So sayeth the email list: Debian celebrates its 17th birthday.

I first came across Debian in 1998 around version 1.3 or so, and moved to it from Slackware (my first(ish) Linux) not only because the package management seemed a bit like magic, but the dot com I started working at used it as the base of it's software stack. I've bounced in and out of the Debian world over the last 12 years, flirting for a while with Gentoo and others, and currently running Ubuntu (a variant of Debian of course). Huge applause for the team for creating and constantly putting out a high quality and stable product, a shining example of the power and success of open source.