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Why is Debian the way it is?

blog.liw.fi

1–10 of 198 posts

Re: Why is Debian the way it is?

#2
> what was “free software” was defined by the Free Software Foundation, but in a way that left much to be interpreted

I don't understand what the author means here. What is unclear about the four freedoms? To me, Debian's definition looks redundant.

Re: Why is Debian the way it is?

#5
post #3

Well certainly part of it is much of the .deb ecosystem still feels like its stuck in the late 90s linux era to me. But maybe I'm alone on that gut feel.

"stuck in the late 90s" in what sense? Building them? Distributing them? (Dependencies?)

Re: Why is Debian the way it is?

#8
post #5
post #3

Well certainly part of it is much of the .deb ecosystem still feels like its stuck in the late 90s linux era to me. But maybe I'm alone on that gut feel.

"stuck in the late 90s" in what sense? Building them? Distributing them? (Dependencies?)

I would say the process on getting "maintainer" status.

Re: Why is Debian the way it is?

#9

> The historic background for this is that the first Debian project leaders were implicitly all-powerful dictators until they chose to step down What was this about ?

I assume the Ian Murdock (founder and Ian in DebIAN) transition to Bruce Perens, then Ian Jackson then annual project managers.

Re: Why is Debian the way it is?

#10
post #4

LIW left out one major chunk: because Debian is a volunteer organization, and nobody can make a volunteer do anything that they don't want to do.

Left out another major chunk: the conflict that arose over the eventual systemd adoption. To me that conflict altered the concept of ''What is Debian'' permanently, for better or worse (depending on who you listen to).
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