Re: Debian decides to adopt time-based release freezes
On 30/07/09 at 11:17 +0200, Didier 'OdyX' Raboud wrote:
> Tshepang Lekhonkhobe wrote:
> >
> > There's some (many) of us who feel that the great Debian culture is
> > irreplaceable, and therefore won't use Ubuntu as their primary OS. So
> > why worry about losing relevance.
>
> Because if you lose relevance, you lose users (might them be individuals on
> the desktop or corporate entities on the server). When you lose users you
> lose contributors and you finally lose developers. In the end, the momentum
> (sic) slows down and you die.
While I agree that loss of relevance => loss of users, I don't agree
with the rest of the paragraph. Many of our current new contributors
started by getting involved in Ubuntu development, and are now
contributing to Debian. As long as Debian doesn't look relevance on the
development side, I don't see why people should stop contributing to it.
> It *might* be that losing relevance on the desktop side is of little
> importance (which I believe it is _not_), but if corporate entities turn to
> use Ubuntu LTS because <insert a bunch of valuable reasons> instead of
> Debian stable, I fail to see how developers from these corporate entities
> will contribute to Debian and not to Ubuntu.
Seriously, do we just fear that synchronizing with Ubuntu will instantly
remove all good reasons to use Debian? I'm a bit shocked that Debian
developers seem to take for granted that the next Ubuntu LTS will be of
better quality than Debian.
> A distribution without users is just worth nothing, no matter how
> irreplaceable its culture might be.
>
> In the end, synchronising Debian stable and Ubuntu LTS freezes will only
> make Debian stable appear as weaker (no commercial support, older software,
> not-so-greater stability, no longer support, less fancy) than Ubuntu LTS.
> Why would _anybody_ reasonable (and outside of the cultural thing) choose
> Debian stable over Ubuntu LTS ?
If we can't provide an answer to that question, maybe we should make
Debian a derivative distribution of Ubuntu? :-)
--
| Lucas Nussbaum
| lucas@lucas-nussbaum.net http://www.lucas-nussbaum.net/ |
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