How do teams work in Debian?

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Apr 17, 2024

Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock.

We frequently see references to teams around Debian.

In the 2024 Debian Project Leader elections, people have asked questions about team maintenance of packages.

First and foremost, Debian GNU/Linux is a piece of software created by joint authorship.

Some of the Debian Developers have grouped together to form various associations. Sometimes these associations have their own legal form (incorporation) and sometimes they are unofficial/unincorporated groups.

From time to time, we see people creating a team that only has one person. Sometimes the person resigns and then the team is empty. Is this a valid use of the word team?

Subject: Issue with another DD
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 10:41:25 +0100
From: Mathieu Malaterre <malat@debian.org>
To: debian-private@lists.debian.org

Dear DD's

I've tried to keep very very calm, but I am having an extremely hard
time with another member of the Debian team.

I found him acting extremely rude and impersonating a whole debian
team (acts as if the team package is his).

Could someone please contact me privately on how to best resolve this ?

Regards
Ps: nothing really private, but I could not find anything to help me out.

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Is it a sock puppet?

We've regularly seen accusations of sock puppets and trolls around Debian.

When somebody is impersonating a whole Debian team, isn't the name of the team effectively a pseudo-sock-puppet identity?

It seems this behavior is acceptable in some contexts and not in other cases.

What does it tell us about the culture of the Debian community? █

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