On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 04:57:19PM +0000, Lisi Reisz wrote: > On Friday 17 March 2017 16:45:31 Catherine Gramze wrote: > > It is more important to not intimidate the beginner. > > Not, it isn't. Debian is for experts, or would-be experts, or those who will > never be experts but like to pretend. That may be your view, but it's not necessarily a view shared by everyone who contributes to the Debian project. For what it's worth, I disagree that Debian is only for experts. I think it is perceived as only being for experts because we've failed in some ways to make it accessible to non-experts. A popular tag line for the project used to be "the universal operating system", after all. It's worth looking at the platforms for the two prospective Debian Leader candidates: this is a hot topic. https://www.debian.org/vote/2017/platforms/mehdi https://www.debian.org/vote/2017/platforms/lamby (I piped those two lines through "sort -R"; there's no preference implied by their order in this email). I happen to agree with Catherine that we can do something to improve the situation for beginners. I don't think this has to be at the expense of experts. > I am so sad that Debian is becoming more and more Ubuntu-ised. For those who > want and like Ubuntu, Ubuntu exists. Ubuntu is very popular on the desktop, that is true, but it's also incredibly popular in the server space too, where you might be arguing Debian belongs, if it's for "experts only". Ubuntu's ease of use has not meant it is relegated to beginners only. It's also the most popular distribution of Linux in use on the Cloud. Why isn't Debian winning in that space? Ubuntu couldn't succeed without Debian, to this day it is still built on the hard work of Debian developers. Although these days there's quite a lot of stuff in Ubuntu that isn't or won't be in Debian (Mir, Unity, LXD, etc.) so the difference is larger than it once was. Having said that, when you use terms like "Ubuntu-ised" it's difficult to have a proper debate. Please consider specifically spelling out the changes that you think are being made to Debian (or have been made), that shouldn't, if you want to discuss them. > > We were all a beginner once. > > Yes, we were. And we either managed, had help (I had a lot AND used Libranet > (an easier true derivative - used Debian sources, but pinned) or used a > derivative. WE did, yes. But many others have not. For Debian to continue to succeed we need more people to contribute to its development: that means more users, and that means more potential users not giving up. It's hard to be sure exactly how many Debian users there are, but if you look at indicators like frequent contributors to this mailing list, or frequent contributors to the wiki, etc., it's a pretty small pool of people relative to some other communities. > We neither expect nor demand that Windows be installable by all and sundry, > from scratch, on an empty machine. I don't understand what you mean here; is Windows a mistake, or are you making a comparison of Windows to Debian, or to Ubuntu? Your intent is lost to me. -- Jonathan Dowland Please do not CC me, I am subscribed to the list.
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