A team of experts and students from NICTA and the University of NSW have won first place in a major international technology competition for developing a robotically operated, computer-driven clarinet that runs on Linux.

«The Debian project announced yesterday that it has renamed the former “Custom Debian Distribution” concept (under which Debian projects such as Debian Edu, Debian Jr, Debian Med, Debian GIS and Debian Science were collectively known) to the catchier name “Debian Pure Blends.” ...»

"...Mar Del Plata, Argentina, 8 August 2008 - The Debian Project, the team behind the free Debian GNU/Linux operating system, is inviting members of the public and the press to its annual conference, DebConf 8, which takes place from 10 August to 16 August at the Hotel Dorá in Mar Del Plata, Argentina [...] The Debian Project is an association of Free Software developers who volunteer their time

"The Debian project will be present again at this year's Systems expo which takes place from October 21-24 in Munich, Germany [...] a preview of the next version of Debian, lenny, will be presented..."

Debian Project Leader Zacchiroli: "I think we should either get Debian in Free Sosftware Foundation free-distros list or document (from our POV) why Debian is not there. I'm looking for volunteers interested in the topic and willing to participate in a joint Debian / FSF team that will work toward that goal without prejudices." Debian is upstream for about 50% of GNU/Linux distributions!

The Debian Project would like to invite representatives of distributions derived from Debian to participate in a census of Debian derivatives. In addition we would like to invite representatives of distributions derived from Debian to join the Debian derivatives front desk.

You can't argue Debian's irrelevance using Ubuntu as an example. If you're using Ubuntu (or Linux Mint, or Mepis...), you're really using Debian with some enhancements. According to a presentation given recently by Debian Project Leader (DPL) Stefano Zacchiroli, only 7% of Ubuntu is directly derived from upstream projects, Canonical's projects, or other non-Debian sources.

This is not a rant about Debian vs. Ubuntu. I used both, loved both, and I'm currently using Debian Lenny. It's not about Debian versus any other distribution either: in fact, I only tried a few other distros, and most of them were Debian-based. Here are the top 10 reasons for which I enjoy using Debian:

At april 18th 2008, 19 new Debian Developers (DD) accounts were created.

Debian Project is a volunteer effort, and needs more skilled manpower at many human knowledge areas.