Quoting Holger Levsen (2026-03-03 14:45:49) > On Tue, Mar 03, 2026 at 09:32:40AM +0100, Jonas Smedegaard wrote: > > Debian Pure Blend: a subset of Debian that is configured to support > > a particular target group out-of-the-box. > > > > Debian-Edu: a subset of Debian that is configured in violation of > > Debian Policy to support a particular target group out-of-the-box. > > > > Just like your argument back in 2008 that 99.999% is "just" a > > rounding error away from being pure, Debian-Edu is "just" a > > configuration violation away from being Debian. > > I still do not understand why you single out #311188 so much, because > Debian, Debian Edu and any distro/blend based on Debian has many many > policy violations as https://bugs.debian.org/release-critical/ tracks > nicely and #311188 is just one of the many.
Policy violations generally mean that the involved package is kept from being part of distribution releases. Bug#311188 is a policy violation deliberately constructed to fly under the radar: Release managers tolerate it, because the problematic code only triggers when the package is installed on custom media outside of Debian. All the pieces for Debian-Edu is in Debian, but Debian-Edu only fully unfolds as a fork of Debian. When making a custom distribution, an important design choice to make is whether to fork Debian or work within Debian. Debian thrives by having users, also "passive" users that do not contribute back to Debian, and also "indirect" contributors that share how their fork achieves some goals that Debian can the consider reimplementing inside Debian. Debian however has the strongest value in direct contributing developers working on improving Debian itself, implementing their goals by making Debian ever more configurable while still upholding the core rules that defines the technical structure of Debian - Debian Policy. Someone wanting to achieve some new goal may look at earlier famous projects like Debian-edu or Debian-Junior for inspiration. I then find it important that we have words to describe, that Debian-Edu is a fork and Debian-Junior is not. And that we have bugreports like bug#311188 to document the nature of such 0.00001% fork. Thanks for asking, - Jonas -- * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt * Tlf.: +45 40843136 Website: http://dr.jones.dk/ * Sponsorship: https://ko-fi.com/drjones [x] quote me freely [ ] ask before reusing [ ] keep private
