Sharing the work - Debian and cross platform

The Debian Project is an association of individuals who share the intention to create the best possible free operating system. This operating system is called Debian GNU/Linux, or simply Debian. Everybody on the Internet may initiate a site and offer Debian packages.

To make Free Software development work, it requires a critical mass of supporters. Development without feedback prior to the submission of the final product is disadvantageous. The development of programs is not the main concern of a regular Linux distribution. However, with the focus on Free Software and smooth local compilation, Debian considerably eases the contribution of comments and concise feedback of the technically skilled early adopters. Debian helps to bring developers and users of applications together.

With an increasing abstraction from the underlying hardware, e.g. via Java or various scripting languages, the actual platform becomes less of concern. The tools should work on any platform. So, the remoteness from the core infrastructure that renders keeping the platform-centric user community difficult, also helps finding contributors across platforms. The conditions under which those collaborations are most feasible are summarised in the Debian Policy and the Debian Free Software Guidelines.



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Andreas Tille 2010-12-10