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Trouble on the Debian Front?
Linux.com is reporting that Matthew Garrett, one of the more active Debian developers, has called some ongoing problems with the Debian project into focus with his resignation. While he didn't hold any actual office, many prominent Debian developers described Garrett as "high profile". From the article: "In his own blog, Garrett relates his gradual discovery that Debian's free-for-all discussions were making him intensely irritable and unhappy with other members of the community. He contrasts Debian's organization with Ubuntu's more formal structure. In particular, he mentions Ubuntu's code of conduct, which is enforced on the distribution's mailing lists, suggesting that it 'helps a great deal in ensuring that discussions mostly remain technical.' He also approves of Ubuntu's more formal structure as 'a pretty explicit acknowledgment that not all developers are equal and some are possibly more worth listening to than others.' Then, in reference to Mark Shuttleworth, the founder and funder of Ubuntu, Garrett says, 'At the end of the day, having one person who can make arbitrary decisions and whose word is effectively law probably helps in many cases.'"
Without Debian, where would we have the amazing, huge codebase for every Ubuntu, Jibbajabba, or Lilixinidros distribution out there? Debian is the closest thing to a "standard Linux" if there ever was one. Slackware is a good candidate, too.
But NOT Fedora. That's a commie plot, I tells ye.
random underscore blankspace at ya know hoo dot comedy.
First of all whats with the hostility with Ubuntu being a Windows replacement? You got something against technology being accessible to regular people? Does it diminish your value as a geek when people no longer have to defer to your black magic ways?
Anyway yes Debian is stable because it doesn't integrate new stuff too often. Its also antiquated. If you want really stable you could always use Windows 3.11 for Workgroups but that would suck wouldn't it? Do you really have to wait 2 years before updating a package before you will trust it?
Your attitude concerning Debian's rate of development is one of the _core_ issues that caused Matt (and many others) to leave. It used to be funny how old th estuff in Debian stable was. Why is OpenBSD able to use modern packages yet remain stable and secure while Debian is not?
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
... only problem with Debian is the amount of politics involved. X is severely broken for weeks, but let's discuss politics and ethics instead. Nice goin'.
-- The Online Photo Editor - http://www.phixr.com
It is now official. Netcraft confirms: Debian is dying.
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Debian community when IDC confirmed that Debian market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that Debian has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Debian is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be the Amazing Bruce Perens to predict Debian's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Debian faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Ubuntu because Debian is dying. Things are looking very bad for Debian. As many of us are already aware, Debian continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
Debian is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time Debian developer Matthew Garrett only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: Debian is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
Debian leaders state that there are 7000 users of Debian. How many users of Kubuntu are there? Let's see. The number of Debian versus Kubuntu posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 Kubuntu users. Xubuntu posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of Kubuntu posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of Xubuntu. A recent article put Ubuntu at about 80 percent of the Debian market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 Ubuntu users. This is consistent with the number of Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, Knoppix went out of business and was taken over by SCO who sell another troubled OS. Now SCO is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that Debian has steadily declined in market share. Debian is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Debian is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. Debian continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Debian is dead.
Fact: Debian is dying