A very interesting post on the Debian forum regarding its future and connections with RedHat.

The OP was concerned about the possibility of Microsoft buying RedHat or at least becoming a majority shareholder etc....and how that would affect Debian.

This was one reply, from one of the most active users on their forum:

To address the question as posed in your thread topic: if RedHat <does X>, then so does Debian, regardless of whatever X may be. As a purely practical matter, Debian is now far too dependent on RedHat to make any sort of large, consequential decisions on its own.

http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=127768

Kudos to Slackware I think!

What's the relationship between Red Hat and the Debian team?

Cant believe I responded to this.

Time for more beer.

I cannot even begin to speculate on what a Debian/Slackware merger would have been like. By the time I got introduced to Debian (2003), it was already an overdesigned, obviously-by-committee GNU-beast full of zillions of adminstrative layers (like defoma, dpkg-reconfigure, update-alternatives) that you had to just pick up from random examples. I ran back to Slackware partly to get away from them.

If a man is impatient he will never have witnessed the flower that bloomed once every thousand years right before his own eyes yesterday. Likewise, if a fool fails to heed advice about the trap that lies ahead, his own demise is of no fault but his own.

If Debian has shot itself in the foot as a fool by abandoning its own principles, then let it suffer till it's own demise and offer no aid nor comfort. People speak out about stupid foolish decisions, only to be ridiculed and chastised for not being hip, modern, and timely. Now people question those decisions and eventually panic when their feet are kicked out from under them. Well it serves them right. Let this be a sound lesson well learned.

Drink your beer. Drink to Slackware, sanity, simplicity, and drink well. And drink to the demise of those who followed the way of the fool.

Perhaps, Debian should re-investigate "Ian's" original proposal to join/combine with Slackware, per 1990's idea (have to locate the post for actual date). It did not come to fruition then, but perhaps, the time is near?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH HAHAHAHA HAHA HAHA HE HAHAHA HEHEHEHEHE OHOHOHOHAHAHAHA HA HA HAAAAA. No.

If some day no OS including a Linux kernel pleases you, just pick another OS. And if no other OS is to your liking, invent one. Why bother?

Originally Posted by GazL HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH HAHAHAHA HAHA HAHA HE HAHAHA HEHEHEHEHE OHOHOHOHAHAHAHA HA HA HAAAAA. No.

We all know that Debian is overengineered FOSS crap designed to cause you as much grey hair as possible. Glad they didn't merge.

if RedHat <does X>, then so does Debian

If Red Hat does X , so does everyone else (eventually).

They have a lot of influence in the Linux ecosystem and it's safe to say anything new coming out is by someone employed by Red Hat or in Red Hat's best interests. Inevitably the other projects have to adopt whatever Red Hat wants or be incompatible and lose users. Even Slackware was not saved from this. We now have pulseaudio whether we like it or not. The distros that have not adopted systemd are growing small in numbers.

Canonical thought they had pull a few years ago when they were more popular and tried getting everyone to use Mir. That failed and distros invested support in Wayland instead, which happened to be started by a Red Hat employee.

Originally Posted by Gerardo Zamudio If Red Hat does X , so does everyone else (eventually). They have a lot of influence in the Linux ecosystem and it's safe to say anything new coming out is by someone employed by Red Hat or in Red Hat's best interests. Inevitably the other projects have to adopt whatever Red Hat wants or be incompatible and lose users. Even Slackware was not saved from this. We now have pulseaudio whether we like it or not. The distros that have not adopted systemd are growing small in numbers. Canonical thought they had pull a few years ago when they were more popular and tried getting everyone to use Mir. That failed and distros invested support in Wayland instead, which happened to be started by a Red Hat employee.

This is similar to my take on things, since Slackware is my "reserve distro" should Debian become more work to install or use. I know apt-get is overly complicated but I find other criticism of Debian funny.

Originally Posted by 273 I know apt-get is overly complicated.

Really? I feel that slapt-get (found in most Slackware derivatives) is rather simple to configure and use, though.

Originally Posted by Didier Spaier Really? I feel that slapt-get (found in most Slackware derivatives) is rather simple to configure and use, though.

Touché?
Yes, I did mean that the dependency-resolution in Debian's packaging system can cause issues but I find it can save time also.

Originally Posted by 273 ... I did mean that the dependency-resolution in Debian's packaging system can cause issues

Yes. But in case the user insists to install packages not intended or tested for the target system (distribution/version/edition/arch), maybe the packaging system in not that guilty... Unless the provider of the tool pretends that it is able to educate users, of course

Just think of people installing the first package that they find on rpmfind.net, for instance (I wouldn't swear that I never did that on Mandrake...)

Originally Posted by Didier Spaier Yes. But in case the user insists to install packages not intended or tested for the target system (distribution/version/edition/arch), maybe the packaging system in not that guilty... Unless the provider of the tool pretends that it is able to educate users, of course Just think of people installing the first package that they find on rpmfind.net, for instance (I wouldn't swear that I never did that on Mandrake...)

Well, yes, if one stays within the repositories things are, generally (though not always with Testing and Sid) OK but I was referring more to having to install and, then, have running a package because it is a dependency of another when running Debian -- most packages installed are installed to run at next boot, for example.

We all know that Debian is overengineered FOSS crap designed to cause you as much grey hair as possible. Glad they didn't merge.

On the other hand, if they had, perhaps Debian would still look a lot more like Slackware, rather than the assumption of the other way around. Ah well, the road less taken and it has made all the difference....or not taken in this case.