"In early August, Debian voted to endorse the concept of "Debian Maintainers" which allows contributors who, though not full Debian developers, should be allowed to maintain their own packages in the archive without requiring a sponsor for every upload [0]. Since then, a system for maintaining a separate keyring for Debian Maintainers has been implemented [1], along with changes to the archive software to support restricting uploads signed by those keys [2]. Thanks in particular to Cameron Dale and Miriam Ruiz and Fathi Boudra for being guinea pigs, during the initial implementation and testing. :) We're now ready to accept limited numbers of applicants, and as such are entering an open beta phase. That means that we think we've got
everything in order and it should be working properly, but we've probably missed some things, and until we know what they are and fix them, we'll be relying on DMs to help us make sure the system is running as smoothly as it's meant to. If you are a non-DD who already maintains software in Debian via a sponsor, and you have a good knowledge of how to work in Debian, a gpg key signed by some DDs, and a proven track record, then you're the kind of applicant we're looking for to help us finish up our testing. If accepted you'll be able to upload your packages directly without bothering your sponsor. To apply, talk to your sponsor or AM or any other DDs you know and work with to see if they think you're ready for this step -- you'll need them to write a mail to the debian-newmaint list about what you've done that
makes them think you make a good maintainer. If you're a DD who knows a non-DD that you think would make good use of the extra priveleges of a DM, you might like to talk to them and
encourage them to apply. Applications are made by filing a bug against the debian-maintainers package -- please see its README file for instructions on what information is needed, and how to put it together. Note that once you're accepted as a DM, you can still only upload packages that are already present in unstable with your name and email address in the Maintainer: or Uploaders: field, and that have Dm-Upload-Allowed: yes" set. That means you will need your sponsor to do at least one upload with the Dm-Upload-Allowed: flag set. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, you can contact the
DM keyring team at d-m-team (at) lists.alioth.debian.org.

Signed,
The DM keyring team..."

VIA debian-devel-announce (at) lists.debian.org