Last year we started to push more of Debian news and information away the single news source of the DPN into other media services. Debian has been more active than ever on our many IRC channels, free software based social networks, and unofficial Twitter and Facebook feeds. Today we have decided to announce the next stage in keeping Debian at the forefront of media by sub-contracting publicity and press to an outside marketing agency.

The marketing agency (name will be disclosed soon) has provided an AI system (running entirely with free software) which will be fed with all the content of Debian mailing lists and sources.debian.net to understand the character of the Debian community and then better customize future articles, interviews, and event news.

However, some bits of personal information are also needed. Please install the "publicity" package and you'll be presented a form to fill in your data: name, surname, phone, snail mail address, place of birth, names of family members, employers or employees. Each person providing their data to the agency will receive coupon for a 20% discount in the download (purchase) of next Debian release (valid only for downloads from the official site www.debian.org).

We kindly ask every Debian community member to sign up in, at least, one of theses services: Twitter, Whatsapp, Slack or Facebook (IRC, mailing lists, and free software based RTC are allegedly not so 'cool'). Users need not be concerned with losing the features that the IRC bots provide (so long KGB!) as they will be replaced by Tay-like AI systems. The most visible change will be that MeetBot will no longer log the meetings anymore, but we have bribed an NSA employee so they pass the relevant messages to us.

"If this 'centralization, outsourcing and pay-and-forget' approach goes well with publicity, I'm considering running for DPL in 2017 to extend this model to other areas of Debian" said Laura Arjona Reina, (now) former publicity delegate.

A new logo and mascot has been designed too, as a symbol of this new era embracing the standards of branding and corporate messaging. Please consider voting in favor of it, in the General Resolution that will be proposed soon:

DebConf16 will take place in Cape Town, South Africa in July 2016. We strive to provide an intense working environment and enable good progress for Debian and for Free Software in general. We extend an invitation to everyone to join us and to support this event. As a volunteer-run non-profit conference, we depend on our sponsors.

Nine companies have already committed to sponsor DebConf16! Let's introduce them:

Our first Platinum sponsor is Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). HPE is one of the largest computer companies in the world, providing a wide range of products and services, such as servers, storage, networking, consulting and support, software, and financial services.

HPE is also a development partner of Debian, and provides hardware for port development, Debian mirrors, and other Debian services (hardware donations are listed in the Debian machines page).

Our first Gold sponsor is Valve, a company developing games, social entertainment platform, and game engine technologies.

Our second Gold sponsor is Google, the technology company specialized in Internet-related services as online advertising and search engine.

Rusbitech (developers of the Astra Linux Debian derivative), credativ (a service-oriented company focusing on open-source software and also a Debian development partner), Catalyst (a company offering IT solutions using open source software), the Bern University of Applied Sciences (with over 7,000 students enrolled, located in the Swiss capital), and Texas Instruments (the global semiconductor company) are our four Silver sponsors.

And last but not least, the open source company Univention has agreed to support us as Bronze-level.

Become a sponsor too!

Would you like to become a sponsor? Do you know of or work in a company or organization that may consider sponsorship?

Please have a look at our sponsorship brochure (or a summarized flyer), in which we outline all the details and describe the sponsor benefits.

For further details, feel free to contact us through sponsors@debconf.org, and visit the DebConf16 website at https://debconf16.debconf.org.

It's that time of year again for the Debian Project: the elections of its Project Leader!

Neil McGovern who has held the office for the last year will not be seeking reelection. Debian Developers will have to choose between voting for the only candidate running Mehdi Dogguy or None Of The Above. If None Of The Above wins the election then the election procedure is repeated, many times if necessary.

Mehdi Dogguy was a candidate for the DPL position last year, finishing second with a close amount of votes to the winner Neil McGovern.

We are in the middle of the campaigning period that will last until April 2nd. The candidate and Debian contributors are expected to engage in debates and discussions on the debian-vote mailing list.

The voting period starts on April 3rd, and during the following two weeks, Debian Developers will vote to choose the person who will guide the project for one year. The results will be published on April 17th with the term for new the project leader starting immediately that same day.

The DebConf Content team is pleased to announce the Call for Proposals for the DebConf16 conference, to be held in Cape Town, South Africa from 2 through 9 July 2016.

Submitting an Event

In order to submit an event, go to "Submit a talk" on your profile page in the DebConf16 website and describe your proposal. Please note, events are not limited to traditional presentations or informal sessions (BoFs). We welcome submissions of tutorials, performances, art installations, debates, or any other format of event that you think would be beneficial to the Debian community.

Please include a short title, suitable for a compact schedule, and an engaging description of the event. You should use the field "Notes" to provide us information such as additional speakers, scheduling restrictions, or any special requirements we should consider for your event.

Regular sessions may either be 20 or 45 minutes long (including time for questions), other kinds of sessions (like workshops) could have different durations. Please choose the most suitable duration for your event and explain any special requests.

Timeline

The first batch of accepted proposals will be announced in April. If you depend on having your proposal accepted in order to attend the conference, please submit it as soon as possible so that it can be considered during this first evaluation period.

All proposals must be submitted before Sunday 1 May 2016 to be evaluated for the official schedule.

Topics and Tracks

Though we invite proposals on any Debian or FLOSS related subject, we have some broad topics on which we encourage people to submit proposals, including:

• Debian Packaging, Policy, and Infrastructure
• Security, Safety, and Hacking
• Debian System Administration, Automation and Orchestration
• Containers and Cloud Computing with Debian
• Debian Success Stories
• Debian in the Social, Ethical, Legal, and Political Context
• Blends, Subprojects, Derivatives, and Projects using Debian
• Embedded Debian and Hardware-Level Systems

Video Coverage

Providing video of sessions amplifies DebConf achievements and is one of the conference goals. Unless speakers opt-out, official events will be streamed live over the Internet to promote remote participation. Recordings will be published later under the DebConf license, as well as presentation slides and papers whenever available.

Contact and Thanks to Sponsors

DebConf would not be possible without the generous support of all our sponsors, especially our platinum sponsor HPE. DebConf16 is still accepting sponsors; if you are interested, please get in touch!

You are welcome to contact the Content Team with any concerns about your event, or with any ideas or questions about DebConf events in general. You can reach us at content@debconf.org.

Registration Reminder

Registration for DebConf is open. Please log into the DebConf16 website and register from your profile page.

To request bursaries (sponsorship) for food, accommodation, or travel, you must be registered by Sunday, 10 April 2016.

After this date, registrations will still be accepted in any of the basic, professional, and corporate categories. However, accommodation on the campus will no longer be guaranteed, and requests for sponsorship will no longer be accepted.

Even if you are not certain you will be able to attend, we recommend registering now. You can always cancel your registration, before the deadline. We do suggest that attendees begin making travel arrangements as soon as possible, of course.

We hope to see you all in Cape Town!

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

• Otto Kekäläinen (otto)
• Dariusz Dwornikowski (darek)
• Daniel Stender (stender)
• Afif Elghraoui (afif)
• Victor Seva (vseva)
• James Cowgill (jcowgill)

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

• Giovani Augusto Ferreira
• Ondřej Nový
• Jason Pleau
• Michael Robin Crusoe
• Ferenc Wágner
• Enrico Rossi
• Christian Seiler
• Daniel Echeverry
• Ilias Tsitsimpis
• James Clarke
• Luca Boccassi

Congratulations!