Collaborating with the Team

As a contributor to the Debian LTS project, there are several ways to collaborate with team. Collaboration includes discussing work that you are doing, requesting assistance from others, or responding to requests from assistance.

Team Discussions

Mailing List

The Debian LTS Team’s primary communication forum is the debian-lts@lists.debian.org mailing list. Nearly any question that a contributor or potential contributor has can be posed to this list, including questions about package assignment, CVE triage, requests for patch review, requests for package testing, etc. If you have a question for the person performing Front Desk duty, then the mailing list is also the best place to ask that question.

Here are the details of the list:

debian-lts

Description: Discussion and coordination of long-term support work for Debian.

Everyone involved or interested in providing Long-Term Support for Debian should feel free to join this list. Discussion of policy, on-going support issues, and anything else relating to LTS are all on-topic here.

Subscription policy: open

Internet Relay Chat

There is an IRC channel, #debian-lts on OFTC, dedicated to Debian LTS development and support. Please note that at times the channel can be busy and also that at times there could be a considerable delay in receiving a response to a query. If you ask a question, be sure to stay in the channel long enough for someone to provide an answer.

IRC Channel: debian-lts (w/o SSL: debian-lts) (webchat) (see IRC on the Debian wiki)

Attention

IRC is a communication medium best suited to quick questions with short answers. If you ask a particularly complex or in depth question in IRC, do not be surprised if you are asked to re-ask the question on the mailing list instead. This has the added benefit of recording the interaction in the public mailing list archive for the benefit of others in the future who might be searching for information on the same issue.

The LTS Coordinator

The overall activities of the Debian LTS Team are managed by the LTS Coordinator. This person is primarily responsible for administrative issues (e.g., assignment of Front Desk duties, distribution of work hours to Freexian-sponsored contributors, managing/hosting meetings, etc.). The types of queries which should typically be directed to the LTS Coordinator include: questions that pertain specifically to an administrative matter, or something that seems like it may not be appropriate to ask in a public setting, or concerns about the behaviour of a Freexian-sponsored contributor.

Sensitive Non-Public Issues

The LTS team has an email alias which is available for informing the LTS team of undisclosed vulnerabilities. To contact the team via this address, use lts-security@debian.org.

Attention

This email address is not meant for support inquiries. It is meant for informing the LTS team of undisclosed vulnerabilities so that security updates can be prepared in advance of their public disclosure. Support inquiries should be directed to one of the above public channels.

Other Communication Channels

The following channels are not specifically meant for discussions, though they may still be useful for staying informed on matters related to LTS.

debian-lts-announce

Description: Important information about new uploads and the status of the LTS distribution are posted here, including security advisories for packages updated in LTS. If you are using the LTS updates on any systems, it is highly recommended that you subscribe to this list, to ensure you are kept fully up-to-date.

Subscription policy: open

debian-lts-changes

Description: All new package uploads to the LTS (“Long-Term Support”) suite are announced here. You should subscribe to this list if you want immediate notification of every package upload to LTS. If you only wish to receive announcements of new package releases on LTS, you may wish to subscribe to the debian-lts-announce mailing list instead.

Subscription policy: open

Monthly LTS Team Meetings

TODO: Update this link after site restructure.

The Debian LTS Team holds monthly meetings in public (alternating between IRC and Jitsi each month). Attendance at the meetings is open to anyone in the community, but the meeting is focused on operational and administrative issues of the Debian LTS Team. The meeting is not a general discussion forum nor a support forum.