[mjw1007]

I don't think there's a good way to measure Debian's contributions outside strictly packaging its distribution.

If a Debian developer, or a group of Debian developers, sets out to solve some problem that isn't Debian-specific, the result is (quite correctly) seen as a new independent free-software project rather than a Debian project.

For example, as I understand it the reproducible builds project (now reproducible-builds.org) started out inside Debian, then became a thing of its own.

[debiandev]

Correct. Plenty of Debian Developers work full time on other software projects. Very often with synergies with Debian.

Yet there's no obvious way for people to realize to what extent Debian influences other projects and companies.