Re: Debian is losing its users
On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 07:43:37AM -0700, Paul Johnson wrote:
> On Tuesday 25 March 2008 11:43:37 pm Wei Chen wrote:
>
> > The search volume for Debian has been continuously decreasing in the
> > recent years, as shown in the search trend statistics of one of the most
> > famous search engines. This indicates that Debian is losing its users,
> > e.g. about 50% in the last 3 years.
Does it matter? As long as the devs don't abandon the project, those of
us who like Debian will stick with it. If we are loosing the people who
are pushing for more features, newer versions of software, more frequent
releases to distros like Ubuntu, then we keep the people who like
stable, secure, reliable... I'm all for that.
>
> But who is growing at Debian's "expense?" Other Debian-based distros.
>
> > The Debian team should not focus only on the development and maintenance
> > of a good and stable operating system, but also on the promotion of its
> > products.
Why?
>
> Many Ubuntu developers are also active Debian developers.
>
> > Being free of charge is not an excuse of not actively participating in
> > promotional activities. Higher visibility can be beneficial for a
> > community, since it can bring more new developers. It can be a vicious
> > circle: if the current situation and trends do not change, the whole
> > project will eventually not be able to continue because of the lack of
> > developers and users.
>
> That all fails to take into account that Debian is consered the generic linux
> platform by developers in general...
>
> > HTH
>
> Hope this helps? How does ripping Debian a new asshole while ignoring the
> reality of the situation "help" anyway?
>
> --
> Paul Johnson
> baloo@ursine.ca
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