Ubuntu damaging Debian?

[fishbone]

I heard a while ago that Debian were looking at only tracking 3 architectures instead of the current 11 - mainly to speed up release times & cut down on packages. I'm a brand new Ubuntu user & my first impressions are that I love it - great philosophy of the whole project.

That said I run 2 production boxes on Debian Woody @ work - 1 on HPPA & 1 i386 - I'm definately thinking of switching the Dell box over to Ubuntu for later versions of packages I use - Smaba etc. With Ubuntu from my understanding I get newer packages plus security updates - which is obviously a big factor for corporate boxes !

[TravisNewman]

I heard a while ago that Debian were looking at only tracking 3 architectures instead of the current 11 - mainly to speed up release times & cut down on packages.

Yeah that's one bad thing-- I mean, I don't own a sparc or anything, but that was one of the big claims to fame for them.

[asimon]

1. Sort of comparable: Mandrake and SuSE are both forks off RedHat back in the old days.

SuSE was based on Slackware.

[ghost]

Source: http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20050418#3

It should be noted that Ubuntu is released completely under the GPL, so all the goodness from the Ubuntu developers can flow freely back to Debian. And vice versa. Unfortunately, Debian developers (nearly 1000 of them) are almost entirely unpaid volunteers, whereas Ubuntu has some money behind it thanks to the generosity of philanthropist geek Mark Shuttleworth who is funding Canonical. Thanks to a combination of cash, Mark's focus, and Debian's insistence on supporting 11 architectures, Ubuntu is developing faster than Debian. Whereas Debian releases "when it's ready", Ubuntu is committed to one release every six months. Which is why it isn't possible to simply take the Ubuntu package repositories and just load them into Debian Unstable.

Interesting, so Ubuntu got Mark Shuttleworth who is funding Canonical.


source: http://www.debian.org/partners/ Debian got these behind them.
HP, Sun Microsystems, Progeny, Trustsec, Credativ GMBH, Skol Linux, Genesi, MGE UPS Systems, Brainfood, Freenode, Linux Central, Black Cat Network, The Oregon State University Open Source Lab, Telegraaf Media ICT BV.


So what is Ian Murdock talking about?!

I love Ubuntu, I would have loved Debian if it was easy to install and release their distro more frequently.

Keep up the good work people in Ubuntu Development Team. =D>

[ghost]

SuSE was based on Slackware.

jdong was right, SuSE was based on Red Hat. If it was based in Slackware, wouldn't it use tgz packages, instead of RPM (Which is what it's using right now?) ?

[TravisNewman]

yeah, maybe it was once based on Slackware, but it's definitely a redhat base now.

[Preacher]

This is healthy competition, and to be honest it sounds like sour grapes from Debian. Expecting the entire Linux world to backtrack to pre-Ubuntu just because it does Debian better than Debian did is rather childish, to be honest. It should just be a cue to the Debian management team that, just maybe, relying on the Debian project continuing _just because_ it's the Debian project, and for no other reason, just ain't gonna cut it any more.

Maybe this will lead Debian (and others) to (as someone on this forum said) to bring out quicker updates. This will be a vicious cycle but in the end the people that will benefit are us the users

[Sabator]

Debian: "WAAH WAAH GO AWAY UBUNTU YOUR QUICK RELEASES AND DIFFERENT CODING MAKES US LOOK BAD"

If Debian can't release more often, it's their own damn fault. You don't see Hollywood companies bitching because they're being owned into the ground by Pixar, you don't see sports teams giving interviews on why a better team is ruining everything.

[TravisNewman]

See, the one thing people may be missing is that Debian doesn't really care about releasing often. They want to make a stable product, and Woody is most definitely stable. It can't compete very well by todays standards, however-- but that's Debian's thing, and they have to decide what their priorities are.

As far as Hollywood companies, and sports teams: That's different. Hollywood companies compete with each other, Sports teams compete with each other. Ubuntu's goal was never to compete with Debian, but to build on Debian for a different audience. It's grown way past that though-- I mean, HP is now bundling Ubuntu with the software they send with new notebooks. Ubuntu has just gone WAY past anyones expectations I think. So yes, it's shocking and offputting for Debian, because they now seem to be competing, though I'm not sure they really are.

[poofyhairguy]

Ubuntu only damages Debian's image among the non corporate crowd.