On 14/02/16 01:56, Yaroslav Halchenko wrote: > > On Sun, 14 Feb 2016, Aurelien Jarno wrote: >>> https://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/lscdatagrid/doc/reference-platform.html > >>> The Ganglia graph (top right corner of the page) appears to be generated >>> on a Debian host using the official packages (it has ganglia-webfrontend >>> in the URL) > >>> Drill down into the Ganglia reports and we can even see things like >>> kernel package version > >>> http://silkspectre.cgca.uwm.edu/ganglia/?r=hour&cs=&ce=&m=os_release&s=by+name&c=NEMO&h=&host_regex=&max_graphs=0&tab=m&vn=&sh=1&z=small&hc=4 > >>> os_release: 3.16.0-0.bpo.4-amd64 > > >> Please have a look at the article (BTW released under CC license): > >> https://journals.aps.org/prl/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102 > >> The article itself has one thousand of authors from 133 different >> institutes member of the LIGO and VIRGO cooperation. It is a result of >> a huge amount of work by thousands of persons in the last 15 years to >> design, build, improve, operate the instrument, but also to work on the >> theory or simulation. > >> For sure Debian has been used somewhere, just like Slackware, MS-DOS, >> HP-UX or any other system have helped at some moment. Just looking at >> one random website from one small subpart of the whole project to >> conclude about the Debian implication in the whole project just doesn't >> make sense. It is just like deducing that pelican helps the Debian >> project because it is used on the Debian blog. > > FWIW that link > https://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/lscdatagrid/doc/reference-platform.html > at least now has already explicit listing > > Reference Operating Systems > > Scientific Linux 6.1 > Debian 6.0 Squeeze > CentOS 5.3 (to be deprecated) > Debian 5.0, Lenny (to be deprecated) > > So I guess Debian was of some notable help, and I am really glad that our work > at least tiny bit contributed to this event. But that is it. Somewhat > twisting while overall agreeing with the point of Aurelien's reply -- > Debian was probably used somewhere along the way of any recent sizeable > research endeavor simply because it is used in so many scenarios and places. > > Was Debian indispensable? probably not, was it facilitating? hopefully yes. >
I don't think anybody was suggesting it was indispensable. Nonetheless, Debian appears to have been chosen over other alternatives and mentioned in a few places It would be interesting to ask the more general question if free software is indispensable for such efforts though