Indeed. All the above concerned what looks like official communication from the project only, not what they choose to spend their time on. But it's important to give a fair picture of yoru project to the outside world, if not for other reasons than simply to avoid hordes of thankless users demanding support.

It's a bit unfortunate when articles like the Ars one paints this as a desktop operating system for end users. It's clearly not what they're aiming for, and it only reinforces the commonly held view that Linux is somehow for nerds only.

Ubuntu seems to still be the desktop operating system to recommend for non-technical users, but between Unity and the shopping lenses we desperately need a plan B.

> Does it have to be Debian?

No, but Debian does bring so much of the solid foundation "for free" that I feel it is probably the easiest way to get there. Debian has had a mostly working upgrade path for some 20 years now, which is simply outstanding.

What's missing is mainly a well polished default GUI, including the ability to discover and install new software. Debian is simply too flexible for a non-technical user. It must probably also take care not to break the most non-free software.