This is a chronological list of Debian project leaders.

Debian Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of D ...

is a computer

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

composed of software packages released as

free and open-source software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

primarily under the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the Four Freedoms (Free software), four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was th ...

, developed by a group of individuals known as the Debian project. The Project Leader is a role defined in the ''Debian Constitution'', and is elected once per year by the Debian developers.

Leaders

Ian Murdock

Ian Murdock, the first Debian project leader and the "ian" in "Debian", was an American

software engineer Software engineering is a systematic engineering approach to software development. A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to design, develop, maintain, test, and evaluate computer software. The term ''p ...

. He founded the Debian project in August 1993, naming it after his then-girlfriend and later wife Debra Lynn, and himself (Deb and Ian). He later started

Progeny Linux Systems Progeny Linux Systems was a company which provided Linux platform technology. Their Platform Services technology supported both Debian and RPM-based distributions for Linux platforms. Progeny Linux Systems was based in Indianapolis. Ian Murdock, ...

, a commercial

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

company. He was the Chief Technology Officer of the

Free Standards Group The Free Standards Group was an industry non-profit consortium chartered to primarily specify and drive the adoption of open source standards. It was founded on May 8, 2000. All standards developed by the Free Standards Group (FSG) were release ...

and elected chair of the

Linux Standard Base The Linux Standard Base (LSB) was a joint project by several Linux distributions under the organizational structure of the Linux Foundation to standardize the software system structure, including the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard used in the ...

workgroup, CTO of the

Linux Foundation The Linux Foundation (LF) is a non-profit technology consortium founded in 2000 as a merger between Open Source Development Labs and the Free Standards Group to standardize Linux, support its growth, and promote its commercial adoption. Additi ...

when the group was formed from the merger of the

and

Open Source Development Labs Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) was a non-profit organization supported by a consortium to promote Linux for enterprise computing. Founded in 2000, OSDL positioned itself as an independent, non-profit lab for developers who are adding enterpris ...

. He left the Linux Foundation to join

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, the ...

leading the

Project Indiana OpenSolaris () is a discontinued open-source computer operating system based on Solaris and created by Sun Microsystems. It was also, perhaps confusingly, the name of a project initiated by Sun to build a developer and user community around ...

making

OpenSolaris OpenSolaris () is a discontinued open-source computer operating system based on Solaris and created by Sun Microsystems. It was also, perhaps confusingly, the name of a project initiated by Sun to build a developer and user community around th ...

distribution with

GNU GNU () is an extensive collection of free software (383 packages as of January 2022), which can be used as an operating system or can be used in parts with other operating systems. The use of the completed GNU tools led to the family of operat ...

userland. From 2011 until 2015, Murdock was Vice President of Platform and Developer Community at

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a provider of digital marketing automation and analytics software and services. It was founded in 2000 under the name ExactTarget. The company filed for an IPO in 2007, but withdrew its filing two years later and rais ...

. From November 2015 until his death, Murdock was working for Docker, Inc.

Bruce Perens

Bruce Perens is an American

computer programmer A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software. A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...

and advocate in the

free software movement The free software movement is a social movement with the goal of obtaining and guaranteeing certain freedoms for software users, namely the freedoms to run the software, to study the software, to modify the software, and to share copies of the s ...

and author of

BusyBox BusyBox is a software suite that provides several Unix utilities in a single executable file. It runs in a variety of POSIX environments such as Linux, Android, and FreeBSD, although many of the tools it provides are designed to work with in ...

. He created

The Open Source Definition ''The Open Source Definition'' is a document published by the Open Source Initiative, to determine whether a software license can be labeled with the open-source certification mark. The definition was taken from the exact text of the Debian Free ...

and published the first formal announcement and manifesto of

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

. He co-founded the

Open Source Initiative The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is the steward of the Open Source Definition, the set of rules that define open source software. It is a California public-benefit nonprofit corporation,_with_501(c)(3).html" ;"title="110. - 6910./ref> is a type o ...

(OSI) with

Eric S. Raymond Eric Steven Raymond (born December 4, 1957), often referred to as ESR, is an American software developer, open-source software advocate, and author of the 1997 essay and 1999 book ''The Cathedral and the Bazaar''. He wrote a guidebook for the ...

and

Software in the Public Interest Software in the Public Interest, Inc. (SPI) is a US 501(c)(3) non-profit organization domiciled in New York State formed to help other organizations create and distribute free open-source software and open-source hardware. Anyone is eligible to ...

. He represented Open Source at the United Nations

World Summit on the Information Society The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was a two-phase United Nations-sponsored summit on information, communication and, in broad terms, the information society that took place in 2003 in Geneva and in 2005 in Tunis. WSIS Forums have ...

, at the invitation of the

United Nations Development Programme The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)french: Programme des Nations unies pour le développement, PNUD is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human dev ...

in 2005. He was the Debian project leader from April 1996 to December 1997, replacing Ian Murdock.

Ian Jackson

Ian Jackson is a long-time

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...

author and

developer. He wrote

dpkg dpkg is the software at the base of the package management system in the free operating system Debian and its numerous derivatives. dpkg is used to install, remove, and provide information about .deb packages. dpkg (Debian Package) itself is a ...

, SAUCE (Software Against Unsolicited Commercial Email), userv and

debbugs Debbugs is the software powering the Debian project's issue tracking system. Uniquely it doesn't have any form of web-interface to edit bug reports all modification is done through email. Debbugs was mainly written by Ian Jackson, former Debian p ...

. He used to maintain the

FAQ. He was the Debian project leader between 1998 and 1999. Debian GNU/Linux 2.0 (hamm) was released during his term. He was also a vice-president and then president of

in 1998 and 1999. He was a member of the Debian Technical Committee until November 2014 when he resigned as a result of controversies around the migration of Debian to

systemd systemd is a software suite that provides an array of system components for Linux operating systems. Its main aim is to unify service configuration and behavior across Linux distributions; Its primary component is a "system and service manager ...

Wichert Akkerman

Wichert Akkerman is a Dutch computer programmer who contributed to

Plone Plone is a free and open source content management system (CMS) built on top of the Zope application server. Plone is positioned as an enterprise CMS and is commonly used for intranets and as part of the web presence of large organizations. Hi ...

and

strace strace is a diagnostic, debugging and instructional userspace utility for Linux. It is used to monitor and tamper with interactions between processes and the Linux kernel, which include system calls, signal deliveries, and changes of proce ...

. He was elected for two terms as the Debian project leader and served from January 1999 to March 2001, and was succeeded by Ben Collins. He has also served as the Secretary to

Ben Collins

Ben Collins is an American programmer,

developer and system administrator. From April 2001 to April 2002 Collins acted as the Debian project leader. During his tenure he specialised on the UltraSPARC port and advocated for proactive security and testing policies. Collins had stood for Debian project leader two times prior to being elected. When he took up the role he commented that when he joined the project Ian Jackson, who was at the end of his term as Debian project leader, was "very inactive". Jackson was followed by Wichert Akkerman for two terms, and according to Collins "did an excellent job keeping Debian going". Once elected Collins declared his intent to get Debian moving and during his tenure he sought to provide strategic leadership to build the Debian movement. Collins was succeeded as Debian project leader by Bdale Garbee.

Bdale Garbee

Bdale Garbee is an American computer specialist who works with

, particularly

. He is also an

amateur radio Amateur radio, also known as ham radio, is the use of the radio frequency spectrum for purposes of non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, private recreation, radiosport, contesting, and emergency communic ...

hobbyist, a member of

AMSAT AMSAT is a name for amateur radio satellite organizations worldwide, but in particular the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT) with headquarters at Washington, D.C. AMSAT organizations design, build, arrange launches for, and then opera ...

Tucson Amateur Packet Radio TAPR is an international amateur radio organization. It was founded in Tucson, Arizona, in 1981 by a group of amateurs interested in developing a terminal node controller (TNC) for amateur use. Thus, the group was named Tucson Amateur Packet Ra ...

(former vice-president) and the

American Radio Relay League The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) is the largest membership association of amateur radio enthusiasts in the United States. ARRL is a non-profit organization, and was co-founded on April 6, 1914, by Hiram Percy Maxim and Clarence D. Tuska of ...

and a member of the board of directors of the

and

FreedomBox FreedomBox is a free software home server operating system based on Debian, backed by the FreedomBox Foundation. Launched in 2010, FreedomBox has grown from a software system to an ecosystem including a DIY community as well as some commercial p ...

Foundation's board of directors. He was the Debian project leader for one year between 2002 and 2003.

Martin Michlmayr

Martin Michlmayr is a

advocate and

developer. Michlmayr completed a

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...

in technology management at the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

in 2007. The focus of this research was on

quality improvement Quality management ensures that an organization, product or service consistently functions well. It has four main components: quality planning, quality assurance, quality control and quality improvement. Quality management is focused not o ...

and open source projects, and particularly on release management processes and practices. Between 2008 and 2014 served on the

board of directors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

of the

and is a member of

Software Freedom Conservancy Software Freedom Conservancy, Inc. is an organization that provides a non-profit home and infrastructure support for free and open source software projects. The organization was established in 2006, and as of June 2022, had over 40 member pro ...

's evaluation committee. In the past he acted as an advisor to

. He was elected as Debian project leader in 2003 and re-elected to that position in 2004.

Branden Robinson

G. Branden Robinson is known for his contributions to the packaging of the

X Window System The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting wit ...

, and his tenure as the Debian project leader from April 2005 to April 2006. He has contributed to Debian since 1998. His most visible contribution is his long-time maintenance of the X Window System packages, which he took over from Mark W. Eichin by uploading the 3.3.2 release of the

XFree86 XFree86 is an implementation of the X Window System. It was originally written for Unix-like operating systems on IBM PC compatibles and was available for many other operating systems and platforms. It is free and open source software under the X ...

packages on 1998-03-25. Robinson was elected by his fellow developers in 2005, after running for the position five times between 2001 and 2005. He succeeded

Martin Michlmayr Martin Michlmayr is a free and open-source software advocate and Debian developer, formerly president of Software in the Public Interest. Michlmayr joined the Debian project in 2000. In 2003, Michlmayr was elected as Debian Project Leader; he was ...

, who had been elected project leader in 2003 and 2004. During Branden Robinson's term as a leader, the project achieved some incremental successes, such as a stable point release of ''stable'' by new release managers for that distribution, having

AMD64 x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit version of the x86 instruction set, first released in 1999. It introduced two new modes of operation, 64-bit mode and compatibility mode, along with a new 4-level paging mod ...

added to ''testing'', and the inclusion of modular X in unstable.

Anthony Towns

Anthony Towns (born 21 June 1978) is a computer

programmer A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software. A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...

who was a long-time

release manager, ''ftpmaster'' team member and later the Debian project leader (from 17 April 2006 until 17 April 2007). He ran for Debian project leader in 2005, but was defeated by Branden Robinson by a margin of 23 effective votes. He ran again in 2006, and was elected as the new Debian project leader on 9 April 2006, beginning his term on 19 April 2006. Towns was elected by the second-narrowest-ever margin and was the first project leader to face a recall vote while in office. Towns was also the first project leader whose support by Debian Developers was reaffirmed through a General Resolution. Since a great deal of Debian work takes place in Europe,

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

-based Towns created the post of "Debian Second in Charge" (2IC) to lead discussion, support developers, and represent the project in locations which could more easily be reached by the runner-up candidate, Steve McIntyre, than himself. In September 2006, the ''Dunc-tank'' project started a fund-raising programme to help Debian release its next distribution, ''Etch'', on the scheduled date of 4 December 2006. Towns's involvement with Dunc-Tank came under severe criticism, including hitherto-unseen calls to end his Debian project leadership to make clear that the Dunc-Tank project was not officially supported by Debian project members. Some developers slowed down their unpaid work on Debian in response to the programme. Debian "Etch" was not released in December 2006 as hoped; instead its release happened in April 2007. Nonetheless, Towns views the outcome of the Dunc Tank project as positive, highlighting that Dunc-Tank opposition helped to improve quality of Debian Etch.

Sam Hocevar

Samuel "Sam" Hocevar is a French

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

and

video game developer A video game developer is a broad term for a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large ...

, author of the

WTFPL WTFPL is a permissive free software license. As a public domain like license, the WTFPL is essentially the same as dedication to the public domain. It allows redistribution and modification of the work under any terms. The title is an abbreviat ...

version 2, a

permissive free software license A permissive software license, sometimes also called BSD-like or BSD-style license, is a free software, free-software software license, license which instead of copyleft protections, carries only minimal restrictions on how the software can be us ...

. Hocevar was a

Wikimedia France Wikimedia chapters are national or sub-national not-for-profit organizations created to promote the interests of Wikimedia projects locally. Chapters are legally independent of the Wikimedia Foundation, entering into an agreement with the founda ...

board member from 2005 to 2006. He is known for his contributions to the

VideoLAN VideoLAN is a non-profit organization which develops software for playing video and other media formats. It originally developed two programs for media streaming, VideoLAN Client (VLC) and VideoLAN Server (VLS), but most of the features of VLS ...

project and his expertise in

reverse engineering Reverse engineering (also known as backwards engineering or back engineering) is a process or method through which one attempts to understand through deductive reasoning how a previously made device, process, system, or piece of software accompli ...

and

image processing An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimensiona ...

and for authoring the first

CAPTCHA A CAPTCHA ( , a contrived acronym for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart") is a type of challenge–response test used in computing to determine whether the user is human. The term was coined in 2003 ...

decoder framework to defeat multiple CAPTCHAs. He was the Debian project leader from 17 April 2007 to 16 April 2008.

Steve McIntyre

Steve McIntyre is a

and a long-time

developer, known for his contributions in the field of creating Debian CD/DVD images; he is the ''debian-cd'' team leader and is responsible for generating the official images. McIntyre ran for the post of Debian project leader in 2006 and 2007 but was defeated. During the 2006 term, he acted as "Second in charge" of the Debian Project. In 2008 he was elected the Debian project leader, and was re-elected in 2009. He chose not to run in the 2010 election; that election was won by

Stefano Zacchiroli Stefano Zacchiroli is an Italian and French academic and computer scientist who lives and works in Paris, and a former Debian Project Leader. Debian involvement Zacchiroli became a Debian Developer in 2001. After attending LinuxTag in 2004, he ...

Stefano Zacchiroli

Stefano Zacchiroli is an Italian-French

academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...

and

computer scientist A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (al ...

who lives and works in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. He became a Debian Developer in 2001 involved mainly in the

OCaml OCaml ( , formerly Objective Caml) is a general-purpose programming language, general-purpose, multi-paradigm programming language which extends the Caml dialect of ML (programming language), ML with object-oriented programming, object-oriented ...

packaging and in the

quality assurance Quality assurance (QA) is the term used in both manufacturing and service industries to describe the systematic efforts taken to ensure that the product(s) delivered to customer(s) meet with the contractual and other agreed upon performance, design ...

team. He was the Debian project leader between April 2010 and April 2013.

Lucas Nussbaum

Lucas Nussbaum is a French

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

and

assistant professor Assistant Professor is an academic rank just below the rank of an associate professor used in universities or colleges, mainly in the United States and Canada. Overview This position is generally taken after earning a doctoral degree and general ...

University of Lorraine The University of Lorraine (), often abbreviated in UL, is a grand établissement created on 1 January 2012, by the merger of Henri Poincaré University, Nancy 2 University, Paul Verlaine University – Metz and the National Polytechnic Institute ...

, researcher at LORIA laboratory. Nussbaum was elected leader of the

project in April 2013. He has been a Debian Developer since 2007. Since then, he has been active, amongst other things, as a Debian

Ruby A ruby is a pinkish red to blood-red colored gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum ( aluminium oxide). Ruby is one of the most popular traditional jewelry gems and is very durable. Other varieties of gem-quality corundum are called sa ...

packager, with the Universal Debian Database or the full rebuilds of the Debian Archive. During the 2012 election, outgoing leader

announced that this would be the last term for which he would run; thus, in the 2013 election, the election did not include the incumbent. Nussbaum ran for the first time, opposite Gergely Nagy and Moray Allan. His term started on April 17, 2013. He was re-elected on April 14, 2014.

Neil McGovern

Neil McGovern, an Executive Director at the Gnome Foundation, was elected in April 2015, after running for second time in a row.

Mehdi Dogguy

Mehdi Dogguy, a Tunisian-French technical manager at

Électricité de France Électricité de France S.A. (literally ''Electricity of France''), commonly known as EDF, is a French multinational electric utility company, largely owned by the French state. Headquartered in Paris, with €71.2 billion in revenues in 2 ...

, was elected in April 2016, running without opponents.

Chris Lamb

Chris Lamb, a British freelancer, was elected in April 2017, running against the incumbent leader Mehdi Dogguy. He was re-elected in April 2018.

Sam Hartman

Sam Hartman served as DPL from April 2019 to April 2020. Hartman worked as the Chief Technologist at the MIT Kerberos Consortium and as a Security Area Director of the Internet Engineering Taskforce, and joined Debian in 2000. He was elected running against Joerg Jaspert, Jonathan Carter and Martin Michlmayr and focused his term on resolving conflicts in Debian and facilitating project-wide discussions and decision-making on contentious technical issues.

Jonathan Carter

Jonathan Carter was elected in April 2020, running against Sruthi Chandran and Brian Gupta. Carter was re-elected in April 2021, running against Sruthi Chandran and in April 2022, running against Felix Lechner and Hideki Yamane.

Comparison

* From August to March * From April to December * From January to March

References

{{reflist Linux people