Freedom and Righteousness
As Linux becomes a standard part of the IT infrastructure, Debian is gaining the attention of companies with a strategic interest in a unified Linux. Hardware vendors, in particular, who see nothing but higher expenses and smaller markets in a divided Linux market, are attracted to the standard-setting possibilities of a non-commercial distribution. Back when it was a hardware company, VA Linux employed a number of Debian developers and was the distribution's greatest flag-waver, a role that has been handed off to HP. But even companies that do not sell Debian -- IBM and Compaq, for example -- have their eyes on the distribution. "We think Debian is the most righteous distribution," says IBM's Linux program manager, Dan Frye. "It takes high-quality code from the rest of the community and then forces it through an incredibly rigorous process to make sure that it's even more stable. So in many ways, it's the core of the Linux community."
Critics have complained that what Frye calls a "rigorous" process is, in fact, way too conservative. The current release of Debian at the time of this writing (the 2.2r5 "potato" release) is based on the Linux 2.2 kernel, for example; but a conservative adoption policy is not without its merits, as Red Hat 7 users found out in the fall of 2000. That was the version Red Hat shipped with a "development branch" version of the GNU C Compiler (gcc 2.96) instead of the latest stable release, upsetting many in the Linux community. The maintainers of gcc pointed out that development branches of gcc are not intended for production purposes and that any software which is compiled with the forthcoming, stable version of gcc (gcc 3.0) would simply not run on Red Hat 7.
As Red Hat's CEO Matt Szulik explained to Linux Magazine at the time (see http://www.linux-mag.com/2001-05/szulik_01.html), Red Hat's commercial production schedule required that it anticipate which version would be the Linux standard when Red Hat 7 shipped. "There were a lot of customers -- especially international customers -- that that decision impacted," said Szulik. "We had to make one of those hard decisions, knowing that that compiler technology was going to be improved in a future iteration. So we made the decision to service our customers."
Debian's current project leader, Ben Collins, says that while he understands Red Hat's reasons for releasing gcc 2.96, something like that would never happen with Debian, which for one thing, does not create release deadlines. "We don't have stockholders to answer to and we don't have investors. We just have ourselves," he says.
Of course, there are some advantages to deadlines. For some customers looking for a sense of when new features might be available in the Debian distribution, the "it'll be there when it's ready" answer may not be satisfactory. The fact that Debian developers are not beholden to any company has its disadvantages as well. Collins says that SGI considered basing its Linux offerings on the Debian distribution but was put off by Debian's non-commercial structure and its inability to guarantee things like 24x7 telephone support.
Because Debian is non-commercial and has never marketed itself, it has so far eluded the attention of most commercial customers. Most vendors report little or no demand for Debian within the enterprise, and the distribution's appeal is presently confined to software developers and those in the scientific and academic settings, according to IDC's Kusnetzky. Right now, HP is the only significant company that supports Debian. Corel's Linux business was recently sold to an investment company which is in the process of setting up Xandros, an Ottawa-based company that will presumably follow Corel's footsteps in marketing a Debian-based product. Xandros's president, Michael Bego, declined to be interviewed for this article. Ian Murdock's Progeny Systems recently decided to stop working on its own version of Debian and to instead support the "woody" Debian release and other Debian variants (including Corel Linux), "on a per-incident and contract basis."
With a number of prominent Debian developers on staff, HP is without doubt in the best position to popularize Debian. HP is the only major systems vendor to sell and support Debian, and the fact that such a large company is so vocal in its support of the distribution can't help but reassure conservative IT managers who are simply looking for comfort, says Kusnetzky. "The fact that HP has hired Bruce Perens and has taken up Debian will help Debian with those large organizations that are looking for a contractual partner -- a business entity, not a loose organization of developers," he says. The IDC analyst predicts that Debian will have further appeal to international customers who are looking for an operating system that is neither represented by a single company nor developed in a single country. "They don't like the concept that a single company, such as Microsoft or IBM, or that the United States Government could tell them, 'We don't like what you have been doing; you can't have this software anymore.'"
Debian's Social Contract and Free Software Guidelines
Created in 1997 under the supervision of then-Debian project leader Bruce Perens, The Free Software Guidelines and Social Contract are the heart and soul of the Debian project. The Free Software Guidelines give a precise definition of what Debian considers to be "Free" software; it must include source code, be freely redistributable and generally unencumbered by special restrictions (e.g., Free software cannot be licensed for non-commercial use only). The Free Software Guidelines have had an enormous influence beyond the Debian project. They were copied almost verbatim to form the Open Source Initiative's Open Source Definition. Debian's Social Contract contains the higher-level statement of purpose that binds all of the Debian developers together. The Social Contract must be read and agreed to by anyone who is looking to formally participate in the Debian project. The contract affirms Debian's commitment to creating and widely distributing high-quality free software, as well as keeping the project's bug-report database open to the public. Finally, Debian's contract also promises to support proprietary software.
|