There are 2 XKCD's on this

Posted Jul 18, 2024 11:16 UTC (Thu) by smoogen (subscriber, #97)
Parent article: Distribution quote of the week

The first one is the obvious one which is about standards and how trying to build a better one does not seem to work as wanted: https://xkcd.com/927/

The second one is https://xkcd.com/1782/ which I think hints at the underlying human dynamics at play. [I expect we can find another 8 or 9 xkcd's also.]

In general the 'problem'* is that distributions like Debian are built around a level of confederacy which does not allow for many 'we will do X by default' decisions. Each set of systems has its own 'freehold' of developers who are self-organized to do the things they want to do within the overall rules of the organization.. but each group has its own identity formed by the choices that group has made. Trying to get them to change generally goes as well as telling a French speaking district of Switzerland that the national language is now Italian and everyone needs to speak it by default.

* I put 'problem' in quotes because it isn't a problem except to people wondering why things are so 'chaotic' in Debian land compared to some other distributions. :)