With all the effort put into wobbly windows and transparency, it seems like they ought to have windows and buttons themselves looking fairly slick. Instead they look like a slight improvement over Windows 98.
Since this comment keeps finding its way up from -1, Troll, I guess I'll respond. GTK uses themes.
My old Dell LS400 only does 800x600 and when running Linux, the buttons are HUGE and everything is drawn too big.
GTK in general isn't very frugal when it comes to space, but I think that's a good thing. The large icons are pretty helpful in general. However, it sucks under low resolutions, and when you use GTK in Windows, things tend to look pretty ugly since huge buttons with icons are in a sea of small, text only buttons. To help a little in Gnome, go to Menu and Toolbar Preferences and set the toolbar buttons to be text only. Buttons in general won't be affected, and I don't think there's an option for it anywhere.
From the site: People have been asking what sort of hardware this was done on. Videos were shot on a mix of an IBM thinkpad X30 (with a paltry Intel i830 video card using open source drivers) and an IBM thinkpad T41 (with a slightly beefier but still pretty old Radeon Mobility 7500, also using open source drivers). Everything we're doing so far is light on hardware requirements.
On the topic of usefulness, that's not really what I think these videos are supposed to show. The point is that we now have the foundation to do useful things with.
Didn't someone mention a live CD that could autorun itself in QEMU when inserted in a Windows computer? That seems like it would be the perfect solution to me. No need to worry about hardware variability, and you'd be able to do all your banking in a virus-free virtual machine.
And if France (and Germany, I haven't forgot them either when they harrassed Yahoo! and eBay) doesn't stop this practice of trying to make American companies subject to their wierd laws it is getting time to just pull the fibers connecting France to the rest of the world.
You're missing the point. This isn't the ISPs censoring the Internet, it's the government. The state provides the list of all the sites to block. Even if it's opt-in, you have to be able ot see the damage this coudl cause. Most people in Utah aren't going to read the entire list to see what's on it, they're just going to request the censoring from their ISPs for the good of the children. A side effect of this is that the government will be able to shape the content that gets delivered to these households now.
To address your cable television comparison, what would you do if the state provided a list of channels that the cable companies had to block on request. On the list just happened to be all news channels except for FOX News. The state would be shaping the views of its citizens. This same thing can happen with this list of bad sites. It probably won't be that blatant, but there are many borderline sites with content that many would still find worthwhile that willl be blocked.
The obvious response to this is to not ask the ISP to sensor your connection. However, many people will, and they'll still have their content filtered by the state. It's okay if someone chooses to only get their news from FOX, but it's not ok if the government coerces them in that direction. The correct solution to the problem they present is choosing one of the many content filtering products on the market to protect their children. The only problem here is that the state is doing it. That is bad. I don't know whether it's constitutional or not, but I think the state has been given power that is so easy to abuse that it will be, whether intentionally or not.
On the other hand, parents that would choose that state provided content filtering will probably agree with the choices made anyway.
He knows more about what you are doing then you do.
As other people have already stated, this isn't true. Breaking DRM is much easier than it is to make it, mainly because there is no such thing as perfect DRM. I'm fairly certain that the people who came up with the FairPlay encryption scheme knew it was breakable, and I don't think Jon would be able to create unbreakable DRM. Even if he could, the DRM would likely piss off Apple's customers. One of the things that people tout about iTMS is the fairly lax restrictions imposed by the DRM. It's not supposed to be perfect. It's supposed to be good enough.
It's not that easy. iTunes on both Windows and OS X depends on Quicktime. Porting Quicktime would be a lot of extra work on top of the special UI things they already do when they port programs. They could use a media framework that is already present on Linux, but I doubt they would want to do that. In addition, to not have a half-assed port, they would have to support iPods and other MP3 players like they do on Windows. I think this part is the least of their worries, since most MP3 players use the USB Mass Storage driver (does iTunes on Windows even support those which don't?), and all iPods are supported in Linux. The main barriers are Quicktime and the iTunes interface.
The largest barrier is that they probably just don't want to do it. It doesn't seem economically sound to me to do so either.
Duh, anybody thinking anything is "free" today doesn't value their time, other people's time, or their sanity.
Or is a poor college student with three friends to sell out for an iPod Shuffle? I have less than $30 in my bank account, but thanks to these offers, I can be a hipster too! Thanks Gratis!
That's not true. The thing that makes Ubuntu great as a desktop and Debian lame is all the work that has gone into the core OS part, not the packages. The Ubuntu universe is riddled with uninstallable software, and main ships with out of date software too (eg, Inkscape).
Ubuntu doesn't just take the "core OS" from Debian. It takes everything from Debian. Without Debian's packages, they'd have to do all the work themselves. I've only come across one broken package on Ubuntu, so I don't know where you're getting "riddled with uninstallable software" from. Ubuntu doesn't ship with out of date software. They take a snapshot of the latest software when their Upstream Version Freeze comes along. For Hoary, that was Janurary 3rd. The version of Inkscape that will be in Hoary is 0.40. This is how almost all distributions that actually put out releases work. There's no way to have a stable release unless you freeze the packages and have a bug fixing period.
What about all the commercial games out there? I guess they're not worthwhile packaging because they aren't free enough.
What I said was that they provide all the free software that's worthwhile to package. Why would Debian developers package commercial software? No free distribution does that. Companies can provide their own packages like Skype does.
What about up to date Wine packages?
From what I heard, the Debian maintainer for Wine hasn't been doing much lately, so one of the Wine developers is working on getting up to date packages for Ubuntu (which will of course trickle down to Debian).
Third party packages (not repositories) would be provided by upstream projects like on Windows or MacOS. Those packages would work for anybody, using a technology like autopackage.
Believe it or not, program installation and update management is better in Linux than it is in OS X or Windows, because you click a button and your entire system is up to date. I don't want to have to hunt around getting the latest versions of each piece of software on my computer. Ubuntu and Debian do that for me. Autopackage does play an important role though. Not every project can build packages for every distribution, or find someone within those distributions to make packages for them. For the distros that a developer can't support directly, they can provide an autopackage that will work for everyone else. However, that's not the way I'd want to install software by default, because I'd lose the ability to update. About a week or two ago, I changed all the "warty"s in my apt sources to "hoary"s and did a dist-upgrade. My whole system was updated. Windows and OS X users can only update the operating system and the programs that come bundled with it. It'd be nice if more developers of small projects would provide autopackages, since they often only post a package for one distro and a generic tarball.
No, Debian would just have to focus on writing a great OS instead of packaging as much stuff as possible. So that means things like, a graphical installer, slick integrated desktop, nice config tools etc etc.
That's not what Debian users what Debian to focus on. Debian users use Debian for the package repository. That is the selling point for Debian. If you take that away, it's just another distribution. You also take away Ubuntu, Mepis, Knoppix, etc. because all of those are based on the fact that Debian has a huge repository of software for you to install. Faster release cycles, graphical installers and configuration tools are obviously much less important to users than the package repository. Whe else would people using Debian and Ubuntu? From what I understand, Fedora has configuration tools for tons of things. People still choose Debian based distros. Wh
The solution seems obvious - abandon the unproductive and unscalable centralised repository system and release Debian as a core OS that provides the essentials, with the rest of the software provided by third party binary packages.
If this happened, there would be no Ubuntu. There would be no Mepis. There would be no Knoppix. All the Debian derviatives exist solely because of the monolithic Debian package repository. Sure, Ubuntu has its own repositories but they all come from Debian unstable.
Furthermore, to me, it doesn't seem like that is what the Debian project is about. Debian provides all the free software that runs on Linux and is worthwhile to package. They also ensure that it is possible to run a computer on free software. Without the central repository, that goal couldn't be accomplished. To do what you suggest would take far less Debian developers than currently exist. These developers would move on to the develop for the third party repositories, but those would be far less useful than Debian's repository and cause massive duplication of effort. Plus, you state that Debian's main strength is its packages, but you want to take those away? Sure, there would be quick releases, but the released product it self would be much less useful than Debian is now.
Debian has problems, but the massive overhauls people are proposing are completely unnecessary. Right now, there is a Debian for everyone. Woody is too old. The release cycle of Debian proper needs to speed up somewhat, but not radically. That gap has already been filled by other Debian based distributions.
I've been running debian servers for the last 5 years, but lately I have been seriously looking for an alternative that has a faster release cycle.
Contrary to popular belief, Ubuntu is suitable for server use as well. All the Debian packages are there, just with newer versions. There are two options with Ubuntu currently. You can use 4.10, which is the current version, and you won't have to update for a year, which is when the support (read: security updates and paid support from Canonical) for it ends. Everything in there has been in wide use for six months, so it's pretty solid. The other option is to wait until April 6, which is when version 5.4 will be released. You'll have a full 18 months of security updates, and everything you like about Debian is still there. Check out the FAQ page on server installs.
I disagree. One of the greatest things about Debian is the scope of the project. I can install almost anything and not have to hunt around the internet for a package. It's all in one place. I think the currently proposed approach on not releasing the lesser used architectures at the same time at the others is the correct approach. Abandoning them completely would be foolish, but having a whole release held back by problems with software that's not even heavily used is a problem.
Add development resources
This has been done. Ubuntu. People are paid to work full time, and their work goes straight into Debian. This also takes care of the issue Slashdotters have with the long release cycles, since people can download a new version of Ubuntu with the latest version of Gnome, KDE, etc. every six months. The problem it doesn't solve is that of people who want to run Debian stable, but can't use the ridiculously old packages for commonly used web programming languages. The release cycle needs to be shortened, but not by too much.
reduce some of their bureaucracy and excessive policies
You call the policies excessive, but it's thanks to their efforts that is possible to run a computer based on completely Free software (and Free documentation, which is probably the issue that prompted this point). Sure, their policies often err on the side of idealism rather than pragmatism, but I think it's beneficial for the entire community that they do this.
If Debian released more often, I think third-party groups (or companies) could more easily support backporting security patches to the previous stable version of Debian than the current situation where third-party groups are "forward-porting" Debian's unstable development branch by including more recent packages and patches (and creating incompatibilities between those Debian-based distros).
That's true. My point is that with Debian's current structure, it can't do both. There is already a Debian with a short release cycle, and that's Ubuntu. If Debian does faster releases, it will only be duplicating effort. I'm not sure what time span people are aiming for in Debian, but let's say it's an annual release. To provide value over Ubuntu's current offering, Debian would have to provide security patches for longer. Ubuntu supports its releases for 18 months, so Debian would have to aim for 2-3 years, which is pretty much it's current length of support. An annual release with 3 years of support means supporting 3 stable releases at a time. I don't think that's practical. As I have said before, Debian's selling point is its long support. From what you've stated, it seems like you'd like Debian and Ubuntu to switch roles, with Debian providing timely releases, and third party groups (Ubuntu) providing security patches and support for older releases. Why switch things around when a working system is already in place?
The eventual argument that gets brought forward in Ubuntu vs Debian discussions is "What happens if Canonical goes under?" Well, what you're left with is Debian with a larger and stronger community than it had before. Many people have moved to Debian based distributions because Ubuntu came along. In addition, Ubuntu's policy regarding community development is much more relaxed than Debian's. After six months, Ubuntu has built up a team of community developers to help maintain packages. With each passing month, more and more names get added to the list. With the addition of a KDE based Ubuntu version, Kubuntu, that list will grow even more. Even without Canonical, Ubuntu will still have its community, and would bring its developers back to Debian proper. Ubuntu could still continue to exist as a branch of Debian.
With so many people using and developing Debian, directly or indirectly, I don't see where all the alarm is coming from.
Newer packages, a wiki full of documentation, a supportive community and nice package management programs (in the development version). Note that the only one of these that Debian can't have at this point is a stable set of up to date packages. Everything Ubuntu does is shared with Debian.
When comparing Ubuntu with other distributions than Debian, things are a bit different. One of the selling points for Ubuntu for me is that it's developed by a community and has a central package repository. It's been a while since I used a non-Debian distro, so I'm sure much of this has changed, but when I used Red Hat and Mandrake, there was either nothing that compared, or it wasn't visible enough. Assuming that other distros have that now, there's the deb vs. rpm issue depending on which one you prefer. The main issue is that you're never considered a second class citizen in Ubuntu. The other distros have commercial versions with special software and updates you don't have access to. With Ubuntu, everything is free, and they've made a commitment to always remain free.
A notable problem with using "spinoff" distributions is package compatibility. Can I install any.deb package on Ubuntu without possibly causing binary version problems?
AFAIK, packages within Debian itself aren't even compatible with each other. If you're running unstable and you want to give a package to someone running testing, you're out of luck. Why is it a surprise that Ubuntu packages wouldn't be completely compatible? From my experience with Ubuntu, it seems like most Debian unstable packages are forward compatible to Ubuntu, but I doubt the reverse is true. This makes sense. Ubuntu has more up to date packages than even unstable at some points, since Ubuntu applies it's own patches, and the Debian maintainers may not apply them immediately. If they add the Ubuntu repository at a low priority and try installing your package, it'll probably work, but some of their libraries will be updated to Ubuntu versions. That's a bad thing, because it might break future updates within unstable for them. Maintaining package compatibility and achieving Ubuntu's goals at the same time would be impossible to do.
By the way, Ubuntu isn't a "spinoff" distribution. It stays with Debian unstable, then freezes the set of packages and stabilizes them. For the next release, they start over.
UserLinux isn't vaporware. From what I understand, it's Debian with a specific set of supported packages. It's hard for a support company to say "I support Debian" when there's no standard set of software to support. UserLinux fills that void.
People aren't leaving Debian for greener pastures. They're leaving Debian for Debian derivatives. If the last three months on Distrowatch are any indication of how much each distrbution is being used, then Debian is the most important distro out there. Ubuntu is #1, Mepis is #3, and Debian itself is #6. The Debian project has obviously doing something right if some of the most popular distros choose to base themselves on it.
On the other hand, the fact that derivatives are necessary is a sign of Debian's shortcomings. I haven't used Mepis in over a year, but the last time I used it, it was basically Debian installable off of a live CD with easy to use configuration tools. That says that Debian proper is hard to install and lacks user friendly configuration tools. The former problem has been fixed, but I'm not sure the latter has been. Ubuntu is Debian with a shorter release cycle and paid developers to add polish. This shows that users obviously take issue with Debian's long release cycles, and once again, the administration tools. Anyone who is running the development version of Ubuntu right now knows how easy it is to keep things up to date. The newer software also takes advantage of advances on the Linux desktop, such as Project Utopia. I can plug in USB devices, and they just work. It's nice, and Debian proper misses out on things like that because of the age of its packages.
So who uses Debian stable? From the things I hear, it's people who want a long release cycle. Woody users have been getting security updates for however long it's been since the release. People like that. Ubuntu is supported for 18 months after a release, which is likely to be too short for some people. I don't see how Debian loses out from desktop (and some server) users using the derivatives. Ubuntu is the main derivative, and all its work goes back into Debian proper. When etch is getting ready for release, the job is going to be much easier to do, since Ubuntu has already done much of the work ahead. Sarge has been in some sort of a freeze for most of the time Ubuntu has been around, so they haven't been able to reap the benefits of Ubuntu's presence. People getting paid to work on Debian is a good thing, not something to be angry about, which is the sense I get from some posts on Planet Debian.
So if Debian shortens its release cycle, where does that put it in the Linux ecosystem? I doubt they will be able to support security updates for multiple stable releases, which is what they would have to do with a short release cycle to maintain the current length of support. As much as Slashdotters like to poke fun at Debian, it plays a very important role. Does it really need to change?
Debian developers, thanks for making such a great distribution. There are lots of Ubuntu, Mepis, and Debian proper users that appreciate it.
Re:Still no word from the pr0n industry
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Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD
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And, as peculiar it may sound, both competitors are holding their breath to see what the pornographic industry will decide.
If you're going to talk about WinFS/Google Desktop/Spotlight analogues, at least refer to something that actually seems to be developed actively. Beagle is actually usable already, and from the beginning, provided both a method for programmers to provide their own filters for file types, as well as a way to access search results from another application, unlike the offerings in the Windows world.
On an offtopic note, Microsoft is screwed if developers start using the Google Desktop API. All it takes is one killer application to depend on it before Microsoft supplies a comparable API. Then Google will have control of the desktop search market, because people will depend on it for the functionality of other programs. It'll be fun to see how that turns out.
On the Linux front, things are a bit more complicated. Beagle's nice and all, but it depends on Mono, which many people are reluctant to depend on. I haven't heard of anyone planning to integrate Beagle's searching into Gnome programs. Sometime soon, people are going to have to come to a final decision on Mono. When a stable version of Beagle is released, users and developers alike are going to want to use it.</OT>
The effects of reduced freedom in the realm of "intellectual property" and a starved public domain take decades to manifest themselves. The effects of a free trade agreement take a shorter time to manifest, and are much more visible to the electorate. It's clear why politicians would pass such a thing.
The main problem with modern democracy is career politicians. In America (at least), legislators act with their main focus on getting reelected to do the same thing again. Someone who is serving their country for a guaranteed term length is less likely to pander to the electorate while harming the public good since there would be less, if anything, to gain from it. The term can either be limited or unlimited in length and still reap these benefits. Unlimited, guaranteed terms work for the American Supreme Court, and I think limited, guaranteed terms would work for legislatures. There would have to be ways to impeach them if shit hit the fan, of course.
It's too bad that it'd be the legislatures that would have to bring this change in the first place.
Windows XP's CD burning isn't feature complete. It's restricted on purpose to make third party programs attractive. Like I said before, users don't buy Nero (usually). OEMs do. They only buy it because they think their customers would be pissed off to buy a CD burner and not be able to burn what they want. Once doing that is free and preinstalled, OEMs won't by Nero.
Slashdot Mirror
With all the effort put into wobbly windows and transparency, it seems like they ought to have windows and buttons themselves looking fairly slick. Instead they look like a slight improvement over Windows 98.
Since this comment keeps finding its way up from -1, Troll, I guess I'll respond. GTK uses themes.
My old Dell LS400 only does 800x600 and when running Linux, the buttons are HUGE and everything is drawn too big.
GTK in general isn't very frugal when it comes to space, but I think that's a good thing. The large icons are pretty helpful in general. However, it sucks under low resolutions, and when you use GTK in Windows, things tend to look pretty ugly since huge buttons with icons are in a sea of small, text only buttons. To help a little in Gnome, go to Menu and Toolbar Preferences and set the toolbar buttons to be text only. Buttons in general won't be affected, and I don't think there's an option for it anywhere.
From the site:
People have been asking what sort of hardware this was done on. Videos were shot on a mix of an IBM thinkpad X30 (with a paltry Intel i830 video card using open source drivers) and an IBM thinkpad T41 (with a slightly beefier but still pretty old Radeon Mobility 7500, also using open source drivers). Everything we're doing so far is light on hardware requirements.
On the topic of usefulness, that's not really what I think these videos are supposed to show. The point is that we now have the foundation to do useful things with.
Mirror of the Theora videos
So download something that can.
Didn't someone mention a live CD that could autorun itself in QEMU when inserted in a Windows computer? That seems like it would be the perfect solution to me. No need to worry about hardware variability, and you'd be able to do all your banking in a virus-free virtual machine.
And if France (and Germany, I haven't forgot them either when they harrassed Yahoo! and eBay) doesn't stop this practice of trying to make American companies subject to their wierd laws it is getting time to just pull the fibers connecting France to the rest of the world.
The lawsuit was filed in America.
You're missing the point. This isn't the ISPs censoring the Internet, it's the government. The state provides the list of all the sites to block. Even if it's opt-in, you have to be able ot see the damage this coudl cause. Most people in Utah aren't going to read the entire list to see what's on it, they're just going to request the censoring from their ISPs for the good of the children. A side effect of this is that the government will be able to shape the content that gets delivered to these households now.
To address your cable television comparison, what would you do if the state provided a list of channels that the cable companies had to block on request. On the list just happened to be all news channels except for FOX News. The state would be shaping the views of its citizens. This same thing can happen with this list of bad sites. It probably won't be that blatant, but there are many borderline sites with content that many would still find worthwhile that willl be blocked.
The obvious response to this is to not ask the ISP to sensor your connection. However, many people will, and they'll still have their content filtered by the state. It's okay if someone chooses to only get their news from FOX, but it's not ok if the government coerces them in that direction. The correct solution to the problem they present is choosing one of the many content filtering products on the market to protect their children. The only problem here is that the state is doing it. That is bad. I don't know whether it's constitutional or not, but I think the state has been given power that is so easy to abuse that it will be, whether intentionally or not.
On the other hand, parents that would choose that state provided content filtering will probably agree with the choices made anyway.
He knows more about what you are doing then you do.
As other people have already stated, this isn't true. Breaking DRM is much easier than it is to make it, mainly because there is no such thing as perfect DRM. I'm fairly certain that the people who came up with the FairPlay encryption scheme knew it was breakable, and I don't think Jon would be able to create unbreakable DRM. Even if he could, the DRM would likely piss off Apple's customers. One of the things that people tout about iTMS is the fairly lax restrictions imposed by the DRM. It's not supposed to be perfect. It's supposed to be good enough.
It's not that easy. iTunes on both Windows and OS X depends on Quicktime. Porting Quicktime would be a lot of extra work on top of the special UI things they already do when they port programs. They could use a media framework that is already present on Linux, but I doubt they would want to do that. In addition, to not have a half-assed port, they would have to support iPods and other MP3 players like they do on Windows. I think this part is the least of their worries, since most MP3 players use the USB Mass Storage driver (does iTunes on Windows even support those which don't?), and all iPods are supported in Linux. The main barriers are Quicktime and the iTunes interface.
The largest barrier is that they probably just don't want to do it. It doesn't seem economically sound to me to do so either.
Duh, anybody thinking anything is "free" today doesn't value their time, other people's time, or their sanity.
Or is a poor college student with three friends to sell out for an iPod Shuffle? I have less than $30 in my bank account, but thanks to these offers, I can be a hipster too! Thanks Gratis!
That's not true. The thing that makes Ubuntu great as a desktop and Debian lame is all the work that has gone into the core OS part, not the packages. The Ubuntu universe is riddled with uninstallable software, and main ships with out of date software too (eg, Inkscape).
Ubuntu doesn't just take the "core OS" from Debian. It takes everything from Debian. Without Debian's packages, they'd have to do all the work themselves. I've only come across one broken package on Ubuntu, so I don't know where you're getting "riddled with uninstallable software" from. Ubuntu doesn't ship with out of date software. They take a snapshot of the latest software when their Upstream Version Freeze comes along. For Hoary, that was Janurary 3rd. The version of Inkscape that will be in Hoary is 0.40. This is how almost all distributions that actually put out releases work. There's no way to have a stable release unless you freeze the packages and have a bug fixing period.
What about all the commercial games out there? I guess they're not worthwhile packaging because they aren't free enough.
What I said was that they provide all the free software that's worthwhile to package. Why would Debian developers package commercial software? No free distribution does that. Companies can provide their own packages like Skype does.
What about up to date Wine packages?
From what I heard, the Debian maintainer for Wine hasn't been doing much lately, so one of the Wine developers is working on getting up to date packages for Ubuntu (which will of course trickle down to Debian).
Third party packages (not repositories) would be provided by upstream projects like on Windows or MacOS. Those packages would work for anybody, using a technology like autopackage.
Believe it or not, program installation and update management is better in Linux than it is in OS X or Windows, because you click a button and your entire system is up to date. I don't want to have to hunt around getting the latest versions of each piece of software on my computer. Ubuntu and Debian do that for me. Autopackage does play an important role though. Not every project can build packages for every distribution, or find someone within those distributions to make packages for them. For the distros that a developer can't support directly, they can provide an autopackage that will work for everyone else. However, that's not the way I'd want to install software by default, because I'd lose the ability to update. About a week or two ago, I changed all the "warty"s in my apt sources to "hoary"s and did a dist-upgrade. My whole system was updated. Windows and OS X users can only update the operating system and the programs that come bundled with it. It'd be nice if more developers of small projects would provide autopackages, since they often only post a package for one distro and a generic tarball.
No, Debian would just have to focus on writing a great OS instead of packaging as much stuff as possible. So that means things like, a graphical installer, slick integrated desktop, nice config tools etc etc.
That's not what Debian users what Debian to focus on. Debian users use Debian for the package repository. That is the selling point for Debian. If you take that away, it's just another distribution. You also take away Ubuntu, Mepis, Knoppix, etc. because all of those are based on the fact that Debian has a huge repository of software for you to install. Faster release cycles, graphical installers and configuration tools are obviously much less important to users than the package repository. Whe else would people using Debian and Ubuntu? From what I understand, Fedora has configuration tools for tons of things. People still choose Debian based distros. Wh
The solution seems obvious - abandon the unproductive and unscalable centralised repository system and release Debian as a core OS that provides the essentials, with the rest of the software provided by third party binary packages.
If this happened, there would be no Ubuntu. There would be no Mepis. There would be no Knoppix. All the Debian derviatives exist solely because of the monolithic Debian package repository. Sure, Ubuntu has its own repositories but they all come from Debian unstable.
Furthermore, to me, it doesn't seem like that is what the Debian project is about. Debian provides all the free software that runs on Linux and is worthwhile to package. They also ensure that it is possible to run a computer on free software. Without the central repository, that goal couldn't be accomplished. To do what you suggest would take far less Debian developers than currently exist. These developers would move on to the develop for the third party repositories, but those would be far less useful than Debian's repository and cause massive duplication of effort. Plus, you state that Debian's main strength is its packages, but you want to take those away? Sure, there would be quick releases, but the released product it self would be much less useful than Debian is now.
Debian has problems, but the massive overhauls people are proposing are completely unnecessary. Right now, there is a Debian for everyone. Woody is too old. The release cycle of Debian proper needs to speed up somewhat, but not radically. That gap has already been filled by other Debian based distributions.
I've been running debian servers for the last 5 years, but lately I have been seriously looking for an alternative that has a faster release cycle.
Contrary to popular belief, Ubuntu is suitable for server use as well. All the Debian packages are there, just with newer versions. There are two options with Ubuntu currently. You can use 4.10, which is the current version, and you won't have to update for a year, which is when the support (read: security updates and paid support from Canonical) for it ends. Everything in there has been in wide use for six months, so it's pretty solid. The other option is to wait until April 6, which is when version 5.4 will be released. You'll have a full 18 months of security updates, and everything you like about Debian is still there. Check out the FAQ page on server installs.
Reduce the scope of the project
I disagree. One of the greatest things about Debian is the scope of the project. I can install almost anything and not have to hunt around the internet for a package. It's all in one place. I think the currently proposed approach on not releasing the lesser used architectures at the same time at the others is the correct approach. Abandoning them completely would be foolish, but having a whole release held back by problems with software that's not even heavily used is a problem.
Add development resources
This has been done. Ubuntu. People are paid to work full time, and their work goes straight into Debian. This also takes care of the issue Slashdotters have with the long release cycles, since people can download a new version of Ubuntu with the latest version of Gnome, KDE, etc. every six months. The problem it doesn't solve is that of people who want to run Debian stable, but can't use the ridiculously old packages for commonly used web programming languages. The release cycle needs to be shortened, but not by too much.
reduce some of their bureaucracy and excessive policies
You call the policies excessive, but it's thanks to their efforts that is possible to run a computer based on completely Free software (and Free documentation, which is probably the issue that prompted this point). Sure, their policies often err on the side of idealism rather than pragmatism, but I think it's beneficial for the entire community that they do this.
If Debian released more often, I think third-party groups (or companies) could more easily support backporting security patches to the previous stable version of Debian than the current situation where third-party groups are "forward-porting" Debian's unstable development branch by including more recent packages and patches (and creating incompatibilities between those Debian-based distros).
That's true. My point is that with Debian's current structure, it can't do both. There is already a Debian with a short release cycle, and that's Ubuntu. If Debian does faster releases, it will only be duplicating effort. I'm not sure what time span people are aiming for in Debian, but let's say it's an annual release. To provide value over Ubuntu's current offering, Debian would have to provide security patches for longer. Ubuntu supports its releases for 18 months, so Debian would have to aim for 2-3 years, which is pretty much it's current length of support. An annual release with 3 years of support means supporting 3 stable releases at a time. I don't think that's practical. As I have said before, Debian's selling point is its long support. From what you've stated, it seems like you'd like Debian and Ubuntu to switch roles, with Debian providing timely releases, and third party groups (Ubuntu) providing security patches and support for older releases. Why switch things around when a working system is already in place?
The eventual argument that gets brought forward in Ubuntu vs Debian discussions is "What happens if Canonical goes under?" Well, what you're left with is Debian with a larger and stronger community than it had before. Many people have moved to Debian based distributions because Ubuntu came along. In addition, Ubuntu's policy regarding community development is much more relaxed than Debian's. After six months, Ubuntu has built up a team of community developers to help maintain packages. With each passing month, more and more names get added to the list. With the addition of a KDE based Ubuntu version, Kubuntu, that list will grow even more. Even without Canonical, Ubuntu will still have its community, and would bring its developers back to Debian proper. Ubuntu could still continue to exist as a branch of Debian.
With so many people using and developing Debian, directly or indirectly, I don't see where all the alarm is coming from.
Newer packages, a wiki full of documentation, a supportive community and nice package management programs (in the development version). Note that the only one of these that Debian can't have at this point is a stable set of up to date packages. Everything Ubuntu does is shared with Debian.
When comparing Ubuntu with other distributions than Debian, things are a bit different. One of the selling points for Ubuntu for me is that it's developed by a community and has a central package repository. It's been a while since I used a non-Debian distro, so I'm sure much of this has changed, but when I used Red Hat and Mandrake, there was either nothing that compared, or it wasn't visible enough. Assuming that other distros have that now, there's the deb vs. rpm issue depending on which one you prefer. The main issue is that you're never considered a second class citizen in Ubuntu. The other distros have commercial versions with special software and updates you don't have access to. With Ubuntu, everything is free, and they've made a commitment to always remain free.
A notable problem with using "spinoff" distributions is package compatibility. Can I install any .deb package on Ubuntu without possibly causing binary version problems?
AFAIK, packages within Debian itself aren't even compatible with each other. If you're running unstable and you want to give a package to someone running testing, you're out of luck. Why is it a surprise that Ubuntu packages wouldn't be completely compatible? From my experience with Ubuntu, it seems like most Debian unstable packages are forward compatible to Ubuntu, but I doubt the reverse is true. This makes sense. Ubuntu has more up to date packages than even unstable at some points, since Ubuntu applies it's own patches, and the Debian maintainers may not apply them immediately. If they add the Ubuntu repository at a low priority and try installing your package, it'll probably work, but some of their libraries will be updated to Ubuntu versions. That's a bad thing, because it might break future updates within unstable for them. Maintaining package compatibility and achieving Ubuntu's goals at the same time would be impossible to do.
By the way, Ubuntu isn't a "spinoff" distribution. It stays with Debian unstable, then freezes the set of packages and stabilizes them. For the next release, they start over.
UserLinux isn't vaporware. From what I understand, it's Debian with a specific set of supported packages. It's hard for a support company to say "I support Debian" when there's no standard set of software to support. UserLinux fills that void.
People aren't leaving Debian for greener pastures. They're leaving Debian for Debian derivatives. If the last three months on Distrowatch are any indication of how much each distrbution is being used, then Debian is the most important distro out there. Ubuntu is #1, Mepis is #3, and Debian itself is #6. The Debian project has obviously doing something right if some of the most popular distros choose to base themselves on it.
On the other hand, the fact that derivatives are necessary is a sign of Debian's shortcomings. I haven't used Mepis in over a year, but the last time I used it, it was basically Debian installable off of a live CD with easy to use configuration tools. That says that Debian proper is hard to install and lacks user friendly configuration tools. The former problem has been fixed, but I'm not sure the latter has been. Ubuntu is Debian with a shorter release cycle and paid developers to add polish. This shows that users obviously take issue with Debian's long release cycles, and once again, the administration tools. Anyone who is running the development version of Ubuntu right now knows how easy it is to keep things up to date. The newer software also takes advantage of advances on the Linux desktop, such as Project Utopia. I can plug in USB devices, and they just work. It's nice, and Debian proper misses out on things like that because of the age of its packages.
So who uses Debian stable? From the things I hear, it's people who want a long release cycle. Woody users have been getting security updates for however long it's been since the release. People like that. Ubuntu is supported for 18 months after a release, which is likely to be too short for some people. I don't see how Debian loses out from desktop (and some server) users using the derivatives. Ubuntu is the main derivative, and all its work goes back into Debian proper. When etch is getting ready for release, the job is going to be much easier to do, since Ubuntu has already done much of the work ahead. Sarge has been in some sort of a freeze for most of the time Ubuntu has been around, so they haven't been able to reap the benefits of Ubuntu's presence. People getting paid to work on Debian is a good thing, not something to be angry about, which is the sense I get from some posts on Planet Debian.
So if Debian shortens its release cycle, where does that put it in the Linux ecosystem? I doubt they will be able to support security updates for multiple stable releases, which is what they would have to do with a short release cycle to maintain the current length of support. As much as Slashdotters like to poke fun at Debian, it plays a very important role. Does it really need to change?
Debian developers, thanks for making such a great distribution. There are lots of Ubuntu, Mepis, and Debian proper users that appreciate it.
And, as peculiar it may sound, both competitors are holding their breath to see what the pornographic industry will decide.
Autoerotic asphyxiation?
If you're going to talk about WinFS/Google Desktop/Spotlight analogues, at least refer to something that actually seems to be developed actively. Beagle is actually usable already, and from the beginning, provided both a method for programmers to provide their own filters for file types, as well as a way to access search results from another application, unlike the offerings in the Windows world.
On an offtopic note, Microsoft is screwed if developers start using the Google Desktop API. All it takes is one killer application to depend on it before Microsoft supplies a comparable API. Then Google will have control of the desktop search market, because people will depend on it for the functionality of other programs. It'll be fun to see how that turns out.
On the Linux front, things are a bit more complicated. Beagle's nice and all, but it depends on Mono, which many people are reluctant to depend on. I haven't heard of anyone planning to integrate Beagle's searching into Gnome programs. Sometime soon, people are going to have to come to a final decision on Mono. When a stable version of Beagle is released, users and developers alike are going to want to use it.</OT>
The effects of reduced freedom in the realm of "intellectual property" and a starved public domain take decades to manifest themselves. The effects of a free trade agreement take a shorter time to manifest, and are much more visible to the electorate. It's clear why politicians would pass such a thing.
The main problem with modern democracy is career politicians. In America (at least), legislators act with their main focus on getting reelected to do the same thing again. Someone who is serving their country for a guaranteed term length is less likely to pander to the electorate while harming the public good since there would be less, if anything, to gain from it. The term can either be limited or unlimited in length and still reap these benefits. Unlimited, guaranteed terms work for the American Supreme Court, and I think limited, guaranteed terms would work for legislatures. There would have to be ways to impeach them if shit hit the fan, of course.
It's too bad that it'd be the legislatures that would have to bring this change in the first place.
Windows XP's CD burning isn't feature complete. It's restricted on purpose to make third party programs attractive. Like I said before, users don't buy Nero (usually). OEMs do. They only buy it because they think their customers would be pissed off to buy a CD burner and not be able to burn what they want. Once doing that is free and preinstalled, OEMs won't by Nero.
Uh... who encrypts their own videos with CSS? There is a such thing as unencrypted DVDs.