Re: Q: number of project members

On Tue, May 15, 2018 at 10:56:56AM +0800, Paul Wise wrote:
> >  https://www.debian.org/intro/about.en.html#who describes "Debian is produced
> >  by almost a thousand active developers spread around the world who volunteer
> >  in their spare time." but how do we count this?
> 
> We don't, the website hard-codes that number and it hasn't been
> updated since 2002.
> 
> Presumably it means developers in the "DDs" or Debian members sense,
> so it isn't counting Debian contributors either:
> 
> https://contributors.debian.org/

These numbers are so inaccurate it's not really worth it to bother:
should a DD who hasn't made an upload in ten years be counted?  Should a
non-DD non-DM contributor who maintains 86 packages for one and half
decades?  Then, don't forget that a good part of the credit should go to
upstreams who actually wrote the software.  And so on.

Thus, saying that Debian is produced "by almost a thousand active
developers" is the most accurate figure we can honestly give.


Meow!