Malayali woman becomes Debian Project leader; Kannur’s Shruti Chandran makes history

Shruti Chandran, a native of Kannur, has been selected as the leader of the Debian Project, one of the world’s largest free software communities. She is the first woman and the first Asian to head the 33-year-old Debian Project. She achieved this milestone through a vote conducted among more than a thousand official Debian developers worldwide. Her term as Project Leader will run until April 20, 2027.

Debian is a massive operating system used even in the International Space Station and powers a large percentage of servers on the internet. More than 450 operating systems, including the widely used Ubuntu and Kerala government schools’ Kite Linux, are derived from Debian.

Shruti became active in the Debian Project in 2016 while working as a librarian at TCS. She was recognised as an official Debian developer in 2018. She has contributed to the Debian Community Team, the DebConf committee that guides international conferences, and the Outreach Team that brings in new contributors. In 2023, she was the chief organizer of the international Debian conference held at Infopark in Kochi.

Apart from Debian, she is also active in free knowledge communities such as Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Swathanthra Malayalam Computing, and KeralaFOSS. Of the 17 Debian developers from India, nine are from Kerala. Shruti, who currently resides in Mumbai, is married to Praveen Arimbrathodiyil, who is also a Debian developer from Kerala.