A Brief History of Debian

Abstract

This document describes the history and goals of the Debian project.

Copyright Notice

This document may be freely redistributed or modified in any form provided your changes are clearly documented.

This document may be redistributed for fee or free, and may be modified (including translation from one type of media or file format to another or from one spoken language to another) provided that all changes from the original are clearly marked as such.

Significant contributions were made to this document by

• Bdale Garbee bdale@debian.org

• Hartmut Koptein koptein@debian.org

• Nils Lohner lohner@debian.org

• Will Lowe lowe@debian.org

• Bill Mitchell Bill.Mitchell@pobox.com

• Ian Murdock imurdock@debian.org

• Martin Schulze joey@debian.org

• Craig Small csmall@debian.org

This document is currently maintained primarily by Bdale Garbee bdale@debian.org.

Contents

• 1 Introduction -- What is the Debian Project?
• 1.1 In the Beginning
• 1.2 Pronouncing Debian
• 2 Leadership
• 3 Debian Releases
• 4 A Detailed History
• 4.1 The 0.x Releases
• 4.2 The 1.x Releases
• 4.3 The 2.x Releases
• 4.4 The 3.x Releases
• 4.5 Important Events
• 4.6 What's Next?
• A The Debian Manifesto
• A.1 What is Debian Linux?
• A.2 Why is Debian being constructed?
• A.3 How will Debian attempt to put an end to these problems?

A Brief History of Debian