Mark Shuttleworth writes on his blog: "I'm of the opinion that Ubuntu could not exist without Debian. So it's absolutely my intention to see that Ubuntu is a constructive part of the broader Debian landscape. It's vital that Ubuntu help to sustain and grow Debian, because it's the breadth and strength of Debian which make up the 'shoulders of greatness' on which we in the Ubuntu community stand when we reach for the stars."
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Member since:2006-01-01
Mark Shuttleworth's blog entry compares Debian to a "Tibetan Plateau" and Ubuntu to a "cluster of peaks" that depend on the plateau. These metaphors are open to many kinds of interpretations but I'd say that Debian has grown a few peaks of its own, apparently without Mark Shuttleworth noticing it.
When Mark Shuttleworth started Ubuntu, Debian was struggling to put out a stable release (Sarge) that had been delayed many times and also the speed of development in Debian Sid suffered from that. It was a perfect opportunity for a derivative distro like Ubuntu to establish itself as an improved version of Debian (for desktop use at least). Debian (stable) still used the old installer (a set of floppies), XFree86, old versions of almost everything while Ubuntu used the development version of Debian's new installer, plus it had XOrg and the latest GNOME.
But things are different now. I don't think that Ubuntu has too many advantages left when compared to Debian's desktop offering -- this applies especially to Debian testing and unstable. So I think that Mark Shuttleworth's metaphors are not quite as adequate as they would have been a couple of years ago. Debian is not a flat plateau any more -- now its peaks reach almost the hights of Ubuntu's peaks. This means that Ubuntu and Debian have partially overlapping goals and that they can now compete with each other. (Is it possible that Mark Shuttleworth has already realized this and that this might be the actual meaning of the "conflicting goals" that he warns about?) In fact, I believe that this competition could prove out to be more advantageous for Ubuntu than the arrangement where Debian would just stay as a "warehouse" of packages for derivative distributions (or a "plateau"). There is absolutely nothing wrong with a bit of friendly competition. ;-)
Member since:
2005-07-09
You've actually been playing the logical equivalent of broken telephone. Mark used SID as an example of one of the many places where Debian does things right. "moleskine" speculated that he might be trying the send a subtle message about the usefulness of SID versus Testing/Stable. You assumed his speculation as fact and stated as fact that he thinks that Debian should give up on Testing/Stable and focus on SID and let third-parties produce "real distros". You then use this stated "fact" to show why Debian is offended -- after all Mark basically said that all the hard stabilization work of Debian's developers is useless and does not produce and end-user system. Now "da_Chicken" has used your stated "facts" and used statistics to prove the Mark is wrong.
Let's take a step back and see what Mark actually said. It boils down to this:
* Ubuntu depends on Debian's health.
* Ubuntu and Debian have different goals
* Ubuntu has a narrowly focused goal and cannot handle the breadth that Debian does without becoming less focused and less good.
* Debian has an extremely broad "global OS" goal and cannot become more focused and tailored without alienating a large portion of the Debian user base and without.
* Ubuntu's narrow focus benefits from a more hierarchal model that tries to reduce conflicts.
* Debian's universal focus benefits from an inclusive democratic model that allows conflicts since that allow for common ground to be estabilished for a broad range of conflicting goals. Debian is likely not the best in any one area, but because of its consensus model, it is one of the most balanced that satisfies the widest group of people.
* He praises Debian on a few areas, including SID.
* He hopes Matt will return to work with Debian.
* He thinks Debian would benefit from looking at itself, and presumably make some reforms like use more of Ubuntu, Maemo, and other's work, but does not wish to say more (from his previous writings, it seems because he does not feel his is qualified to give solid prescriptions).
Okay. That's a summary of his whole blog entry. Do you find anything anti-Debian in it or anything that does not look reasonable (even if you disagree with it?)
Edited 2006-09-11 13:35