The Debian Project is pleased to mark the 17th anniversary of its start. As the official project history states: "The Debian Project was officially founded by Ian Murdock on August 16th, 1993. At that time, the whole concept of a 'distribution' of Linux was new. Ian intended Debian to be a distribution which would be made openly, in the spirit of Linux and GNU".

«The Debian project announced yesterday that it has renamed the former “Custom Debian Distribution” concept (under which Debian projects such as Debian Edu, Debian Jr, Debian Med, Debian GIS and Debian Science were collectively known) to the catchier name “Debian Pure Blends.” ...»

The Debian Project was officially founded by Ian Murdock on August 16th, 1993. Time to say thanks and congratulations. Somebody estimated that Debian is upstream for about 50% of all distros.

You can't argue Debian's irrelevance using Ubuntu as an example. If you're using Ubuntu (or Linux Mint, or Mepis...), you're really using Debian with some enhancements. According to a presentation given recently by Debian Project Leader (DPL) Stefano Zacchiroli, only 7% of Ubuntu is directly derived from upstream projects, Canonical's projects, or other non-Debian sources.

Debian Project Leader Zacchiroli: "I think we should either get Debian in Free Sosftware Foundation free-distros list or document (from our POV) why Debian is not there. I'm looking for volunteers interested in the topic and willing to participate in a joint Debian / FSF team that will work toward that goal without prejudices." Debian is upstream for about 50% of GNU/Linux distributions!

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve caught myself wondering why there are so many “easy-to-use” Debian-based distros. I used to think of Debian as the distro that was way up there, a long long way to go, in terms of user-friendlyness. I didn’t think that I was going to be able to use Debian. It just seemed to hard.

At april 18th 2008, 19 new Debian Developers (DD) accounts were created.

Debian Project is a volunteer effort, and needs more skilled manpower at many human knowledge areas.

This is not a rant about Debian vs. Ubuntu. I used both, loved both, and I'm currently using Debian Lenny. It's not about Debian versus any other distribution either: in fact, I only tried a few other distros, and most of them were Debian-based. Here are the top 10 reasons for which I enjoy using Debian:

"...Mar Del Plata, Argentina, 8 August 2008 - The Debian Project, the team behind the free Debian GNU/Linux operating system, is inviting members of the public and the press to its annual conference, DebConf 8, which takes place from 10 August to 16 August at the Hotel Dorá in Mar Del Plata, Argentina [...] The Debian Project is an association of Free Software developers who volunteer their time