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Re: Why does Ubuntu have all the ideas?



On Fri, Jul 28, 2006 at 06:38:57PM +0200, Simon Richter wrote:
> One of them is that Ubuntu developers get paid. That makes a huge
> difference, as they can devote a lot more time each day to their work
> than, say, a student who also needs to work besides his university duties
> to stay afloat, and can only dedicate a few hours on a weekend to Debian.

A majority of Ubuntu developers are also volunteers, and there are in fact
Debian developers who are paid for their efforts, both in whole and in part.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if more people in total were paid to work on
Debian than on Ubuntu, especially given that many developers contribute to
Debian as at least a part of their professional responsibilities.

While Canonical's sponsorship does represent a huge contribution to Ubuntu,
the difference between Debian and Ubuntu is much more than simply funding.

> This is one of the cases where different interests come into play. A lot
> of modern hardware requires binary-only firmware to operate. A
> distribution with a clear end-user focus such as Ubuntu can easily
> strike a deal with hardware manufacturers to get the necessary
> permissions; it may not be allowed to derive a distribution from Ubuntu
> that also includes these drivers as the license on them prohibits
> redistribution.

Ubuntu does not obtain special licensing terms for any firmware.  All of the
firmware included in Ubuntu is freely redistributable, and in fact, I
believe all of it is available either upstream in Linux or in Debian
non-free.

> > E.  Mr. Hess has a nice supermarket argument but can't see that Debian
> > needs to steal a few things from Ubuntu, ie it goes both ways.  
> 
> Not quite. Ubuntu's big advantages are specifically in places where it
> has been adapted to specific use cases; stealing those would lead to the
> exact same problems that I outlined above under "taking suggestions".

Yes, many of the differences between Ubuntu and Debian fall into this
category.

> > Unfortunatly I think you just aren't smart enough to read
> > the writing on the wall that there is a reason Ubuntu has been for a
> > while now such a more popular distro then us.
> 
> Yes, it's called "marketing".

I think you were much closer to the mark above.

-- 
 - mdz



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