Understanding the Team Structure

The Debian LTS Team is made up of contributors. Certain contributors are assigned to additional roles on a temporary, rotating, or permanent basis, depending on several factors. This page briefly describes the various roles.

Contributor

A contributor is simply someone who is doing technical work in support of the Debian LTS project. A contributor can be Freexian-sponsored or independent. An independent contributor is simply a contributor whose work is not sponsored by Freexian, meaning that it can be sponsored by another entity or that the individual could be performing the work entirely on a volunteer basis.

A contributor may have only a very limited involvement (e.g., a package maintainer involved only with LTS updates on one specific package), or may have a much broader involvement working daily on a variety of different tasks.

Some contributions require very little knowledge of the team’s policies and procedures, while others require a more thorough understanding.

Front Desk

The Front Desk role is responsible for coordinating the day-to-day activities of the Team.

Any regular Freexian-sponsored contributor is eligible to perform Front Desk duties. Front Desk duties are assigned periodically during the year for the several months which follow. Front Desk slots are for one week and during the week an individual is assigned to Front Desk and that individual is responsible for the completion of specific tasks. Some of the things that individual is responsible to ensure include that queries on the mailing list and in IRC receive a response and that new CVEs are given an initial triage.

The way to register for front desk duties and precisely what those duties entail are describe under Performing Specialized Tasks.

LTS Coordinator

Other Debian LTS Team administrative tasks, including the dispatch of work hours to Freexian-sponsored contributors, the assignment of Front Desk slots, the preparation of the monthly LTS report, etc., are the responsibility of the LTS Coordinator. Additionally, the LTS coordinator is also responsible for the overall management of the Debian LTS Team and for ensuring that the Team is successful in meeting its various objectives. The LTS Coordinator works closely with the LTS Service Owner (a Freexian employee who is responsible for the business aspects of the LTS sponsorship offering by Freexian) and the Freexian managers and owners more broadly.