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A Brief History of Debian - Chapter 1
Introduction -- What is the Debian Project?


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 Intel i386 and above, Alpha, ARM, Motorola 68k, MIPS, PowerPC, Sparc, and UltraSparc.

Debian motivated the formation of Software In The Public Interest, Inc., a New York-based non-profit organization. SPI is a non-profit organization which 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 deductable in the United States.

For more information about free software, see the Debian Social Contract and associated Debian Free Software Guidelines, or the Debian What Does Free Mean? page.


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A Brief History of Debian
0.1 (last revised 29 December 1999)
Bdale Garbee bdale@debian.org