Slashdot Mirror
Wichert Akkerman, Last Interview as Debian Project Leader
Denial writes "Wichert Akkerman, the outgoing Debian Project Leader, has been
interviewed on DebianPlanet. After two terms as the leader of the debian project, Wichert has decided to call it quits. He talks about how the election for a leader works, his plans for the future (VA Linux) and about the future of Debian. Interesting stuff."
Q: How can you identify a troll on Slashdot?
A: They are the only ones who use correct spelling and puncuation.
The beginning of the end for debian? Corel being one of the most popular distrobutions? I don't know what people around here have been smoking, but of all the people I know, debian is used the most. Granted, it's not the easiest thing to get installed and running, but once you've got it setup, it's great. It's interesting how people who like a product tend to predict the "begining of the end" for it's competitors. How many times have you heard linux bigots say that it's the beginning of the end for microsoft? Or how about Microsoft people talking about the end of Apple? Or NT people talking about the end of UNIX as a whole? As long as there are people that still care about it, it'll keep being a worthy distro to install. Nite_Hawk
Hmmm... I'm just in the process of rolling out Debian onto all our (previously Mandrake 7.2) machines. Why? Much better install, much better package management, much better stability, much easier administration. There must be something that makes Mandrake a 'superior' distribution in your eyes, but speaking as someone who has been using Linux for eight years and delivering Linux solutions to corporate customers for six, I can't think of one.
I don't find this at all surprising. Many commercial businesses (IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Be, Acorn to name a few) have tried to develop a new mass market operating system kernel over the past decade. Only Microsoft has had any success, and theirs isn't very good. In the same period a loose anarchic collection of volunteers have produced Linux. If you didn't think Linux was better than what the commercial economy can produce. you wouldn't be persuading your clients to use it. So it shouldn't surprise you that the non-commercial distribution is measurably better than the commercial ones.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
There are a number of problems that arise when a commercial entity tries to sell a free distribution such as Debian.
Selling what you could otherwise get for free..
Commercial distributions (forks) often break packages
The Debian Project has different goals than a commercial entity
What commercial model "works" with Debian?
--
assert(expired(knowledge));
What is your problem with Debian? Not able to make money out of it??
Guess that you could say that he is leaving Debian with the hot potato...
.. if only.
Excuse me, but the american president was too already *on* *the* *way* out of his job before a new one was named. This is the usual way in the past and in the future.
Wichert will be debian leader until the new one is elected, so where is your problem? The transition period is always a problem in fields where people are elected.
And regarding non-free: What have you smoked? For the first there are debian maintainers who do package non-free software for use with debian. If you miss a software, just contact a friendly debian maintainer or post it on the list. Probably someone will help you. Some of the most popular non-free software is included within debian for years.
Of course debian can not package all software, but that holds true for free software as well. Debian currently has thousands of packages and its getting harder to keep the control.
If you like debian, ask the authors of said programs which are not included to build debian packages. Show your support for debian and demand such packages! Or if the software is important enough: Again: ask a debian maintainer or post to the appropiate debian lists. There are defined ways for requesting a package!
And whats about commercial software, debian can not package most of them regarding to license issues. But, hey, if you are paying for the software, its your right as a customer to demand a debian package from the manufacturer.
Show the world that debian is a highly demanded linux distribution, and the world will give you the packages. But DO something instead of whining and FUD.
Do you think so? I'm unconvinced. In fact, I'm not sure if the proportion of non-free software on Linux has even gone up over the last (say) two years. I think probably it's gone down, with a huge number of new open source projects getting close to full functionality, and some prominent non-free projects going free (mysql, netscape, staroffice==openoffice).
Speaking for me personally, the only non-free on my machine is netscape and a couple of games. I still hope that mozilla will one day soon be a usable as netscape (and I've also just installed konqueror, which looks nice).
Heck, even quake is free and will be moving to debian's main archive soon.
I don't think the lack of official support for non-free is too much of an issue for potential Debian users: apt still installs non-free, and people still sell non-free CDs. I think a bigger issue will be that debian's usability advantages (apt, consistent configuration handling) will be adopted by the other distributions. Not that I mind, of course... everybody wins when things get better.
In terms of debian's leadership, several strong candidates have already put themselves forwards (you should be able to see the nominations at the list archives). I think this coming year will be good for Debian (first release with a fully usable KDE as well as GNOME desktop, for one thing) as well as for the free software community in general.
-- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a perl script.
0. Nice old style troll.
1. Debian does *not* refuse to include non-free software it goes in non-free you then choose to use non-free or not when you install (and can of course always change this choice by editing one text file after the fact) If you don't know what non-free means in that context odds are you are not going to get Debian up and running without the help of someone who does.
2. Debian is not about getting users. It is about a good solid easy to maintain stable distro that is good for the people who use it. For the most part the people who maintain Debian do so for the same reason a butcher sharpens his knives. If you don't understand think about it for a minute.
3. Get a sense of humor. That was a *funny* line.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
Lol... we must seek out the real Leader of the Debian Project... who must by definition be the man who would least want to do it... indeed, one who refuses to even believe that Debian exists.
Bill Gates? ;)
Dave
--
If you think this is a troll you really don't read enough Douglas Adams
I was interested reading the "...in reality most of it is delegated to others..." and "..the only real decisions you get to make directly if I remember correctly is appointing delegates." bits. From reading it it sounds as if Debian is an example of a project being successfully maintained "by a committee" and not under the ultimate control of one guy. Compared to, say, the linux kernel where Linus gets the final say on what goes in and Slashdot, where presumably Taco gets the last word on everything.
Do people agree? Is this really proof that there are other successful formulas besides the "one amazing guy" one, or do those on the inside think that the Debian project would be more streamlined / fast-moving if it was controlled by one person more than a committee? (Or am I just talking crap as usual;) ?
Dave
Personally I'd rather have my distribution maintained by people doing it because they love it, rather than because someone's paying them too.
I like ice cream.
No, of course not. People jumping on the Linux bandwagon typically want a supported solution, and Debian doesn't offer a supported solution; that's not our business. Some companies do offer supported solutions based on Debian (for example, VA and Progeny) but I'm quite aware that RedHat has most of that share; if you're recommending Mandrake to your clients, fair enough.
There's room out there for more than one distro with different aims and objectives.
When I work as a consultant (and I certainly wouldn't call myself top-flight) I recommend Debian; that's for much more down-to-earth reasons like usability, upgradability and maintainability. But my clients typically self-support, so they're not interested in paying for support licenses; that's not the right decision for every company, but it is for some.
It's a very unusual member of the corporate world who knows enough about Linux to formulate a thought like 'if the Debian team had their way, Linux would still be booting off a floppy'! Certainly such an idea has never remotely been a Debian goal; Debian's goals relate to free software, certainly not to limited usability.
Finally, why should we budge about our ideology? Debian is about its ideology. Other distributions may be about other things, and that's all well and good. RMS believes, and I think he may be right (and many, but certainly not all, debian developers agree with me) that free software's inherent advantages make it the best solution. Time will, presumably, show whether we were right.
-- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a perl script.