From: tille@debian.org 
  
 Dear Debian community, 
  
 This is bits from the DPL for August. 
  
 Debian Birthday parties and new release cycle 
 ============================================= 
  
 Although I'm almost completely disconnected from my city's local user 
 group (which is rather small, just like the city itself), I was 
 invited to a nice barbecue. I joined the party together with Debian 
 enthusiasts from Taiwan who were staying at my place, which turned the 
 gathering into an international one. Meeting Debian people always 
 means encountering interesting individuals with fascinating user 
 experiences. I hope you all enjoyed the parties - not only celebrating 
 the birthday, but also the release. 
  
 The start of the new release cycle is clearly visible in the activity of 
 our contributors. In a mail to the debian-devel list in January [d01], 
 we counted 2930 packages not maintained on Salsa. By the end of August, 
 that number had dropped to 1994. Uploading packages after the freeze has 
 brought back all the fun, and many teams have now completed their 
 migration from Alioth to Salsa, even announcing it in the Vcs fields. 
  
 [d01] https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2025/01/msg00128.html 
  
  
 Open Source Summit Europe in Amsterdam 
 ====================================== 
  
 At the end of August, I had a business trip to the Open Source Summit 
 Europe[a01], one of the major gatherings where companies, foundations, 
 and communities involved with Free and Open Source Software meet. The 
 event brought together a wide range of participants, with topics 
 spanning from kernel development to emerging application domains. 
  
 One observation I took away is the central role that Yocto Linux plays 
 in many industrial and embedded setups. Yocto is widely used as a base 
 to build tailored systems, while Debian is more often the choice for 
 general-purpose environments. Still, there is room for Debian to deepen 
 its involvement in adjacent fields - for example by ensuring smooth 
 integration paths, or by providing more ready-to-use building blocks for 
 these use cases. 
  
 Another area that received visible attention was robotics. A number of 
 sessions and discussions highlighted robotics as a growing field with 
 high relevance for open source. I also realized that the work of the 
 Debian Science team, who maintain many of the packages used in robotics, 
 is still widely unknown. I'd like to use this chance to point to the 
 robotics task[a02] and the robotics development task[a03]. With the 
 new feature in the installer that allows selecting Blends, these tasks 
 may hopefully become more visible to newcomers. 
  
 In short, Debian already provides important tools from the software 
 stack that robotics projects rely on. Investing more in this 
 direction - whether through packaging, integration, or outreach - could 
 strengthen Debian's position and visibility in a field that is both 
 technically exciting and socially relevant. 
  
 A central role in the robotics ecosystem is played by the Robot 
 Operating System (ROS). ROS has become a de facto standard for research 
 and development in robotics, and Debian already provides many of the 
 core packages and dependencies that ROS builds upon. Continued packaging 
 work and collaboration with the ROS community can further reinforce 
 Debian as a natural platform for robotics projects, bridging the gap 
 between research prototypes and production systems. 
  
 [a01] https://events.linuxfoundation.org/open-source-summit-europe/ 
 [a02] https://blends.debian.org/science/tasks/robotics 
 [a03] https://blends.debian.org/science/tasks/robotics-dev 
  
  
 Kind regards 
     Andreas. 
  
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