If GNOME doesn't work with Debian's systemd-shim, are they going to accept patches to fix it? Or will it be up to Debian to maintain those patches?
> 2. There was no dichotomous choice to make.
They didn't make a dichotomous choice. They made systemd the default, but maintained the ability to switch to another init system [1].
[1]: https://packages.debian.org/sid/init-system-helpers
> Debian could have let you decide whether or not to install systemd. Instead, the project decided to essentially force the use of systemd, necessitating a fork.
If this is "essentially forcing" the use of systemd, then what possible choice would have counted as not forcing it other than making sysv the default?
> 4. Language-related package manager do make things difficult for an OS distribution, at least somewhat - but that's not particular to Debian.
You're not wrong, but most Linux distributions either don't have "LTS" releases [2], or they have commercial backing.
[2]: Not having to backport security fixes saves them a lot of hassle.
> 1. Admit the Devuan people were right and re-merge the distributions.
Right about what? Devuan/Debian is hardly a comparable situation to LibreOffice/OpenOffice. It's more like the relationship between Librewolf and Firefox, where a bunch of loud fans are praising the fork to the sky, but most of the developers are still working on the original project and the "fork" is busy rebasing their patches onto each new upstream release.
> 2. Recruit, offering a self-training track for aspiring package maintainers.
That would be great, but are there volunteers lined out the door who want to join the program, and just can't? Or is it boring, frustrating work that few people are interested in?
> 3. Modernize some of their tooling (as people seem to be complaining about that)
I actually agree with this point, but I'm not sure if this is the primary problem, or if it's just a minor issue that distracts from the main problem.
> 4. Fundraise effectively, to finance the above.
There is no Debian Foundation. They would have to have somewhere to send the funds to, before they'd be able to collect it. Obviously, this is almost as contentious as systemd was [3].
