Title: Custom Debian Distributions @ Debconf4 Facilitator: Benjamin Mako Hill with the help and support of Andreas Tille and the CDD working group[1] Description: Formerly lumped in with other "subprojects," Custom Debian Distributions have in the last year chosen a new name and developed quickly both technically and socially. Led in part by the example of Skolelinux (now Debian-Edu), CDDs are working on creating a common infrastructure for package selection and are developing policy and methods for allowing custom configuration of packages *fully* within the Debian system through low priority Debconf questions to official Debian packages. As Debian swells to beyond 15,000 packages, Debian is becoming a more interesting palette from which projects can pull but a more unruly solution in and of itself. Custom Distributions have successfully allowed developers to create both targeted communities around particular fields of endeavor by customizing both the selection and the configuration of packages for their users without using *any* software or packages from outside of Debian proper. This talk, led by representatives from Debian-NP along with help from Debian-Edu, Debian-Med and the others (some of whom will not be in attendancwe), will introduce CDDs and present their current state and a summary of the last year's work. It will focus on introducing the terms, concepts, and software to Debian developers so when they can use the CDD framework to create their own ad-hoc, or more managed, CDDs and so that they will be receptive when CDDs come to package maintainers for help in the process of their work. More info on CDDs can be found on the CDD wiki: http://wiki.debian.net/index.cgi?CustomDebian [1] http://alioth.debian.org/projects/cdd