Towns said a number of the people who supported the Dunc idea as discussed on the debian-private list have pledged money.

However, Towns said he was unsure of the amount of money needed in order for etch to be released on time.

"The answer might be that no money is needed -- we are already doing very well at meeting etch's deadline, and it might be enough to just keep doing what we have been," he said.

"I think that having our release managers available essentially full time over final two months should be a major benefit, but we'll need to keep evaluating that as we proceed.

"From the interest amongst existing developers we've had enough pledged for Steve to be able to commit to giving the idea a try."