2.5. There is 'Debian Multimedia Maintainers' and 'deb-multimedia.org'. So what's the difference?
'Debian Multimedia Maintainers' is the team behind the packaging of multimedia related packages distributed with Debian. In other words, 'Debian Multimedia Maintainers' is us.
'deb-multimedia.org' (aka 'dmo' or 'd-m.o', formerly 'debian-multimedia.org') is a site that offers a repository of multimedia packages as well. That site is maintained by an individual that is not part of this team.
2.5.1. freedom
A key difference between the 'deb-multimedia.org' and our team is that we strive to maintain packages that are considered
DFSG free or get them to a state where they become
DFSG free. Moreover, we aim at
proper integration of programs into the Debian system. In contrast to official Debian packages, many packages from 'deb-multimedia.org' are licensed under non-free terms that limit their use and are not freely redistributable.
2.5.2. versioning
To distinguish between our official packages and packages from d-m.o, d-m.o adds an 'epoch' to the version number and uses a specific revision counter. This means that once you installed a version from d-m.o, package management software will always consider that version newer than the official package - even when the official package is in actual fact a newer version (but without the epoch).
2.6. Does the team coordinate package maintenance with dmo?
No. There is no such coordination with the team and anyone in dmo. There have been attempts to coordinate package maintenance with dmo, but the maintainer of dmo has consistently expressed no interest in coordinating package maintenance with anyone in the team.
2.7. Does the team provide any kind of support with using packages from dmo?
No. There is no attempt to provide support with using packages from dmo.
2.8. Well, isn't deb-multimedia.org an official part of Debian?
This is a common misconception in regards to what deb-multimedia.org is. Although dmo is run by a Debian Developer and used to make use of the word "Debian" and the Debian trademark, dmo is in fact
not a part of Debian or affiliated with Debian in any way. The fund-raising that happens there does not go towards Debian. As far as we understand it, dmo is maintained by only two people, neither of whom are a part of this team.