[Discussion] Whats the main responsibilities for maintainers on Debian

[Narodnaya Volya]

Whats the main responsibilities for maintainers on Debian
How advance in coding you should be. Can someone that doesn't know coding can aid?
How else can a newcomer with no coding experience can help the project ?

[arochester]

How else can a newcomer with no coding experience can help the project ?

- https://www.debian.org/intro/help

[cds60601]

How else can a newcomer with no coding experience can help the project ?

- https://www.debian.org/intro/help

This is the best answer for someone with zero code experience as trying to venture down that rabbit hole can be very deep indeed.
Not that it's a bad rabbit hole to venture, there are so many variables it's difficult to come up with a to-the-point answer.

If however you do adopt a package to "take care" of, you need to prep your Debian system with all the bits needed to ensure packaging is correct.
Once the code is updated, getting a Mentor to sponsor you will take additional time.
Based on your coding knowledge, you could be working with a Mentor for a long time.

A few guidelines to consider before adopting a package and moving forward (based on my own experiences).
1. The level of coding knowledge - TIME: this will take an investment of time on your part to develop your coding skills if you have little to zero experience so be prepared
2. Time Factor - I can't stress this enough, you will need mucho time to invest. If you don't have that, then opt for other ways to support Debian.

[lindi]

I generally think that the best way to get started is not to try to package something completely new but instead try to help an existing package. This way you will not be alone and will learn a lot by looking at the history of the package. You can start from something simple like trying to reproduce bugs and maybe upgrade to new upstream version.

I'm currently maintaining only very small number of packages as I don't have much time for Debian work at the moment