Debian is often held up as an example of a too political Linux community, by people who toss it off as a pejorative without considering just why it is so. In fairness, I decided to provide an explanation of the circumstances that encourage that politcal activity. I hope that seen in this light, Debian politics can be shown for what it is; the glue that holds this community together, and the reason that Debian continues to be the standard of mature Linux distributions.
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Politics Generally
The subject of political infringements into Linux comes up every so often here, and generates the same kind of heated exchanges that political discussions of any nature are known to do. Politics and religion are often recognized as taboo subjects in delicate company, but they are nearly impossible to avoid.

In spite of the desire of some people to avoid it, politics is not inherently a bad thing. It is simply a structure for arriving at decisions, the enactment of which will affect a group of people. The number of people that will be affected, and the number of people involved in the decision-making process, directly affects the potential antagonism between people with the common goal of reaching the most beneficial conclusion. When the final decision is controlled by one person, much of the uproar can be avoided, but if a decision is to be reached democratically, there will be vigorous and vocal dissension before the issue rests.

One of the longest continuously printed books is Robert's Rules of Order, a guide to political etiquette in situations when a large number of people are assembled in one room for political discussion. But what happens when the discussion is based in a much larger arena, worldwide, in fact, and the discussion is equally personal, immediate, and spontaneous. There are no rules, there is no moderator, and there are no holds barred.

Debian Structure
Debian is a large organization governed by a "Social Contract" with this as the prime directive. The "users" are the primary concern of the Debian organization, and it is at their final benefit that all distro related goals and decisions are (theoretically) aimed. Users of Debian can be as involved in its political goals as they wish, but political in the sense of "voting rights" resides with the developers.

The Developer Community
Any person knowledgeable about Debian packaging requirements, Debian policy, and the Debian community who is willing to exert the effort to get a sponsor (who is already a developer) can become a developer. This is not a quick process, and involves passing the scrutiny of developers other than your sponsor, and a review of contributions already made to the community.

There are currently about 1,000 developers scattered all over the world. Debian, perhaps more than any other distro, is international in scope. Only developers can add a package or an update to the official Debian repositories. Consequently, they work very closely with the actual package maintainers. Each developer is the absolute authority regarding the packages over whose maintenance he has oversight. Nobody, not even the Project Leader can tell a Debian developer what to do.

Annually, these developers elect a Project Leader, currently Anthony Towns. Every developer has one vote, and every developer can be a candidate. The Project Leader has the authority to delegate broad areas of responsibility and to focus attention on problem areas and short term goals. There are also various high level assistance committees with clearly defined responsibilities. Assignments to these committees can be made by the Project Leader, but for obvious reasons, special skills and knowledge tend to encourage stability in those positions.

General Resolutions
If a developer decides that some element of the Debian structure should be changed, the method available to him is a General Resolution. Any developer can propose a General Resolution on any subject, and if it receives enough seconds, it will be immediately submitted to all developers for a vote. If the proposal achieves a majority, it will be enacted immediately, and can not be overturned, except by another General Resolution. This is Debian's primary method of reaching consensus on non-trivial issues.

Obviously, before a developer decides to submit a General Resolution, he will sound out the idea with other developers to gauge the potential support. Since the primary method of communication among developers is internet lists, with their inherent tendencies toward exaggerated reactions, this will, equally obviously, lead to the kind of political discussions that delicate people prefer to avoid. If you want to see real wars, not the pansy ones that outside press reports try to magnify, check out the irc #debian channels. (Instructions to connect, here.)

Additional Pressures
Debian is currently involved in a high pressure effort to release a new Stable version, Etch. The last major release ran about 18 months past it's stated target date, and a lot of Debian developers attach significant importance to not repeating that experience. Others posit that release cycles should be low on Debian's priority list, and that absolute application stabilty and the "free" content of the official distribution should take precedence. Anthony Towns, Project Leader, has adopted the "release on time" standard, and has also taken a controversial action related to the inclusion of Sun Java in official Debian repositories (albeit, not the "main" repo). He sees these decisions as cutting red tape, and circumventing the inherently slow process of democracy. I don't have a clear stand on those goals, myself, but I can see why people in positions of political influence would take up attitudes of vocal, even defiant opposition.

Recently, an unusual (even for Debian) number of spats between developers have spilled over into Linux and mainstream press reports. People who are not particularly familiar with "The Debian Way" tend to interpret this as some kind of sign that Debian is falling to pieces. In fact, it's merely business as usual in a democratic society. This is not to suggest that democratic principles are the best solution to political differences, but it's the way Debian does it, and it has produced the largest, and (IMO) the best base Linux distribution for the greatest number of people. Certainly, the majority of Linux users are Debian or Debian-derivative users, and all of you are participants in this political network.

Love it or leave it, Pal!

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Note: I am indebted to the Martin Krafft book, The Debian System, for many of the details of the Debian structure, but I don't think anything here is plagiaristic.

Great article.

I'm a little sick and tired of Debian-bashing by people who claim to be apolitical. They show themselves to be hypocrites.

A very good essay by rickh! Thanks.

My €0.02 worth:

1. Release Cycles.

I don't see the point of the fuss. Debian is updated regularly. I run Unstable and download an average of 20MB of updates daily.

Most of these work incredibly well although they are "unstable". The concept of releases comes from the closed source, proprietary, world where these are a way of gouging more money out of users. I'm not worried by the version number of the release I am running. I know I'm running the latest usable version of the software.

Look at the Windows world. Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000. The first three could easily have been incremental updates but this would have cut MS's revenue by 2/3rds and hampered the kids' bragging rights after they installed the release.

2. Bickering.

As rickh states, this is a democratic process. Debian developers seem to be passionate about their work. Isn't this what we, the users, want and need?

In a democracy people discuss, argue, fight and finally reach a consensus. If the developers don't like the end agreement they are free to leave and let others take over. However if a vote goes against their position then it should create food for thought about whether their position was the correct one.

If the users don't like the result there are a large number of distros available for them to switch to.

However if users start leaving then the developers will have an unequivocal indication that they are not meeting users' needs and will need to reasess their positions. Think of it as evolution in action.

When I first began to read about the bickering in Debian I began to worry. However I now feel good about it. It is the sign of a healthy organisation.

My congratulations and thanks to the Debian developers and maintainers. I like what they are doing. If it ever gets to the point where my needs are not being met, or are being ignored, I will vote with my feet, like I did with Windows. On the other hand I will first reasess my needs. Are they wants or needs? Remember the quote:

"And the users replied with a snarl and a taunt.
This is just what we asked for but not what we want."

It probably would have been a good idea to post this in a non Debian forum e.g. Linux general or Linux distributions, because I think most posts in this thread will be pro Debian since its posted in the Debian forum.

Redazz,

I partially agree but I think that this could develop into a 2-stage process.

1. Discuss here, then

2. Somebody could develop a final document to post elsewhere and reopen the discussion.

That said I promise not to be upset if the thread is moved.

Hopefully there will be more input.

rickh very nice article that pretty much sums it all up. Debian is here to stay.

A lot of people don't really know just how popular Debian really is.
From distrowatch:
Rank Distribution
1 Ubuntu [Debian based]
2 openSUSE
3 Fedora
4 MEPIS [Debian based]
5 Mandriva
6 PCLinuxOS
7 Damn Small [Debian based]
8 Debian
9 Slackware
10 KNOPPIX [Debian based]
Plus in the top 21 are another 6 Debian based distros, Kubuntu,Xubuntu, Xandros, Linspire, Kanotix, Puppy. If you just went by distrowatch.com Debian is by far the most popular distro.

Politics is to be expected in a commuity as large as Debian's and nothing to really worry about.

It's very easy to explain.

If you get a group of people together there tend to be more diverging views of things the more people you gather around.

In a commercial environment the fighting gets a little controlled due to the fact that most people don't want to loose their paychecks and those also know each other personally in most cases - it's much harder to scream somebody in the face that do a 'FORK THIS FORK THAT' post on some mailing list or forum.

And I don't care what anybody says but the way I see it it's a wonder things are working as well as they do considering the way Debian is run which is basically by commite.
I know that sounds un* but it is a very unefficient way of running things - just look at Suse and Redhat falling apart after they went community.

That was also the reason behind some devs leaving for Ubuntu - there is one guy who says how things are run.

Also have a look how things have developed after Robbins left Gentoo and they started to run the distro by vote.

Basically because the goals of the community are common and there's no real conflict of interest (as in commercial/non-commercial) in Debian but the real debate is about methodologies adopted.

In other "community" (which also have commercial interests) distros, maybe the goals are not so clear and lead to deeper and more insoluble conflicts.

i love the fact the debian is not just a distribution but also an organization of equal opportunity. no matter your faults, you have an equal chance. debian truly is homemade software of by and for we the people everywhere. official debian is one of the rare few distribution's that is spyware free. there any many reasons for the political aspect but, i don't feel like typing my fingers off.

reddazz said:I didn't really envision it as a controversial thread, that might attract unfavorable commentary, but rather as an educational piece of primary interest to Debianites or people just curious about the constant references to Debian as a "political" organization.

If you think it should be moved, tho, feel free to do so.

I didn't see it as a controversial thread but I thought that if it were in a neutral forum, you could have feedback (positive or negative) from both Debian and non Debian users. As it is, it seems like most feedback is going to be pro Debian because its in the Debian forum. Also most people who would benefit from you post seem to be non Debian users since they could gain a great deal by knowing more about the structure of Debian and its policies. If you feel you want it moved, report it and the moderators of the Debian forum will move it for you.

Even better, why wasn't this submitted as an article? Go there now and do it.

OK. I submitted it. Thought about doing that at first, but when I write something this long, I like the opportunity to edit it for a day or so.

Debian is here to stay as the Best Distro available to the Community.

Since the Tutorial is now up, please direct any more discussion to the thread created in the Linux Tutorials Discussion forum.