Debian and the grass roots of Linux

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"I believe that open source projects are no different from businesses or any other kind of organization in that to get any meaningful work done, there has to be strong leadership," Murdock argues. "...I think in some ways the people who were really pushing for pure democracy at Debian wanted to see this as a sort of social experiment. What happens when every decision is put up to a vote. You know, pure democracy. It looks a lot better on paper than it ends up in practice," he says, and this puts him radically out of tune with the community he helped to create, which is fundamentally democratic, and stands for the twin goals of technical excellence and the furtherance of free software. Quite possibly, Debian has outgrown its roots.

Much of Murdock's frustration appears to stem from the failure of Debian to climb on board the Linux train and head the rush into the enterprise. This may be a wrong way of looking at things. Debian is everywhere, and is usually called Ubuntu or PCLinuxOS, but it is still Debian. Debian has made it into the enterprise under the guise of Ubuntu, and in remaining true to its principles, has retained its technical excellence, and has kept Linux and open source close to its roots and honest. The commercial success of Linux may owe more to the Debian community than advocates of Linux in the enterprise are ever likely to acknowledge.

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