The Time Our Server Host Died in a Car Accident
THIS factoid was mentioned in passing some years ago when we had to relocate the hosting in somewhat of a rush (to another datacentre). The backdrop was, for about a year this site and its sister site ran on a server of a Debian Developer (DD), whom we won't name. And then he died in a car accident (we're not suggesting foul play, many DDs die and many exist*).
That was around the time we released a portion of Debian-Private (debian-private mailing list).
Let's say that about 1,500 DDs exist, both past and present. "If we exclude all the people who simply maintain leaf packages and nothing else then the size of the group is much smaller," we were told, "maybe 200 people who maintain core packages, shared utilities and other leadership roles."
That's similar to team sizes at Microsoft, working on Windows. Remember that Debian is further assisted from outsiders, including Red Hat staff, Gentoo developers etc. Except for stuff like packaging, which can be partly automated (build processes and services for several target architectures).
So let's say Debian is made by a couple hundred DDs. "A lot of the deaths come from that group or more committed DDs," we're told, e.g.
2005: Jens 2008*: PowerPC port leader 2010*: Debian Installer lead dev 2011: William Lee Irwin III (disappeared) 2011*: Debian.ch founder/secretary/treasurer 2015*: Debian founder
In our IRC network MinceR began referring to Debian as "Deadian" (sort of like dead Debian or Dead-Ian) a few years ago. The project is far from dead and many if not most of today's GNU/Linux distros are direct or less direct derivatives of Debian.
If Debian has internal problems, then they need to be illuminated and then tackled, at the very least in order to ensure we do not end up with "Deadian". A Wikileaks associate who disappeared in Norway said that Debian et al had fallen into the wrong hands and were not managed by the right people anymore. █
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* In the past 2 months 6 new DDs were added. "There are approximately 1,000 active DDs plus 500 emeritus/retired," one person told us, "so it is inevitable that there will be some unrelated deaths in a group of that size."