A Brief History of Debian

Table of 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 Early Debian Packaging System

4.3. The 1.x Releases

4.4. The 2.x Releases

4.5. The 3.x Releases

4.6. The 4.x Releases

4.7. The 5.x Releases

4.8. The 6.x Releases

4.9. The 7.x Releases

4.10. The 8.x Releases

4.11. The 9.x Releases

4.12. The 10.x Releases

4.13. The 11.x Releases

5. Some Important Events

5.1. October 2000: Implementation of Package Pools

5.2. November 2002: Fire burnt Debian server

5.3. November 2003: Several Debian servers hacked

6. Remembering People We Have Lost

6.1. July 2000: Joel Klecker died

6.2. March 2001: Christopher Rutter died

6.3. March 2001: Fabrizio Polacco died

6.4. July 2002: Martin Butterweck died

6.5. May 2004: Manuel Estrada Sainz and Andrés García Solier died

6.6. July 2005: Jens Schmalzing died

6.7. December 2008: Thiemo Seufer died

6.8. July 2009: Steve Greenland died

6.9. August 2010: Frans Pop died

6.10. April 2011: Adrian von Bidder died

6.11. May 2013: Ray Dassen died

6.12. July 2014: Peter Miller died

6.13. February 2015: Clytie Siddall died

6.14. December 2015: Ian Murdock died

6.15. September 2016: Kristoffer H. Rose died

6.16. September 2018: Innocent de Marchi died

6.17. March 2019: Lucy Wayland died

6.18. June 2020: Robert Lemmen died

6.19. June 2020: Karl Ramm died

6.20. April 2021: Rogério Theodoro de Brito died

6.21. September 2023: Abraham Raji died

6.22. December 2023: Gunnar Hjalmarsson died

6.23. July 2024: Peter De Schrijver died

7. 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?