Sometimes there are articles about Ubuntu getting big, and there is the inevitable comment about how Ubuntu will kill debian, hurt it, whatever.

Last I checked, the goal, atleast in what I have worked with, was to minimalize divergence from debian at all possible opportunities and send patches upstream.  If obtaining a larger testing base, and new developers, which will in turn submit patches to debian, how does this hurt debian?

I am sure there will be comments about them losing developers etc, but I would bet (with absolutely no statistics to back me up) that if you take the net figures, far more people are gained for the projects as a whole. (ie a developer that is new to linux, never contributed to debian, works on ubuntu, sends patches upstream, everyone benefits = +1 to both debian and ubuntu).

Related posts:

  1. Dear AMD
  2. Upstream contributions
  3. Dirty little secret
  4. Network Manager vs. ConnMan
  5. Riding the train