Debian developers have various responsibilities, and as official project members, they have great influence on the direction the project takes. A Debian developer is generally responsible for at least one package, but according to their available time and desire, they are free to become involved in numerous teams, acquiring, thus, more responsibilities within the project.

Package maintenance is a relatively regimented activity, very documented or even regulated. It must, in effect, comply with all the standards established by the Debian Policy. Fortunately, there are many tools that facilitate the maintainer's work. The developer can, thus, focus on the specifics of their package and on more complex tasks, such as squashing bugs.

The Policy, an essential element of the Debian Project, establishes the norms ensuring both the quality of the packages and perfect interoperability of the distribution. Thanks to this Policy, Debian remains consistent despite its gigantic size. This Policy is not fixed in stone, but continuously evolves thanks to proposals formulated on the debian-policy@lists.debian.org mailing list. Amendments that are agreed upon by all interested parties are accepted and applied to the text by a small group of maintainers who have no editorial responsibility (they only include the modifications agreed upon by the Debian developers that are members of the above-mentioned list). You can read current amendment proposals on the bug tracking system:

政策含包裝的技術細節。計畫的大小也引發組織的問題；由 Debian 憲法處理，即建立決策的結構與方法。換句話說，就是正式的治理系統。

憲法設定若干角色與位置，以及其責任與權威。Debian 發展者擁有選舉賦予的絕對決定權威，重大議題需要投票者的四分之三 (75%) 多數支持 (例如那些影響基金會文件的決定)。然而，發展者每年選舉 '領導人' 代表參與會議，確保各團隊間的協調。此選舉多伴隨密集的討論。領導人的角色不是任何文件能夠設定：候選人提出自己對此職位的看法。實務上，領導人的角色包括擔任媒體的發言人、協調 '內部' 的團隊、以及帶領整個計畫，發展者可以：要求領導人依多數決批准計畫成員的參與。

嚴格說來，領導人有絕對的權威；投票解決投票的問題；還沒有人負責的事都由領導人決定且可授權給他人。

Since its inception, the project has been successively led by Ian Murdock, Bruce Perens, Ian Jackson, Wichert Akkerman, Ben Collins, Bdale Garbee, Martin Michlmayr, Branden Robinson, Anthony Towns, Sam Hocevar, Steve McIntyre, Stefano Zacchiroli, Lucas Nussbaum, Mehdi Dogguy and Chris Lamb.

憲法也設立 '技術委員會'。發展者自身無法達成共識時由此委員會決策技術事宜。此外，當發展者無法解決自身職責所有的問題時，委員會就扮演顧問角色。祗有被爭議一方邀請後，才能涉入。

最後，憲法設立 '計畫秘書' 職位，負責各種選舉與爭議的投票事宜。

The “general resolution” procedure is fully detailed in the constitution, from the initial discussion period to the final counting of votes. The most interesting aspect of that process is that when it comes to an actual vote, developers have to rank the different ballot options between them and the winner is selected with a Condorcet method (more specifically, the Schulze method). For further details see:

即使憲法建立了表面的民主，每日的運作卻大不相同：Debian 遵守自由軟體的蠢蛋進化論：做事的人決定怎麼做事。爭論解決問題的方法祗是浪費時間；選擇有用且滿意的方案才是王道…有能力的人就是這麼做。

這就是升級的唯一方法：做有用的事且顯示把事情做好。Debian '管理' 團體以增選方式管理，採用已有效奉獻且證明其能力的志願者。新的奉獻者看到這些團隊做了具有公共利益性質的工作就會主動加入協助。這就是 Debian 常被稱為 '任人唯賢'。

這種有效的管理方法保證在 Debian '關鍵' 團隊奉獻者的品質。不見得是完美的且偶而凸搥。選擇被團隊接受的發展者是隨興的，甚至不公平的。而且，不是每個人對這些團隊服務的期望是一樣的。有些人受不了等8天才能收錄新的 Debian 套件，也有人耐心等待3週毫無怨言。所以，有些團隊對 '服務品質' 經常不滿。

或許奇怪，需要在討論 Debian 專案內工作者時加入使用者，答案是必須的：使用者扮演關鍵的角色。不祗是 '被動' 的角色，有些使用者執行發展版並定期報告指定問題的錯誤。其他的人更深一層提出改進的意見，以 '願望清單' 或送出稱為 '補丁' 的修正後原始碼 (見專欄 基礎 補丁，送出修訂)。

Additionally, numerous satisfied users of the service offered by Debian like to make a contribution of their own to the project. As not everyone has appropriate levels of expertise in programming, they may choose to assist with the translation and review of documentation. There are language-specific mailing lists to coordinate this work.

$ diff -u file.old file.new >file.patch

$ patch -p0 file.old <file.patch

靠著使用者的參與這些奉獻愈來愈有效。不斷地交換訊息，使用者不是孤立的個人而是一個真正的社群。從郵寄名單裡，debian-user@lists.debian.org (章 7, 解決問題與找到相關資訊 可看出詳情)。

使用者不僅自助 (也助人) 於直接影響他們的技術面，也討論奉獻 Debian 專案的最佳途徑與協助其向前行 — 經常出現改進的建議。

Debian 不僅持續自我推廣，其使用者在擴散方面也居功甚偉，口耳相傳其名聲。

這些方法運作的不錯，在自由軟體的各個層面都有 Debian 粉絲：從在地 'Linux 使用者社群' LUGs 組織的安裝會 (協助新手安裝系統的工作坊)，到 Linux 相關的技術會議等。

Volunteers make posters, brochures, stickers, and other useful promotional materials for the project, which they make available to everyone, and which Debian provides freely on its website and on its wiki:

Debian 從開始就以原始碼的概念組織起來，每個套件都有維護者。隨時出現新的工作團隊，於子計畫內形成新的團隊，確保基礎建設的管理，以及流程運作不會被特定的套件綁住 (品質保證、Debian 政策、安裝器等)。