Bug#846002: About the internal and external view of Blends (Was: Bug#846002: blends-tasks must be priority:standard and not make a mess out of tasksel menu)

[Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk>]

Andreas Tille writes ("About the internal and external view of Blends (Was: Bug#846002: blends-tasks must be priority:standard and not make a mess out of tasksel menu)"):
> May be this is the right time to clarify the role of Blends inside
> Debian and I'd like to adjust my probably biased opinion.  Do you
> consider Blends as
> 
>    A) Assemblage of low popcon packages of very specific fields
> 
>    B) Strategy to establish Debian in different workfields that
>       could cover a wide range of applications

I think B is awesome.

(And anyway I think low popcon packages are great.)

> To not extend this mail to much I just want to address two points.  In
> the video[1] starting at minute 3 I'm presenting numbers how many Debian
> developers confirmed that they are DDs only for the reason that the
> Debian Med project exists.  In my summary for the Debian Med sprint I
> have updated numbers[2] that the trend continues and the Debian Med
> project attracted 1 developer per year and several of them are doing
> other things than only Debian Med work now.  This means a small topic
> like medicine and live science which makes a small fraction of Debian
> usage and is honestly speaking in the end irrelevant for the overall
> importance of Debian in general was able to gather more than 1% of
> the active Debian developers.

This shows what an untapped potential we have.

> Despite this effect I know from several personal contacts from this
> field, that people stick to Ubuntu with the argument: "Ubuntu is easier
> to use."  A very speaking example is: I packaged a software at request
> of one of these users for Debian, fighted throug its dependencies and
> uploaded the package to backports.  The user who requested the package
> keeps on using Ubuntu (since "its easier") but was not able to install
> the package in question on Ubuntu (despite I explained how to backport
> to Ubuntu).  We could do a pretty good service to this type of user to
> make Debian "easy to install".  This installation topic comes up in
> every talk I have given (see [1] at 35:20) and since 14 years I can not
> give a satisfying answer to the audience.

This must be very frustrating.

I'm afraid I have nothing useful to offer you but I do think this is
all very unsatisfactory.

Ian.