Debian Developers don't have to be package maintainers

The official Debian developer status is no longer exclusively available only to Debian project members who are active package maintainers. Debian project leader Stefano Zacchiroli has proposed that, in future, the Debian Account Managers should also accept Debian contributors who don't maintain packages, but contribute to the project in other ways, as official developers.

Like the other official Debian Developers, this group of developers who aren't maintaining packages will participate in decision-making and voting processes and have full access to the Debian infrastructure – apart from the Debian package archive. This is to allow more developers to contribute to the Debian community. Almost all of the official Debian Developers acknowledged so far have been package maintainers.

(trk)