The Debian project allows some people who are not Debian developers to
maintain packages in the distribution, This package contains a keyring 
of GnuPG keys of these maintainers.

If you wanted to add this keyring to gpg, you could add this line to your
~/.gnupg/gpg.conf file:

keyring /usr/share/keyrings/debian-maintainers.gpg

The intended use of the keyring is actually by dak on the Debian archive,
when checking if an uploaded package should be accepted. More details here:
http://www.debian.org/vote/2007/vote_003

keyring maintenance
-------------------

The keyring is built and maintained by using jetring to manipulate
changesets. The source package actually contains two keyrings, an admins
keyring and the debian-maintainers keyring. Admins can add new people to
either keyring.

To submit an applicant to be added to the debian-maintainers keyring,
someone (the applicant or their sponsor) should file a bug on the
debian-maintainers package, attaching a jetring changeset that adds the
applicant's key. A sample.changeset file is provided for your reference.

The admins will check that:

* The applicant acknowledges Debian's social contract and free software
  guidelines (http://www.debian.org/social_contract), and machine usage
  policies (http://www.debian.org/devel/dmup). The applicant should post
  a gpg signed mail agreeing with them.
* That the applicant has a valid gpg key, signed by a Debian developer (and
  preferably connected to the web of trust by multiple paths).
* That at least one Debian developer (preferably more) is willing to advocate
  the applicant's inclusion, in particular that the applicant is technically
  competent and good to work with. Advocacy messages should generally be sent
  to a Debian mailing list such as debian-newmaint or a more specific team
  list.

To aid in these checks, please provide all the necessary data in the
changeset or in followup mails.