Oh Boy....

[Glanz]

I was the first one to answer 'on Ian's Weblog.'
(http://ianmurdock.com/archives/000244.html)

I replied: "I agree that a compatibility runtime is one solution, but
you forget one important thing. Debian Legal would go bonkers over
that. Debian is regressing and improving simultaneously. Regressing
because of the integrist attitude of its honchos who have become nearly
fanatical in their blind purism, and improving because of dedicated and
extremely competent developers. One major difference between Debian and
Ubuntu is that Debian users' imput is mostly ignored, whereas Ubuntu
users are heard and respected.

I'm sorry to have to say that, but I have been using Debian for nine
years now, and I have seen it fall into a sort of purist fanaticism
that threatend facility of operation."
=========================================
-...just to carry this rant to the extreme...

-I personally began using Debian at the inception of its general
availability and happily migrated at that time from the hard-core BSDs.
What kept me using "pure" Debian was not only the highest quality
possible of its development cycle and applications, but the Social
Contract, which made me feel that I belonged to a growing community.

I do not like the heavy-handed way the Social Contract is being changed
for, in my opinion, the worst. The Debian Project has been moving
ominously to an extremist position. Debian Legal seems to be filling
with fanatics. The General Resolution has been referred to as an
"Editorial Change." That's like calling the abolition of a country's
constitution a "minor textual correction." If you think that the reason
for the delay of Sarge is because it "wasn't ready" on a technical
level, think again. There's more to it than that. The purists had to
"purify" it, out of some sort of paranoiac fear of applications,
drivers, and firmware tainted by, resembling, or even hinting at "oh so
horrifying" non-GNUish licensing.

Documentation is moving to "non-free." This is not only ridiculous, but
downright stupid. I do not approve, of course, but who am I anyway: a
not so humble user and bug-squisher -- nothing more. And since users
have less and less impact on what the admins at Debian do, it's time
for me to move on. So I simply moved all my machines at home and at
work to Ubuntu.

Now, just because something moves to "non-free" does not mean that it
will be unavailable to users. But there's more to it than that. Some of
this tendency will cause a necessity for compiling and module addition
by users who wish to have a workable Linux installation, with necessary
drivers for their hardware, etc. That's OK for experienced - very
experienced- users, but not for someone relatively new to Linux use. We
are not there yet, but if the inquisitional purification of Debian
continues, Debian will be left in the dust. Or perhaps it will remain
as a sort of "control" in an experiment called "linux"...

Now don't get me wrong. I am sure that Debian will catch itself before
it's too late. It always does, and the fact remains that it is still
the "Big Daddy" of all the Debian-based distros, Debian-based live
Cd's, and Ubuntu itself, which is more or less a fork of Debian.,
albeit closely tied through shared developers, etc..., but in the
meantime (and you all know just how mean time can be), I'll be tripping
elsewhere. Progeny Debian is also an alternative to "pure" Debian, and
it was developed by Ian Murdock, the creator of Debian and the founder
of the Debian Project. Makes one wonder..........


-- 
Glanz