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<chapt id="contributing">Contributing to the Debian Project

<p><url name="Donations" id="&debian-donation;"> 
of time (to develop new packages, maintain existing packages,
or provide user support), resources (to mirror the FTP and WWW archives),
and money (to pay for new testbeds as well as hardware for the archives)
can help the project.

<sect id="contrib">How can I become a Debian software developer?

<p>The development of Debian is open to all, and new users with the right
skills and/or the willingness to learn are needed to maintain existing
packages which have been "orphaned" by their previous maintainers, to
develop new packages, and to provide user support.

<p>The description of becoming a Debian developer can be found at the
<url name="New Member's Corner" id="http://www.debian.org/devel/join/newmaint">
at the Debian web site.

<sect id="contribresources">How can I contribute resources to the Debian
  project?

<p>Since the project aims to make a substantial body of software rapidly
and easily accessible throughout the globe, mirrors are urgently needed.
It is desirable but not absolutely necessary to mirror all of the archive.
Please visit the <url id="http://www.debian.org/mirror/size" name="Debian
mirror size"> page for information on the disk space requirements.

<p>Most of the mirroring is accomplished entirely automatically by scripts,
without any interaction.  However, the occasional glitch or system
change occurs which requires human intervention.

<p>If you have a high-speed connection to the Internet, the resources to
mirror all or part of the distribution, and are willing to take the time
(or find someone) who can provide regular maintenance of the system,
then please contact <email/debian-admin@lists.debian.org/.

<sect id="supportingorganizations">How can I contribute financially to the
  Debian project?

<p>One can make individual donations to one of two organizations that
are critical to the development of the Debian project.

<sect1 id="SPI">Software in the Public Interest

<p>Software in the Public Interest (SPI) is an IRS 501(c)(3) non-profit
organization, formed when FSF withdrew their sponsorship of Debian.
The purpose of the organization is to develop and distribute free software.

<p>Our goals are very much like those of FSF, and we encourage programmers
to use the GNU General Public License on their programs. However, we have
a slightly different focus in that we are building and distributing
a Linux system that diverges in many technical details from the GNU system
as originally planned by FSF. We still communicate with FSF, and we cooperate in sending
them changes to GNU software and in asking our users to donate to FSF and
the GNU project.

<p>SPI can be reached at: <url id="http://www.spi-inc.org/">.

<sect1 id="FSF">Free Software Foundation

<p>At this time there is no formal connection between Debian and the Free
Software Foundation. However, the Free Software Foundation is
responsible for some of the most important software components in
Debian, including the GNU C compiler, GNU Emacs, and much of the C
run-time library that is used by all programs on the system. FSF pioneered
much of what free software is today: they wrote the General Public
License that is used on much of the Debian software, and they invented
the "GNU" project to create an entirely free Unix system. Debian should
be considered a descendent of the GNU system.

<p>FSF can be reached at: <url id="http://www.fsf.org/">.
