you, Alexander. Thanks. It's a great pleasure to be here too. So dear Alexander, I can see you are a big Debian fan. Yeah, I have a cap already and a keychain and a... ...sing... ...and a t-shirt and my nice flag. Oh. Well... Let's make a date in the evening, okay? Okay, dear Alexander, so you want to help Debian. Yes, of course. So you maybe want to become a Debian developer then? I don't think so. Developers aren't so complicated and difficult. I don't think I have the skills for that. Not everybody is cut out to be a Debian developer, but that's no problem really. So do you maybe use Debian on your laptop or your computer? Yes, on every computer I have at home. Very good. So here are a few things that you can do just by doing that. For example, does the Debian project know that you're running on all these machines? No. Oh, so maybe you would want to install the popularity contest package and let us know what software you use so we know what software to take especially good care of. Oh, popularity contest, but I like to take care of my privacy. That sounds, well, is it safe? Oh, of course it is safe. It is all 100% anonymous, so we don't know who sends these lists. Oh, I will do it first thing when I get home. Very good. And also, do you like graphical programs with graphical interfaces? That's my favorite. Ah, in that case, you might want to check out our new service that's called screenshots.debian.org. Dot net. Oh, yes, dot net. This is a service that offers screenshots for all the programs in Debian. All of them? Well, not yet, but if you help us and send some screenshots, maybe one day we'll have a screenshot for every program in Debian. That sounds cool. I'll do that. Okay, but maybe you would also... Are you a competent Debian user, maybe? What? Are you good with Debian? Well, kind of. Also, maybe you would also like to help others who use Debian. There's a whole lot of media where you can share your knowledge with other Debian users. For example, we have mailing lists in all languages. We have IRC channels. We have forums. And there's even a wiki that you could contribute to. Do you think that would be good for you? That sounds cool. And if I help some, they help me back, won't they? Again? And if I help some, they might help me back. Oh, yes, of course. It's a give and take. If you help the people there, they can also help you with your programs. Cool. But, dear Alexander, it gets even better. You cannot only help the users. You can even help the developers. The developers? Yes. Oh, yes, everybody can help the developers. For example, there's a whole lot of bugs in our software that we don't know about. So whenever you find a problem on your Debian installation, send us a bug report. And then we can investigate the bugs and fix them. Oh, that sounds great. Oh, yes. You can also, there's also a whole lot of bugs that have been filed already. But the developers have, for some reason, problems reproducing them. So if you go to the Debian backtracking system and enter this URL, you'll find a whole lot of bugs that are tagged unreproducible. So you can try to reproduce these bugs and maybe provide additional information. Also, do you like new releases of Debian? Of course. Like every other Debian user does. So maybe you can help with the releases. Like, I imagine, do you maybe read the Debian project news? Yes. Every time I send, every time it does send. Well, if you read them, you will often find a call for help or for testing. So when you read these the next time, do the tests and then maybe report your results. And that also greatly supports the developers. And also, if you maybe know of some software that's really good, but not yet in Debian, you can file a request for package back and tell us. And then we can just package that particular software for you. Wow. That's great. Okay, so... Is there anything else I can do? Ah, good question. So I notice English is not your first language. So since you speak so many languages, maybe translating would be something that you could be useful at. I think I could do that. So as you've heard already in the other talks, Debian is available in a whole lot of languages. Of course, there need to be translators for all these languages. So we need to translate the software itself. We need to translate the documentation. The Debian website is constantly growing and all the new contents have to be translated. So for every language, we've got an internationalization team that you can join and they will gladly show you how to check in new translations, update translations and so on. And if this is like too much work for you or if you would prefer to do something a little less invulsive, maybe you would like to join our new project that tries to translate all package descriptions within Debian. It's even easier. You just go to that URL and you can enter the translations right on the website and check them in without having to do any kind of versioning or anything of that kind. Wow, I think I could do that. But I fear my English isn't very goodly. Oh, it's no problem. If you are not sure about your English, you can also review existing translations and maybe find errors where you know things that others didn't. Oh, I think I could do that. Okay, so another thing that comes to mind since you are such a big Debian fan, you can help us spread the word about Debian and how great Free Software is. So have you heard of the publicity team, maybe? Never heard of it before. Ah! Well, there's a whole group of people who try to get the word out about Debian and what we do and why Debian is good and Debian is actually constantly generating news and exciting new things and we need to have people who write news about them or who review these news and translate them and this team is called the publicity team and they are constantly looking for people who are very enthusiastic about Debian and want to help get the word out. Yeah, I'll join them. But it's not only the publicity team that you can work in. It's also very important for us and we are very happy to see when people just really spread the word around them like tell your friends about Debian, tell your family, if anybody wants to test it, give them an installation or something, really just represent that you are a Debian fan and a Debian user in the world around you in your daily life. You think you could do that? I think so. Okay, so... Are you now happy or...? Well... Maybe you would like to know more. Yes, please. Okay. I see you have such a nice flag. You seem to be the artistic type. Yeah, I did it all by myself. Ah, I can see that. So if you are an artist, maybe you want to help us with our artwork. Debian needs, for every release, Debian likes to have a whole set of fitting artworks so that means we need wallpapers and wallpapers and wallpapers. We like to have lots of banners that people can put on their websites. CD and DVD covers for those who sell Debian on Reddit-burned CDs. We are always happy to get new T-shirt designs because even it seems that all the CDs have enough T-shirts by now. They always buy some new ones when they come to a Decon. We certainly noticed that we just redid our whole web design on the website. Oh, you did? So it's almost finished, but we still need some help with that. So if you are good with web design, you could also help the web team implement the design all to the end. Or if you are very knowledgeable about a certain topic, maybe you would like to do a nice picture tutorial. I think I could do that. Now you say what you wanted to say just before I said that. Thanks. Well, aren't there any things I can do without sitting constantly before the computer? Of course you can. For one thing, you look like a wealthy person. Well, you must know. So maybe you would like to share a bit of what you have with Debian. We can always, we always need money donations in order to keep up our hardware and to sponsor development meetings and such things. And so, although we are already getting a lot of donations, we can always use a bit more. Mostly we use it for maintaining our hardware and the build servers and everything. Even actually, if you have a server sitting around maybe somewhere that you don't need, you can also give this to Debian. There's a Debian address that you can contact about hardware donations as well. Cool. And then, like if you would like to go out and meet people, find new friends who also love Debian. In real life. You can join one of the many, many Debian events. Debian basically shows up at every major Linux event and we also have a lot of special Debian events all around the world. And with these events, we always need lots and lots of help that's really not technical at all. We need people to really just help at the booths, sell stuff, explain Debian to people. But even if you maybe have to work so you don't have time, you can maybe give us some demo hardware so we don't need to bring the hardware all the way from wherever we have it or maybe you can offer accommodation to those who are manning the booth or you can often... It's a really useful thing for us just to have a postal address in the city that the event takes place so that if we want to send stuff there beforehand we can send it there and then the hardware or the flyers or whatever can be stored there until the event takes place. So if you just live in a city where a Debian event takes place, contact the Debian events mailing list and just say that you're there, you're available, you're happy to help and there's lots and lots of things that you can do to help. Wow. And if you really like this and once you've taken part in a few Debian events, you might even want to organize one yourself. Maybe an install party at your school or university, maybe a bug squashing party if you work in a big company and they might spare an office for a weekend or if you're really, really ambitious you could even organize a DebConf. Oh, I've heard that's quite a lot of work. I don't think I can handle that. Ah, well, it's not for everybody. DebConf organizers are the hardest kind there is. So, do you have any more questions? Yes, is there even more I can do? No, there's not. Well, she has a cheat. Well, but if I do all the work, is it recognized anyway or is it just lost in space? Oh, no, of course it is recognized. In fact, if you do work for Debian that is recognizable and you do this for a continuous time, there's no problem at all to even become a Debian developer on account of that work. Debian developer, me! Oh, yeah! So, if you keep up work in a particular field like in documentation or translation or something and you've been doing this for a while, say a year or something, you can actually put in for a Debian account and you can become a Debian developer just for this work. There's actually a whole lot of people who are already Debian developers and they don't do packaging work. Instead, they do web work or publicity or translations. So, I've written their names here, so if you want, you can find them and talk to them how they did it. Wow! That sounds interesting to you. That sounds interesting. Since two of them are actually attending the conference. Yeah, yeah, they are. They are even in the audience right now! No! Okay, so dear Alexander, how about you take a few of the ideas and just try what field you like most and maybe you find a place where it can be really useful. I will do my very best. Okay, so you do this and maybe next step we meet again and if you've been really, really good and really skillful, I will advocate you and you become a DD as well. That would be my pleasure. You are my hero. So, if anyone has questions that dear Alexander did not ask yet, feel free to ask them right now and you don't need to come up stage either. Could we switch on the mic, please? Plop? Ah, yeah, no. Now it works. About organized people, is Mats Zimmermann in the audience? Mats Zimmermann, I don't think he's here. Okay. I don't think I've seen him yet, no. Never mind, they can meet all the other people. Yeah, as said, Francesca is here and Martin, so just raise your hand once more. Thanks. So, yeah, you can ask them all you want. More questions? Well, actually if you have any questions about becoming a DB developer without uploading rights, you can also ask and we could see any who did the talk before our talk. Yeah, he's... That one. He can tell you everything about becoming a so-called... Well, the status is called a non-uploading Debian developer, so really you've got the full Debian developer status, only that you cannot upload packages. Yeah, the status is called Debian developer. There's just this tiny, tiny difference that you cannot upload packages. Yeah, the non-uploading bit is irrelevant. But it's not a difference, like all the DDs vote, all the DDs do GRs and whatever. And can become DPL? Yeah. You can even become a DPL if you want. So, if you become a non-uploading Debian developer and later on you wish to package something, do you have to find some other sponsor or you just ask permission or something? I think I have to pass the question. I think that's a question Enrico needs to ask. And answer. Pass that on to Enrico. Enrico. Okay. Okay. So, at the moment we have the DDs who skipped the questions about uploading packages and became DD anyway. But none of them yet has had any need to upload packages. So, I'm sure you can get them sponsored and when there is going to be and when some will need to upload packages by themselves, we'll work it out. Essentially, that's a thing. But the idea is to, I don't know, have some... We don't know yet. But you are welcome. You are welcome to start maintaining packages and then we promise we work out something and as quick as common sense and something that makes sense. It's very untypical for Debian to prevent people from doing work if they want to. Precisely, yeah. Do not fear. And if ever people prevent you from doing work you just point it out in a mailing list and they will become... They shall be taken care of. All right. Any other questions in that case? I guess we're about done. Okay. Well, thank you both very much. And it's...