On 21/09/14 04:14, lee wrote:
Try to provide a Debian package and you'll see that it is so ridiculously difficult that it is virtually impossible.
Nothing about the process of providing a Debian package looks ridiculously difficult to me. Tedious, perhaps, but not ridiculously difficult. There are (basically) two steps: create a package, and find someone to sponsor it for inclusion in the Debian archive.
Thanks to the sterling efforts of Joey Hess and others in producing debhelper and related tools, creating a Debian package is often fairly straightforward. When it isn't, it's often a result of the build system of the software you're packaging not living up to expected standards of good practice; a modest amount of one-time labour can resolve many such issues in a lasting way.
To provide a package, you need (in the first instance) to engage in dialogue with Debian Developers and persuade one of them that your package would be a worthwhile addition to Debian and that they should act as your sponsor for that package. I'm not noted for the quality of my social skills, but I don't find the thought of doing this particularly intimidating.
As you can see, it's not only Debian developers I'm disappointed with. Sadly, the quality of Debian has declined over the years --- and I'm not the only one saying that --- and one of the reasons for this might be disregard for the users.
My mileage varies; in my experience, Debian in 2014 is a higher-quality distribution than Debian in 2004. The obvious example is that sound (for all practical purposes) Just Works on my current Debian system (all I had to do was pop open pavucontrol and tweak the sliders), whereas in 2004 or 2006 it definitely didn't Just Work.