All packages that are included in the official Debian distribution are free according to the Debian Free Software Guidelines. This assures free use and redistribution of the packages and their complete source code. The official Debian distribution is what is contained in the main section of the Debian archive.
As a service to our users, we also provide packages in separate sections that cannot be included in the main distribution due to either a restrictive license or legal issues. They include:
Note that same packages might appear in several distributions, but with different version numbers.
This is the latest official release of the Debian distribution. This is stable and well tested software, which changes only if major security or usability fixes are incorporated.
See the stable release pages for more information.
This area contains packages that are intended to become part of the next
stable distribution. There are strict criteria a package in unstable (see
below) must obey before it can be added to testing.
Note that testing
does not get the timely security updates
from the security team.
See the testing distribution pages for more information.
This area contains the most recent packages in Debian. Once a
package has met our criterion for stability and quality of packaging,
it will be included in testing. unstable
is also not supported
by the security team.
Packages in unstable are the least tested and may contain problems severe enough to affect the stability of your system. Only experienced users should consider using this distribution.
See the unstable distribution pages for more information.