1. Administrata

1.1. Authorship and Copyright

This document is copyright (c) 2001 Peter Jay Salzman, <p@dirac.org>. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the Open Software License (OSL), version 1.1, except for the provisions I list in the next paragraph. I hate HOWTO's that include the license; it's a tree killer. You can read the OSL at http://opensource.org/licenses/osl-1.1.txt.

If you want to create a derivative work or publish this HOWTO for commercial purposes, I would appreciate it if you contact me first. This will give me a chance to give you the most recent version. I'd also appreciate either a copy of whatever it is you're doing or a spinach, garlic, mushroom, feta cheese and artichoke heart pizza.

1.2. Acknowledgements

Originally, I was going to thank the author of jigdo, Richard Atterer, simply for writing jigdo. Anyone who has obtained Debian ISOs by other means will know why. However, my thanks needs to go further. This HOWTO started out as some webpages I wrote about my experience with jigdo. Richard took the time to email me extensive corrections, clarifications and answers to questions I had about jigdo. Since then, he has read my work many times. Richard is a developer who not only cares about his work, but also about the people who use it. Sadly, this is becoming less common in this busy world we live in. Thanks, Richard!

I'd also like to thank Conrad Wood, Elcio Mello, Marcelo Ramos, Yufeng Wang, and Tsukasa Yamaguchi for translating this mini-HOWTO. I feel totally honored that they have found my words worthy of their time and effort. Thanks, guys!

Lastly, I'd like to thank Mark van Lent for his kind words and much needed corrections.

1.3. Comments and Corrections

I care a great deal about the people who use this document. Even mini-HOWTOs take a long time to write, and I wouldn't have invested so much effort into something people don't understand. If you have comments, corrections or suggestions, even in matters like writing style, don't hesitate to email me. As long as I'm not totally swamped by my PhD dissertation and the book I'm writing on debugging code with GDB/DDD for No Starch Press, I'll do my best to respond to each email I receive about this mini-HOWTO.

1.4. Latest Version And Translations

The English version and all its translations are available at my website: http://www.dirac.org/linux/debian/jigdo. If you'd like to translate this mini-HOWTO to another language, please contact me at <p@dirac.org>.

The stable English version can be found at The Linux Documentation Project: http://tldp.org/docs.html in the mini-HOWTO section. If you want to see the work in progress, you can get the "bleeding edge" version from http://www.dirac.org/linux/debian/jigdo.