To the Debian Project, IMHO
I have been a Debian user for several years now. The first time I loaded it
was before the "Bo" version. I compared it to what was available at the
time and chose Debian mainly because of the installation control it offered
via dpkg and dselect. But I also preferred just about everything else
specific to Debian. I felt Debian provided me with a distribution oriented
towards the power user and have stuck with it since. My system works
exactly the way I want it to and only with Debian could I have tailored it
so thoroughly. It pleases me greatly every time I work with it.
Although dselect is becoming unruly with the huge number of packages that
have become available in recent versions, I still prefer it over other
package tools because of the two things that are becoming more scarce every
day with modern software, that is control and flexibility.
There seems to be a wave of opinion, in the software industry, that the
value of software should be primarily gauged by its level of
"grandmatization" (the unrealistic practice of engineering software so that
even grandma can install and use it). The important measures of its value
such as content, stability, capability, and flexibility are being placed
secondary.
This counter productive philosophy, started by the biggest and best example
of what software should not be and you know who I'm talking about, is
propagating at the expense of the truly important measures. Extrapolated to
the end result, it's computer fascism. I will have no choices when I
install software and will not be able to change anything after I do. Some
operating systems and applications are almost to that point already.
After reading the last few months worth of newsletters at debian.org, I am
concerned that the Debian project may be buying into this foolishness. My
hope is that Debian sticks to their guns as a distribution for power users
and does not jump on the grandmatization bandwagon. To the Debian
organization; please don't worry about the unimportant aspects and concentra
te on the important ones. I want control, flexibility, stability, and
content. I DO NOT care how difficult or time consuming (barring
problematic) an installation process is. If my refusal to compromise any of
these important aspects means I have to spend more time answering questions
and entering configuration choices during an installation process or even
editing configuration files by hand, then so be it!
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