On Sun, May 26, 2019 at 07:28:55PM +0200, Vincent Bernat wrote: > > We "uphold this reputation" by maintaining many packages, which is > > good. > > Do we? I am now using nix to get packages for stuff not in Debian. Our > package count is artificially inflated by *-perl packages, golang-* > packages which may not be present in some other distributions. But for > some ecosystems, we are severely behind. We may argue we are better on > some metrics, but this has nothing to do with the fact we have so many > ways to build a package.
Some Debian Med people are concerned about the droping usage of Debian Med packages since people prefer BioConda[1] over it. There is even a scientific paper (I've only seen a printed version not online yet) who compares ways to package biology software. We are way better than other distributions - but we are lagging begind BioConda a lot. We have some upstreams who are doing Debian packaging by the help of the Debian Med team but that's just a minor fraction. Lots of BioConda packages are maintained by Upstream since they consider it easy. In short: Our "reputation" is scaring people away to favour other techniques. Kind regards Andreas. [1] https://bioconda.github.io/ -- http://fam-tille.de