The Debian Project Leader elections just finished and the winner is Sam Hartman!

His term as project leader starts immediately today April 21st and expires on April 20th 2020.

Of a total of 1003 developers, 378 developers voted using the Condorcet method. More information about the result is available in the Debian Project Leader Elections 2019 page.

Many thanks to Joerg Jaspert, Jonathan Carter and Martin Michlmayr for running.

And special thanks to Chris Lamb for his service as DPL during these last twenty-four months!

When the late Ian Murdock announced 25 years ago in comp.os.linux.development, "the imminent completion of a brand-new Linux release, [...] the Debian Linux Release", nobody would have expected the "Debian Linux Release" to become what's nowadays known as the Debian Project, one of the largest and most influential free software projects. Its primary product is Debian, a free operating system (OS) for your computer, as well as for plenty of other systems which enhance your life. From the inner workings of your nearby airport to your car entertainment system, and from cloud servers hosting your favorite websites to the IoT devices that communicate with them, Debian can power it all.

Today, the Debian project is a large and thriving organization with countless self-organized teams comprised of volunteers. While it often looks chaotic from the outside, the project is sustained by its two main organizational documents: the Debian Social Contract, which provides a vision of improving society, and the Debian Free Software Guidelines, which provide an indication of what software is considered usable. They are supplemented by the project's Constitution which lays down the project structure, and the Code of Conduct, which sets the tone for interactions within the project.

Every day over the last 25 years, people have sent bug reports and patches, uploaded packages, updated translations, created artwork, organized events about Debian, updated the website, taught others how to use Debian, and created hundreds of derivatives.

Here's to another 25 years - and hopefully many, many more!

Each release of Debian has a shiny new theme, which is visible on the boot screen, the login screen and, most prominently, on the desktop wallpaper.

Debian plans to release Stretch next year. As ever, we need your help in creating its theme! You have the opportunity to design a theme that will inspire thousands of people while working in their Debian systems.

They might be people working in exciting NASA missions:

Or DYI users who decided to make a matching keyboard:

If you're interested, please take a look at https://wiki.debian.org/DebianDesktop/Artwork/Stretch

The following contributors got their Debian Developer accounts in the last two months:

• Josué Ortega (josue)
• Mathias Behrle (mbehrle)
• Sascha Steinbiss (satta)
• Lucas Kanashiro (kanashiro)
• Vasudev Sathish Kamath (vasudev)
• Dima Kogan (dkogan)
• Rafael Laboissière (rafael)
• David Kalnischkies (donkult)
• Marcin Kulisz (kula)
• David Steele (steele
• Herbert Parentes Fortes Neto (hpfn)
• Ondřej Nový (onovy)
• Donald Norwood (donald)
• Neutron Soutmun (neutrons)
• Steve Kemp (skx)

The following contributors were added as Debian Maintainers in the last two months:

• Sean Whitton
• Tiago Ilieve
• Jean Baptiste Favre
• Adrian Vondendriesch
• Alkis Georgopoulos
• Michael Hudson-Doyle
• Roger Shimizu
• SZ Lin
• Leo Singer
• Peter Colberg

Congratulations!

The following contributors got their Debian Developer accounts in the last two months:

• Sven Bartscher (kritzefitz)
• Harlan Lieberman-Berg (hlieberman)

Congratulations!