After an unexpectedly short discussion on debian-project, we’re moving forward with this new initiative. The Debian security team submitted a project proposal requesting some improvements to tracker.debian.org, and since nobody of the security team wants to be paid to implement the project, we have opened a request for bids to find someone to implement this on a contractor basis.
If you can code in Python following test-driven development and know the Django framework, feel free to submit a bid! Ideally you have some experience with the security tracker too but that’s not a strong requirement.
About the project
If you haven’t read the discussion on debian-project, Freexian is putting aside part of the money collected for Debian LTS to use it to fund generic Debian development projects. The goal is two-fold:
- First, the LTS work necessarily had an impact on other Debian teams that made the project possible (security team, DSA, buildd, ftpmasters, debian-www mainly) and we wanted to be able to give back to those teams by funding improvements to their infrastructure.
- We have always allowed paid contributors to go beyond just preparing security updates for the LTS release. They can pick tasks that improve the LTS project at large (we try to collect such tasks here: https://salsa.debian.org/lts-team/lts-extra-tasks/-/issues) but they should not go over 25% of their allocated monthly hours so this limits their ability to tackle bigger projects and we would like to be able to tackle bigger projects that can have a meaningful impact on the LTS project and/or Debian in general.
We have tried to formalize a process to follow from project submission up to its implementation in this salsa project:
https://salsa.debian.org/freexian-team/project-funding
https://salsa.debian.org/freexian-team/project-funding/-/blob/master/Rules-LTS.md
We highly encourage the above-mentioned Debian teams to make proposals. A member of those teams can implement the project and be paid for it. Or they can decide to let someone else implement it (we expect some of the paid LTS contributors to be willing to implement such projects), and just play the reviewer role driving the person doing the work in the right direction. Contrary to Google’s Summer of code and other similar projects, we put the focus on the results (and not in recruiting new volunteers), so we expect to work with experienced persons to implement the project. But if the reviewer is happy to be a mentor and spend more time, then it’s OK for us too. The reviewer is (usually) not a paid position.
If you’re not among those teams, but if you have a project that can have a positive impact on Debian LTS (even if only indirectly in the distant future), feel free to try your chance and to submit a proposal.
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