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Ian Murdock: Debian "Missing a Big Opportunity"

Posted by Hemos on from the tsk-tsk-tsk dept.

Natester writes "While Debian struggles to get its next release (Etch) out the door, the project's founder, Ian Murdock, has spoken out about politics, the lack of firm leadership, and Ubuntu's meteoric rise in prominence. Murdock believes that Debian is "process run amok" — nobody feels empowered to make decisions, leading to the sluggish rate of progress."

4 of 330 comments (clear)

  1. Firm Leadership by Seumas · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sometimes you need firm leadership to make decisions rather than stagnate by trying to please everyone all the time and doing nothing.

  2. Re:Debian is dead by teh_chrizzle · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why would anyone even bother installing "true" Debian at this point?

    the debian that can be installed in 40 minutes is not the true debian.

    i used to have a debian Tshirt that said "it's what your mom would use if it was 20 times eaiser."

    i think that the debian group will always be needed to do the heavy lifting and the ubuntus of the world will add specifictiy and compatibility.

    --
    sarcasm:
    -noun
    1. harsh or bitter derision or irony.
  3. Debian Stable not dead in my server room by maynard · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't have time to worry about internal Debian politics. Perhaps it is a clusterfuck. Beats me. But Debian Stable (Woody) may run old software, may lack some desirable features, and may not have the latest Gnome interface... but so what. It is stable. I have a cluster of machines running Stable that serve AFS to hundreds of clients. With those machines, my problems are almost all hardware related.

    That's all I care about. Is it stable? Yes. Is it secure? Yes. Does it perform a function I need? Yes. Then deploy.

  4. Re:Debian is dead by timrichardson · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Debian had better not be dead because it is the soul of Ubuntu. We have Ubuntu because of the people who spent so many years making Debian, and they did a lot of things right, and they did those things because they believed in the Debian philosophy. Churchill said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. Maybe we have to have a crazy Debian world full of people who really care about releasing versions when they are ready. Besides, it's not as if it's the only operating system with irregular releases that tend to miss deadlines.

    Additionally, I wonder how much cash is being burnt to keep Ubuntu cracking along. Perhaps it is not sustainable? Debian is, I would say. It has proven itself.