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The Debian Project is a worldwide group of volunteers who endeavor to produce an operating system distribution that is composed entirely of free software. The principle product of the project to date is the Debian GNU/Linux software distribution, which includes the Linux operating system kernel, and thousands of prepackaged applications. Various processor types are supported to one extent or another, including 32 and 64 bit x86, ARM, MIPS, PowerPC and IBM S/390.
Debian motivated the formation of Software in the Public Interest, Inc., a New York-based non-profit organization. SPI was founded to help Debian and other similar organizations develop and distribute open hardware and software. Among other things, SPI provides a mechanism by which The Debian Project may accept contributions that are tax deductible in the United States.
자유소프트웨어에 관한 더 자세한 정보는 Debian Social Contract와 이와 관련된 데비안 자유소프트웨어 지침 데비안에서 자유란 무슨 의미인가요? 에서 확인할 수 있다.
The Debian Project was officially founded by Ian Murdock on August 16th, 1993. (There is also a scanned printout of that announcement.) At that time, the whole concept of a "distribution" of Linux was new. Ian intended Debian to be a distribution which would be made openly, in the spirit of Linux and GNU (read his manifesto provided as an appendix to this document for more details). The creation of Debian was sponsored by the FSF's GNU project for one year (November 1994 to November 1995).
Debian was meant to be carefully and conscientiously put together, and to be maintained and supported with similar care. It started as a small, tightly-knit group of Free Software hackers, and gradually grew to become a large, well-organized community of developers and users.
When it began, Debian was the only distribution that was open for every developer and user to contribute their work. It remains the most significant distributor of Linux that is not a commercial entity. It is the only large project with a constitution, social contract, and policy documents to organize the project. Debian is also the only distribution which is "micro packaged" using detailed dependency information regarding inter-package relationships to ensure system consistency across upgrades.
높은 수준을 유지하고 달성하기 위해 데비안은 확장된 정책과 패키징과 소프트 웨어를 다루는 과정을 적용하고 있다. 이러한 기준은 투명한 방식으로 데비안 의 주요 요소인 도구와 자동화와 문서를 통해 만들어 가고 있다.