Debian and corporate support

I read about Steven J. Vaughan’s article on which he tries to explain why you don’t see as much corporate support in Debian as you see in other places. The conclusion of Steven’s analisys, it seems, is that Debian is inmature. I will attempt to respond to it from a Debian perspective.

Ok, you don’t really see that adjective mentioned in his article, but it is what every paragraph in it is trying to tell us. Even the one paragraph that contains a positive remark doesn’t escape from a reminder that we always do things “our own, cranky way”. And of course, the article is finished with a sincere recommendation to flee away from Debian. Wow Steven, you must really hate Debian don’t you? Ok, to be fair, I assume you have reasons for what you say. Nevertheless I think those reasons are flawed.

As a Debian developer, I’d like to try my humble attempt at clarifying some of the common misconceptions about what Debian is, that seem to be the basis for Steven’s disapproval of our ways.

The root of the problem seems to be that you measure maturity of an organization by the amount of internal collisions you see from the outside. However, every big organization in the western world has internal disputes. So what is it that makes Debian different?

• We don’t hide problems (remember our Social Contract?). In practice, this works at two levels: 1) we don’t try to hide our internal discussions; and 2) individuals have a general feeling they can speak out (instead of repressing their opinion to avoid displeasing their boss). How many examples of this do you see in corporate world? Right, you can’t see a thing except when you’re inside The Walls.
• Our common goals are quality and freedom. This is what puts us together above our petty differences. Some disagree on what ‘quality’ means; some disagree on what ‘freedom’ means. Some even think the most efficient way to archieve them is to make small compromises. But it still boils down to these. Then, what ties a corporation and prevents it from falling appart? That’s right, money. That is their common goal. Debian benefits from money, equipment and even developers hired to improve specific areas. We’re grateful to those who contribute! But money isn’t everything you see? For one thing, we never let money condition our agenda. We have higher goals here… we deliver sustained quality and freedom; and outsiders can rely on us to continue doing so, no matter if we have funding problems or if -insert evil company based in Redmond here- wants to buy us out.  How many partners can promise such an high reliability?
• Our value is our strong, technically-capable user-developer base. Thousands of enthusiasts working together in furthering our goals. In the article you seem surprised that “despite all this, Debian does keep going”. Well, as long as our highest value stands, Debian will continue to not just keep going, but to show leadership in the development of the codebase that most users (be it individual users or big players like Canonical, HP or IBM) rely on.

I hope this helps you understand Debian a bit better. You don’t have to like what we do; but at least try to respect our position and apply fair judgement to it.