As the Debian project grew, it became apparent that there needed to be a set of semi-formal rules to help in conflict resolution, and as a result the constitution was written. The Debian constitution describes the organisational structure for formal decision making in the Project. The constitution delineates who makes decisions, and what powers are attached to each such decision making individual or body. The office of the Project Secretary is one of the six entities enumerated in the Debian constitution as a decision making entity.
Any Debian developer is eligible to be considered for the post of the Debian Project Secretary. Any person may hold several posts, except that the Project Secretary may not also be the Debian Project Leader, or the Chairman of the Technical Committee.
Unlike other delegates, who are appointed by the Project Leader, the next Project Secretary is appointed by the Project Leader and the current Project Secretary. In case the current secretary and the project leader disagree, they must ask the Developers by way of general resolution to appoint a Secretary.
The Project Secretary's term of office is 1 year, at which point they or another Secretary must be (re)appointed.
The most visible task performed by the secretary is conducting votes for the project -- notably the Project Leader elections, but also any other votes that are run (General Resolutions, for example). Running a vote also entails determining the number and identity of the people eligible to vote, for the purpose of calculating quorum.
The Project Secretary can stand in for the Leader, together with the Chairman of the Technical Committee. In this situation, they may jointly make decisions if they consider it imperative to do so -- but only when absolutely necessary and only when consistent with the consensus of the Developers.
If there is no Project Secretary or the current Secretary is unavailable and has not delegated authority for a decision then the decision may be made or delegated by the Chairman of the Technical Committee, as Acting Secretary.
The secretary is also responsible for adjudicating any disputes about interpretation of the constitution.
Contact the Debian Project Secretary by sending e-mail in English to secretary@debian.org.
The current Project Secretary is Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org>. Manoj has been dabbling with free software since 1987, with Linux since 1993, and has been a Debian developer since November 1995. Manoj is an electrical engineer by training, (solid state devices, to be specific), and only drifted into computers as an after-thought. (Mostly because he was not a scientist at heart, and could not deal with the psyche of electrons — like how electrons refuse to revert to wave behaviour even though the electron counter along the beam is turned off - and unplugged - since the electrons know us humans are tricky.)
Manoj has been Project secretary since April 2001; he took up the position after the previous secretary, Darren Benham, faded away out of the Project. Apart from being the Project Secretary, Manoj is also a member of the Debian Technical Committee, sits on the boards of SPI and OpenDCE, is one of the Policy editors, and maintains 17 packages (one of which is non-free).
Having wandered down from New England to the Heart of Dixie (Mobile, AL, USA) following his wife, Manoj has now settled in the boonies of Tennessee (again following his spouse) in a house on the well watered hills of the highland rim of the Cumberland plateau, complete with a herd of deer.
Given the remoteness of the locations where he has lived, Manoj has been telecommuting since he moved away from the University of Massachusetts in 1996. He first started out as a global consultant for DEC, and then moved to being a research programmer for various small companies working on DARPA grants. Since he has had to maintain his own remote office, free software (and Debian) facilitates his bread and butter. Given the projects he works on, he has been fortunate enough to be able to work on free software on his day job as well.