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Today the Debian software foundation marks a milestone not many pieces of software last long enough to see -- its 20 year anniversary.
What's more remarkable about Debian is that it continues to not just produce great, reliable software that forms the foundation of dozens of other distros, including Ubuntu, but it remains, after all these years, true to the vision (and accompanying manifesto) that gave birth to it 20 years ago.
The Debian Project was founded by Ian Murdock and officially brought to life on August 16th, 1993. With the backing of the Free Software Foundation's GNU project, Murdock set out to create what he called, "a distribution that lives up to the Linux name." Murdock's <a href="http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/project-history/ap-manifesto.en.html">vision for Debian</a> was to "carefully and conscientiously put together" a distribution that "will be maintained and supported with similar care."
As you might expect, Linux was in its infancy and installing it was no small feat. The concept of a "distribution", as we know it today was relatively new. Certainly maintaining a collection of code as vast and tangled as Debian was unheard of.
Indeed to this day, while Debian is clearly not all sunshine and roses, the stable channel release remains one of the most rock solid, well-built Linux distros in the community. That's why Ubuntu and countless other distros start with Debian's core -- because they can depend on that stability.
While stability might be Debian's hallmark (though there are of course other channels which offer more cutting edge releases), the other aspect that makes Debian stand out from the crowd is Murdock's emphasis on doing everything in the open -- anyone can contribute, everyone can see what's going on. That's since become the guiding principle of many a free software project, but today it's becoming less common again, which is precisely where Debian still looks like a leader even 20 years on.
But the distribution, the actual packages and code that make up Debian, are, in the long run, only half of what makes Debian important in the open software world. Debian's real strength is philosophical and cultural.
That Debian remains free -- in nearly every sense of the word -- in a largely unfree world makes it more than a Linux distribution, it makes it an icon. Today's Debian occupies a role not unlike that of Patti Smith's role with punk rock -- the elder statesman, or woman as it were, that never sold out.
There is a progression down the rabbit hole of free software, one that is traced in some detail in E. Gabriella Coleman's Coding Freedom, a book about Debian hackers and free software more generally. For most of us the journey into Linux and often free software more generally starts with distros like Ubuntu or Mint, which both make great starting points for anyone moving away from software like Windows. They're friendly for newcomers, they have graphical wrappers for most tools and for the most part they "just work".
But as you become more familiar with Linux and begin to dig deeper into the system, installing and customizing countless packages along the way, you will inevitably brush up against some disdain for the gateway distros like Ubuntu.
Criticisms range from the ideological -- the inclusion of non-free software, for example -- to the more practical -- some distros are slow to give their code back to the projects that form their core.
At some point the Linux newcomer, who is by now fast morphing into an intermediate or even advanced user, decides to install these source distros they've heard about on a spare partition or perhaps just a virtual machine. And the progression continues further down the rabbit hole until finally a new Debian user comes into the fold.
But there is often parallel transformation that happens under the surface of something as seemingly trivial as switching distros. Somewhere along the way the curious user morphs not just to a more advanced technical user, but a more involved user -- a user that isn't in it just for the software anymore, but is part of a philosophically different approach to software. And more involved users are exactly the people that make Debian, Debian.
To understand what the next 20 years of Debian will look like, you need look no further than the core document that has guided these first 20 years -- the legendary <a href="http://www.debian.org/social_contract">Debian Social Contract</a>. A kind of Catcher in the Rye of the free software movement, part of what gives the Debian Social Contract the power to galvanize young developers in the spirit of something bigger than just making cool software, is not just the ideas in it, but the elegant simplicity of it.
With Debian you know where you stand. Essentially you are Debian. To put another way, you can be as much a part of Debian as you would like; there are no barriers to entry and no requirements for use.
Open and welcoming though it may be, you are not Ubuntu. You are a user of Ubuntu. It's a subtle distinction perhaps, but it's also part of the contract -- you know where you stand. And that applies to high level philosophical ideals about free software as well as everyday stuff like release dates, which Debian doesn't have. Instead it has rough targets, but Debian releases are released when they are deemed ready and not before, even if that means targets are missed and new software arrives later than intended (this is part of why Debian offers a rolling distro, for those who'd prefer not to wait).
There are downsides to Debian's approach. The openness that comes with Debian's contract means that internal disputes and developer differences can be very loud and very public. Sometimes the divisiveness spills out into the larger Debian community in unpleasant ways. But, messy though it may sometimes be, the openness has nevertheless served Debian well.
Twenty years ago Murdock ended his manifesto with the warning that "the time has come to concentrate on the future of Linux rather than on the destructive goal of enriching oneself at the expense of the entire Linux community and its future." That warning feels every bit as necessary today when the lure of app stores and every other manner of tightly controlled development encroaches on Linux from all sides.
Even if you don't use Debian there's a good chance that you've benefited from the project over the last twenty years and there's an equally good chance you'll benefit from it again sometime over the next twenty years.
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