After Sarge,Debian: Where should we go from here?

[Rakesh 'Arky' Ambati]

Debian: Where should we go from here?  
Monday, June 13th, 2005
by Ian Murdock

http://gongrc.blogspot.com/2005/06/debian-where-should-we-go-from-here.html


This is old news by now (it’s been a very busy week), but Debian sarge
has (finally) been released. Congrats to all involved and especially to
the release managers for what I can only imagine was, at times, a
seemingly impossible task (it was impossible enough in the days of a few
dozen developers and a few hundred packages). 

Now what? If you ask me (and you didn’t, but I’m going to tell you
anyway), Debian should have two overarching priorities for the next
release: 1. putting a timed release cycle in place, so what happened
with sarge never happens again; and 2. keeping the growing family of
Debian derivatives united around a common core—namely, Debian itself.
What’s at stake? Bottom line: If we don’t do something about both of
these problems, actual and potential, Debian will be irrelevant by the
time etch is out.

Debian is one of exactly three Linux distributions that have global
reach today (Red Hat and Novell/SuSE are the other two). In terms of
mindshare, userbase, and almost everything else that matters, Debian is
a strong #2, well ahead of SuSE in most places (even, it appears,
Germany) and behind Red Hat only in the U.S. and perhaps a few other
(albeit important) places. SuSE is often thought of as the #2 in
commercial circles, but this is mainly because the industry isn’t quite
sure how to interface with the real #2. Until it figures out how to do
that (hint: we should be helping), the industry needs an alternative,
any alternative, to keep Red Hat honest. Not exactly the strongest
market position, and it’s beginning to show too. Unequivocally, this
means Debian’s potential is enormous; unfortunately, a big part of that
potential remains untapped.

How, then, do we tap it? Let’s start by looking at what makes Debian
unique.

First of all (and this is the obvious part), Debian is a non-commercial,
community project, which means it isn’t owned or controlled by a
commercial interest. As such, Debian is an embodiment of what made Linux
what it is today: openness, vendor neutrality, and community. It’s a
reminder of where we all came from. It keeps the industry honest. Or, in
the words of IBM and HP executives, it’s “the core of the Linux
community” and a vendor neutral “arbiter… to make sure everybody plays
nice”. Sure, Debian isn’t entirely unique in this respect (there are,
after all, other community distros, most notably Slackware and Gentoo).
However, combined with its popularity, Debian’s “non-commercial,
community project” status makes it a force to be reckoned with. In other
words, Debian may not be the only global player, and it may not be the
only non-commercial, community project, but it’s the only global player
that’s also a non-commercial, community project.

Second, Debian is less an operating system and more a collection of
compatible software. (Note the word compatible—that will be important
later.) Red Hat, SuSE, and the other distros are much more like
traditional operating systems: monolithic, vertically integrated,
one-size-fits-all products. Because Debian is modular by design (it had
to be, or it wouldn’t have been possible to subdivide the work amongst
many distributed developers), it’s an excellent foundation for “value
added” Linux distros, and we’ve seen numerous of these distros emerge
over the years: Corel, Stormix, Progeny, Linspire, Xandros, KNOPPIX,
LinEx, Skolelinux, MEPIS, and Ubuntu, to name but a few. In fact, it’s
safe to say the vast majority of all distributions today are derived
either from Debian or from Red Hat, and because the Red Hat derivatives
have long ago splintered into many different and incompatible varieties,
it’s also safe to say Debian is truly unique among distros not because
it’s the basis of so many derivatives, but because those derivatives
are, after all these years, still compatible with each other.

Debian’s popularity as a base distro goes beyond technology. In many
ways, Debian facilitates the Linux equivalent of “think globally, act
locally”. With Debian, governments and nonprofit organizations can
launch projects like LinEx and Skolelinux that focus on meeting local
needs the big vendors might not otherwise have the capacity, expertise,
or interest to address, yet do so in a way that connects them into a
larger, global community so their local focus doesn’t make them an
island. Companies like Progeny, Linspire, and Ubuntu can build upon the
strength and momentum of an open, global platform, allowing them to
focus on bringing new and innovative products to market without fear the
underlying platform vendor that makes it all possible will go out of
business or, worse, be acquired by a competitor. In short, because
Debian allows organizations of all kinds to “stand on the shoulders of
giants”, Linux is making inroads into geographies and markets that would
otherwise be underserved. Would Red Hat or Novell have been interested
in cornering the market in Extremadura, Spain? I doubt it. Yet Linux is
changing everything in Extremadura, as it is in a lot of places.

To me, these observations point the way to an answer to our question.
First of all, we need to make it easier for the industry to interface
with us. That means we need a predictable release cycle, one that
results in a new Debian stable every 12 or 18 months. It also means we
need to take the industry’s needs seriously, which in turn means we need
to better engage the ISVs, IHVs, and OEMs that want to support Debian
but aren’t quite sure how to do it. They want to engage us, not just
because we’re a global player, but because we’re a non-commercial,
community project. Yet when I bring this up in Debian circles, the
reaction I almost always get is similar to the following: “Why do we
need ? We already have .” The answer is simple: we need it because a lot
of our potential users need it (or at least think they need it—why argue
with them about that?). Fortunately, there’s an existing effort that
already enjoys broad industry support whose sole mission is to provide a
single, vendor neutral ISV/IHV/OEM interface to the Linux world, namely
the LSB, so we don’t have to go it alone here. All we have to do is work
more closely with the LSB folks. Let’s face it. Our track record to date
with the LSB hasn’t exactly been stellar. Let’s change that and work
with the LSB to make Debian a vendor neutral implementation of the LSB
standard. It’s got the mindshare, userbase, etc. to make a reference
implementation a reality and give the LSB some real punch.

Second, we need to tap into Debian’s most unique asset, namely the
collective power of the Debian derivatives. On their own, the
derivatives aren’t significant players; but, taken as a group, they
dwarf the individual leaders (Red Hat and Novell), and they’ve got
breadth a single company couldn’t dream of having on its own even with
billions of dollars of cash to market vertically oriented solutions or
open hundreds of branch offices in different parts of the world.
Debian’s opportunity, then, is to connect the derivatives into the
powerful, global force they have the potential to become, to nurture a
sort of “network of peers” approach to service and support to replace
the traditional, vertically integrated model that’s being used by
today’s leading commercial vendors. Of course, this opportunity can only
be recognized to the extent the global fabric that connects these local
communities is strong, and it cannot be strong if we don’t have a
common, compatible foundation. Predictable releases are a requirement,
because in the absence of a common, compatible foundation that has a
clearly articulated roadmap, each of the derivatives will necessarily
have to go its own way, something that, in my opinion, is already
happening. We need a commitment on the part of the derivatives to work
with the larger Debian community and make sure fragmentation doesn’t
happen. Personally, wearing my Progeny hat, I’m willing to make this
commitment, and I hope my peers at the other Debian derivatives are
willing to do so as well.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. Take them or leave them, but please at
least consider them

http://gongrc.blogspot.com/2005/06/debian-where-should-we-go-from-here.html


-- 
arky

Rakesh 'arky' Ambati
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