Ian Murdock: Debian "Missing a Big Opportunity"

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."

Comments

Re:Debian is dead

[ahg]

Debian != Difficult to install (inherently).
Debian = More Power = More Choice at install time
More Choices = More knowledge needed
Debian = More knowledge needed = Difficult or even incomprehensable to those without the knowledge

For Example: Most distros don't ask you during the installtion process what MTA you want to install. Most Desktop Users don't care, and may not even know what an MTA is. Debian will ask you if you want Exim, Sendmail, Postfix and a few others I can't recall. Does this make it more difficult than Ubuntu? The answers depends on whether Ubuntu's default install meets your neesd, or if you have to go back and change things after the inital install. However, Debian also provides a choice of standard install sets that should allow a carefree installation to proceed easily in less than 40 minutes. Power Users, Debian's main user base, find the extra time spent answering the questions an "advanced" Debian installation asks - can be well worth it.

But what if things weren't as hypothetical as that

[nietsch]

You are just a jealous griefer. I am glad you are not part of the debian team, though unfortunately some people with the same attitude are, and if I were DPL, I'd make that past tense quick.
Hopefully next release it will be a completely separate company that sponsors the release team so there will be less jealousy like this.