I've written plenty about debian-installer before, so just a few points:

  • The name? It sucks. Being completely generic ("THE Debian Installer") is fine, but it's so long it had to get abbreviated to d-i, and we're never sure if it's ok to upper-case it to Debian-Installer, or whether or not to hyphenate it. Also, the fact that it is called the "Debian installer" makes it less visible that it's also the Ubuntu, Skolelinux, DCC, LliureX, etc installers.

    Now Anaconda, there's a good name that can get some brand recognition of its own. I shoulda picked a name like that.

  • This is the only free software project I've completely left, and later returned to. The really suprising bit is that the time after my absense has been such a great run of development on the installer.

  • This is the only free software project I've managed to sucessfully hand off leadership to someone else, one and a half times.

  • By far more people have contributed to this project than to any other project I've started. It's got a life of its own, for sure.

  • If I used the same rules I've used for picking the previous 20 entries in this series I could do ten or more within d-i itself. I think you're getting tired of reading this stuff though, so I won't.

  • Somehow it keeps on seeming worthwhile to debug the tricky problems, get on the planes, read the installation reports, and encourage the good ideas. No sign of it stopping.

Next: ten years of free software -- part 22 work