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That's a question I've been asked (by myself and others) lots of times over the years I've been involved. Especially over the last few months while I've been wandering around Europe on the BSP and party trail, I've also been asking other people to explain their motivations too. For myself, I must admit that I'm selfish:

I want to have a good free operating system for me to use, and Debian certainly fits that need.
I'm a bit of a control freak - to make sure that the OS matches what I need, I want to be able to contribute and help direct how things are done. Again, Debian fits that for me.
I want to be able to trust the OS and the people working on it. Debian certainly meets that - I've met large numbers of DDs now, and almost without fail they're competent, friendly people who are good to work with and (probably just as importantly to me) good to meet up with and socialise with.
I like stability too. There's a very large selection of software available for me to use, yet I can just install stable on my servers without having to worry personally about the security of all the random packages I may install. I can also rely on new stable releases coming along from time to time, with good support for upgrades and plenty of support for older releases so I can safely upgrade without surprises.

Obviously, there's also the fun of hacking on a variety of Free software programs. But that's something I could do on my own, or within a multitude of projects out there. But in very few of those would I be able to materially affect how I use my own computers every day.

So, my question for the other Debian people: what gets you working on Debian?

22:25 :: # :: /debian/misc :: 4 comments

Comments

Re: Why do you work on Debian?
Kim Hong wrote on Mon, 22 Jan 2007 15:30

Sorry, for I am not working on Debian, yet. But, I've just started to use it since two years ago. I use it just because It does fit me so well. A good free OS as pointed out. Hope I can start to work on it, one day. So I can contribute, too.

Obvious answer
Ken wrote on Mon, 22 Jan 2007 15:31

Because it needs it? :-)

Re: Why do you work on Debian?
Kamaraju Kusumanchi wrote on Tue, 23 Jan 2007 01:01

free, stable, secure, good community support.

Re: Why do you work on Debian?
eric lamp wrote on Thu, 22 Feb 2007 17:51

Read you reasons .... but what is the difference with many other stable Linux distros? What is the main difference for you?

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