[rakslice]

What's more volatile than a discussion with a group of enthusiasts with chips on their shoulders made of pure sodium? A discussion that pits two such groups against each other.

When it comes to binary compatibility, Debian's answer is basically the same as the App Store's: Use only our official packages and you won't have to worry about compatibility.

With all the flamey comparisons about the contents of the iPhone App Store and Official Debian Repositories, who develops for each, and what their motivations are, what's getting lost is that in each case what connects the developers with officialdom is some kind of approval process. By investigating the App Store's approval process, the Debian project can get a lot of ideas about what they might want to add to their own approval process (and what they might want to remove from it).