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Is Ubuntu a Compatibility Nightmare for Debian?

Posted by timothy on from the divergence dept.

An anonymous reader submits "Following Friday's release of Ubuntu Linux 5.04, Ian Murdock, founder of the Debian project, told internetnews.com: 'Ubuntu's popularity is a net negative for Debian.' He explained: 'It's diverged so far from Sarge that packages built for Ubuntu often don't work on Sarge. And given the momentum behind Ubuntu, more and more packages are being built like this. The result is a potential compatibility nightmare.' Ian suggests a method for averting crisis on his blog."

5 of 638 comments (clear)

  1. Translation... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny
    Here's a suggestion on how we can avert the crisis before it becomes one: Provide a Debian compatibility runtime and development environment for Ubuntu, and make the development environment the default environment.

    Translation: Provide the same horribly outdated packages we do.

  2. Simple solution: by Junior+J.+Junior+III · · Score: 5, Funny

    Debian just needs to start advertising itself using images of naked people, too. Then popularity will go up for Debian, until they achieve parity with Ubuntu, and more people will release packages that work well with Sarge.

    --
    You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
    1. Re:Simple solution: by nxtw · · Score: 5, Funny

      This is the duty of Lesbian GNU/Linux!

  3. I smell a role for the federal government by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Perhaps an Endangered Distributions Act.

  4. Dodos by The+Bungi · · Score: 5, Funny
    Whenever I see these stories about Debian I remember that skit on Ice Age that features a bunch of dodos chanting "survival of the dodos is the most important thing!!" "we will survive!!" while hoarding three watermelons for the upcoming 2,000 year glacier funfest.

    "Oops, there goes our last female".

    Debian needs to get with the program and work with Ubuntu. Otherwise... well, we all know what happened to the dodos. It would take a lot of work to replace the Debian infrastructure, but it's not impossible to do.