What about security updates? Does Debian now really deliver those for the testing branch in due time? I have never received that confirmation which is why I wouldn't run testing neither on a server nor on a desktop.

Interesting that you mention that. This article was posted on Linux Watch just the other day:

http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS7543606709.html

"Debian has become a distribution whose supporters are clearly more interested in scoring points off each other than creating a serious Linux distribution. It is a group where far too many of its people are far more concerned with moronic minutiae than they are with development.

Is it any wonder that Ubuntu took Debian's old and great code and produced a wonderful distribution from it, when Debian's own developers couldn't cut the mustard?

I think it's clear why Ubuntu rules. Debian's best and brightest left for Ubuntu because there, with a formal organization and a focus on coding instead of petty personal politics, development gets done. In Debian, everything becomes a subject for debate and delay."

While this article is far from unbiased, it does raise some valid points.

I don't believe that Debian is on the brink of collapse, but I agree that Debian devs need to drop the juvenile politics and focus on developing their distribution. Perhaps that'll never happen, but while things remain as they are we will continue to see good people leaving Debian for other distributions. And that, IMO, is a tragedy.

Why can I see Debian becoming like a mother distro to a large number of derivatives, but not actually in use as an actual distro?

Does anyone really run Debian Stable on anything other than a server? If so, why? Testing is by far stable enough for desktop use (and even some servers).

Is it possible that all the Debian derivatives will simply take Deb Testing and package it up nicely, and the Debian distro itself will cease to exist? IE no one uses Debian, but most people use some form of Debian derivative, and the work of the Debian project is just to do the upstream development for all the derivatives?

--Ian

LOL lots of people use "pure" Debian. Personally I wouldn't run anything else. Ubuntu is just crap. It might have started out as Debian but its not any more.

The easiest way to get a great Debian system is 1) Use the Testing netinstall, 2) Use Kanotix which is nothing but a pretty packaged Debian Sid with a few extra config scripts. It uses the normal Debian repos.

Politics has been around with Debian forever and it will always be there. A few of the devs might have jumped ship, but others took there place. What other distro has over 25k packages, is stable(even Testing/Unstable). Politics is a matter of life, especially with a distro thats as big as Debian and one that has as many devs.

Worrying about things like releases is just silly, whats the point of reinstalling when apt-get dist-upgrade keeps your system updated? I have ran Debian Sid for over two years all from the first install, try saying that with any other distro(other than maybe Slack).

Debian will be around for a long time.