Andreas Tille, the Debian Project Leader, has shared updates and future directions for the project in his recent “Bits from the DPL” announcement.
A notable highlight is Debian’s enthusiastic participation in the “End of 10” campaign—a public awareness initiative aimed at encouraging users to migrate away from Windows 10, which is officially reaching end-of-life on October 14, 2025, to Linux.
Tille expressed the project’s solidarity with the initiative, emphasizing Debian’s alignment with promoting Free Software and safeguarding user freedoms. Just a few days ago, another major distribution—openSUSE—also voiced its support for the campaign in a blog post titled “Upgrade to Freedom Campaign Shifts to End of 10.”
Turning attention to internal improvements, Tille addressed concerns regarding dormant or neglected software packages within Debian. Historically, Debian’s strength has derived from the dedicated expertise of individual maintainers responsible for each package.
However, as the number of packages has vastly expanded, the traditional single-maintainer model has encountered scalability issues.
How does Debian currently deal with this? The project employs three primary methods: the Missing in Action process to deal with inactive maintainers, Package Salvaging for transferring maintenance to active contributors, and Non-Maintainer Uploads (NMU) restricted to clearly defined fixes.
And now, recognizing the limitations of current methods, Debian is experimenting with a new procedure called “Intend to NMU.”
Though still under discussion and potentially due for a name change (“Intent to Orphan” being another option), this initiative provides a formal, transparent 21-day notice before an NMU can proceed, offering greater agility in maintaining software quality without infringing on active maintainers’ autonomy.
Only time will tell if it’ll actually pay off. If you’re curious and want to dive into the details, along with some extra insight into the project Tille mentioned, you can check out the full message on the Debian mailing list.
