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Re: Complaint about #debian operator



On Sat, Dec 10, 2005 at 01:17:23PM +0100, martin f krafft wrote:
> I don't think any discussion comparing Debian to Ubuntu is off-topic
> for Debian. Ubuntu is not just another distro. It just so happens
> that a lot of Debian folks try to ignore Ubuntu's existence, or
> start behaving weirdly when the focus turns to Ubuntu. Don, this is
> not a personal attack against you, from our private discussion
> I could deduce that you were just trying to protect the channel from
> a flame war, rather than being involved in the discussion.

Martin, I'd like for you to come in to #debian. Not for an hour or a few
hours, but for a few weeks to see what it's like. We have consistently
refused to support non-Debian distros for years, including knoppix and
ubuntu. We always point people to where they can get the help they need and
try to leave it at that. 

Ultimately, the channel exists for people who want to talk about *Debian*,
while #ubuntu exists for people who want to talk about Ubuntu. The
regulars, those of us who answer more than 90% of the questions, get bogged
down enough as it is, and the extra noise from people asking about some
other distro we don't run makes it hard to fulfill the channel's purpose.
What most people seem to be ignoring in the log that started this thread is
that Don spent an enormous amount of time helping various people with
different problems. This isn't easy to do and it gets much harder when you
have to spend half your time making sure they're not lying to you about
running pure Debian.

> A user coming to #debian wondering why Ubuntu would get so much
> publicity and inquiring about the differences mainly shows that
> people have not forgotten that Ubuntu is Debian, and not the other
> way around. I think it is better for "plain users" to go with
> Ubuntu, while power users may want to use Debian instead. Our
> priorities are our users, so isn't it better to help a future Ubuntu
> user realise that Ubuntu is a better choice, than to risk gaining
> a Debian user who'll be frustrated and throw in the towel soon?

Fuck that. I agree with Joey Hess here. This is a disgusting attitude and I
won't have any part of it. I spend a *lot* of time in #debian and working
on X helping all users, both newbies who don't know where their X log file
is and those who want to know how to write a patch for the X packages. If
you really have our users as your focus, you'll put in the same kind of
effort.

 - David Nusinow



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