Attracting and retaining Debian contributors

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2024-09-20 06:30:05

Many projects struggle with attracting and retaining contributors; Debian is no different in that regard. At DebConf24, Carlos Henrique Lima Melara and Lucas Kanashiro gave a presentation about efforts that the Brazilian Debian community has made to increase participation. Their ideas and the lessons learned can be applied more widely, both for other Debian communities and for other projects.

Kanashiro introduced himself as a software engineer, Debian developer since 2016, and an Ubuntu core developer working on Ubuntu Server at Canonical. Melara said that "everybody calls me Charles", and that is his name within Debian; he is a computer engineer interested in security and operating systems, working on embedded systems at Toradex. He has recently become a Debian developer.

Eight or nine years ago, a local Debian community was formed in Brasília, which is the capital of Brazil, "right in the middle of the country", Kanashiro said. He was working on Debian without any local colleagues at the time and wanted to try to get others involved. So he and his former professor began holding events and installfests, which worked pretty well, "but in the end we were not able to engage people" and retain them in a local community.