Re: Will Debian grow and stay?
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I've also been watching the "Why Debian?" thread with great interest.
I started using Debian in 1995 because I liked the idea of
cooperative development. I am an advocate of unanimity, I believe
that the best in people is a matter of interested individuals working
together because they want to. The Debian package maintainers
demonstrate this principle on a large scale.
>A big project like this will definitely incur expenses. Do volunteers
>contribute financially too? If that is the case, in my opinion,
>Debian could disappear in two possible ways.
Maintainers contribute their efforts voluntarily. From doing so, they
gain experience and renown. These skills are then available for them
to use in whatever work they do that earns them money.
Debian is used in many businesses, and some of them contribute money
and hardware, mirror servers, bandwidth, etc. I have read
specifically of one company which, upon deciding to switch a
substantial number of systems to Debian, donated to the project the
quantity of money they had already budgetted to purchasing the needed
software.
>1. The volunteers decided that there should be some financial reward
>for their work. They could accept an offer by a well established
>enterprise to 'buy' over their work or they could collectively
>decide to form a corporation.
Their work is released to the Debian project under the GPL or other
Debian Project approved license. If they take their work elsewhere,
the last version of their software given to the Debian project stays
with the project and another package maintainer will pick it up if,
and only if, someone wants to.
>2. Volunteers dwindle to an ineffective few, preferring to spend
>their time on work with more reward and recognition.
Again, this is a voluntary organization. The maintainers associate
with the project because they wish to.
If there are not enough maintainers, it means that the Debian project
has lost the support needed to sustain itself. Better to let it fall
into the dustbin of history than to corrupt it with coercion to
prolong the agony.
>What is the geographical spread of the Debian organisation, is it
>US-centric? Are the developers mostly US-based?
While the people who started it were located in the US, and the
primary "root" servers are located there, package maintainers can and
do come from everywhere. Since it is the work which matters, all that
a maintainers needs is an internet connection and enough English to
be able to communicate clearly.
>Right now, under the initiative of Oracle, there are companies in
>China, Japan and S. Korea coming together to develop another version
>of Linux called Asianux. This may start a new trend of 'regional
>Linux'.
Sure it may. If that is what succeeds, then that is what the users
want. Debian has excellent multi-language support, Asian languages
included. While I might choose to contribute to Debian rather than to
build something from scratch, it's not my choice what other people
do.
>I roughly know that the US and non-US version got to do with
>encryption. But what is the restriction? People in US or outside US
>can download either version, right?
The "International Trafficking In Arms Regulation", the prosecution of
which was abandoned by the US government after it was demonstrated to
be absurd and unenforceable, said that it was illegal for Americans
to export encryption software. So packages with strong encryption had
to be located only on servers outside of the US. Americans could
*import* such software all they wanted. Absurd.
There are still some legalities that get in the way of US software
development, such as the various insane copyright and patent laws, so
non-US.debian.org will remain I guess.
Curt-
- --
September 11th, 2001
The proudest day for gun control and central
planning advocates in American history
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