Debian has a new project leader. The 2026 election confirmed Sruthi Chandran as the Debian Project Leader, with her term beginning on April 21, 2026. She will succeed Andreas Tille, who won Debian’s 2025 Project Leader election and has served as the project’s current leader.
Debian’s voting page indicates that Chandran was the sole nominee in this year’s election. Voting took place from April 4 to April 17, following nomination and campaigning in March and early April.
The final tally was 289 votes for Sruthi Chandran and 50 for “None of the above.” Debian’s election page notes that only a simple majority was required, which Chandran achieved with ease.
For those unfamiliar with Debian’s structure, the Debian Project Leader (DPL) serves as the public representative of one of the Linux community’s most established projects. The DPL is elected by Debian Developers and is responsible for representation, coordination, and project-level decision making.
The distro uses the Condorcet method for project-wide votes. The official results confirm Chandran as the 2026 Project Leader. The election page also reports 1,039 current developers and confirms that support for Chandran reached quorum.
Chandran, a Debian Developer from India, describes herself as a librarian turned free software contributor. Her experience includes package maintenance, participation in the Community Team, Application Manager responsibilities, outreach, involvement in DebConf India 2023, and service on the DebConf Committee.
Her primary platform priority was promoting diversity within Debian and the broader free software community. Chandran stated that her main motivation for running was to keep diversity issues at the forefront during DPL elections, with particular attention to gender, geographic, and ethnic representation.
She also emphasized the importance of visibility within the project, noting that increasing the visibility of women, trans, and gender-diverse contributors could encourage broader participation.
With the 2026 vote concluded, Debian’s leadership transition will take place on April 21. This result concludes the election cycle and places Chandran at the helm of a project central to the Linux and open-source ecosystem.
