Debian's ultimate size (was Re: Debian & BSD concerns)
Ben Collins <bmc@it.larc.nasa.gov> writes:
> I DON'T WANT DEBIAN DYING OF OVERBLOATEDNESS!
>
> Now back to our regularly scheduled Debian distribution...
I disagree. The bigger Debian gets, the more popular it is going to
get.
Bandwidth and disks are cheap. Developer enthusiasm is a valuable
commodity.
There's no point in squashing enthusiasm just to save a bit of disk
space.
I'm convinced that Debian will succeed as long as we keep high
technical standards. If we keep those, then the fact that we are
monster sized is going to be a point in our favour.
Think "big" in terms of Arnold Schwarzenneger - not Marlon Brando.
:-)
In the future, I suspect most people will buy Debian CDs (or DVDs)
which only contain a subset of the full distribution. Most mirror
sites will only carry a subset as well. I think we just have to
accept that. In fact, developing subsets of Debian is a substantial
"value-added" service for people that are interested in doing that.
Debian is essentially greedy - this distribution is being built by a
bunch of packrats. We want everything! Up to a point, that is.
That's why the discussions about the DFSG are so important.
RMS wants us to adopt the GNU philosophy entirely, and strive for a
completely copylefted future where proprietary software would be shut
out. It's a nice vision, but it's fundamentally at odds with what
Debian has actually been doing. We're a bit too greedy to look a gift
horse (e.g. BSD licensed software) in the mouth. I think that's the
reason for the GNU/Debian split in the first place.
Let's get BIG!!! :-)
Cheers,
- Jim
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