As the Debian GNU/Linux project marks 15 years of existence, how much has it diverged from

the intentions with which it set sail? As times change and people correspondingly change,

motivating factors often tend to change and this is reflected in changes in most software projects.

Is this true for Debian?

If one goes back to the original manifesto , issued by founder Ian Murdock in 1993, and last

revised in June 1994, one sees these words: \"Many distributions have started out as fairly good

systems, but as time passes attention to maintaining the distribution becomes a secondary

concern.\" (Those uncomfortable with the word manifesto can use the weasel word vision

instead.)

Murdock\'s reference was to Soft Landing Systems Linux, which was, at that time, the best known

commercial distribution. The Slackware Linux project had kicked off too, but according to its

founder Patrick Volkerding, \"Slackware started in early 1993, but it wasn\'t until the middle of 1994

that I was contacted by Michael Johnston of Morse Telecommunications and asked if I was

interested in having them publish Slackware commercially.\"

Arguably, the problem of maintaining a system has been addressed better by Debian than any

other distribution. There are various package managment programs - dpkg and apt to name two -

which provide a way to install packages and keep one\'s system updated using a number of

sources.

There are other tools such as aptitude and synaptic, the latter providing a graphical interface.

These applications provide varying functionality for managing one\'s system.

Another statement which Murdock made about Debian was that it was \"an attempt to create a

non-commercial distribution that will be able to effectively compete in the commercial market\".

Fifteen years on, it is doubtful whether anyone will be able to contest this statement. Debian has

proved its merits to the extent that it has been the base for the most successful desktop

distribution - Ubuntu - put out by a commercial entity.

It is also the base for the best live distribution - Knoppix.

Can a distribution that serves as the base for others to profit keep its own userbase? Most

definitely - indeed, in many cases, people have begun using Linux by installing Debian

derivatives. They then find that the old man is much better than the children and switch to Debian,

simply because it encapsulates many of the pluses that one cannot find in newer distributions.