[fstrthnscnd]

> Most of the good features that people associate with Ubuntu are actually in Debian, with none of the proprietary weirdness that creeps into Ubuntu year over year.

A lot of what you find in Debian also comes from what Ubuntu does. In fact, I believe that many people hired by Ubuntu in the early days were experienced maintainers for Debian.

20 years ago, the problem was all about getting Linux consumer desktop friendly. On the server side, it was mostly OK, people there were not afraid of a TTY, because it was the primary entry point to learning Linux, and Unix in general, whereas in the Windows world, people first approach was (and still is) the GUI. Debian wasn't as good as it is today in the desktop area.

Ubuntu appeared on the market mainly to solve that problem (they were not the first ones to do that), and "leverage" on the acquired expertise to make money.

Nowadays, the money is in servers and IoT, so they are focusing to that segment of the market.

The nature of open source meant that of course, Debian benefits from their work.