Debian Developer here. Some people take a very cursory look at Debian and assume the packaging is an exercise in masochism that we inflict on ourselves.
And yet the number of DDs keeps increasing (and Debian is one of most successful projects).
Indeed it takes time to do packaging, and this is by design. Packagers are expected to thoroughly review the code they are packaging and smooth out various sharp corners.
Many times I've found bugs in the upstream code while packaging. Sometimes around security and privacy, often around documentation, usability or non-x86 architectures.
Every time I check if other distributions opened bugs or applied patches for the same issues. It almost never happens.
This is why I might spend 2 hours on a package instead of 10 minutes.
It isn't a cursory look. I worked at Canonical. I used to do lots of Debian packaging. My packages on Arch aren't low-quality. Yet, the packaging process was a lot simpler and a lot more fun on Arch. Plus my package and dependencies are actually based on the stable packages and not a 4 year old patched 10x to maintain compatibility package due to a 3 year old kernel.
And yet the number of DDs keeps increasing (and Debian is one of most successful projects).
Indeed it takes time to do packaging, and this is by design. Packagers are expected to thoroughly review the code they are packaging and smooth out various sharp corners.
Many times I've found bugs in the upstream code while packaging. Sometimes around security and privacy, often around documentation, usability or non-x86 architectures.
Every time I check if other distributions opened bugs or applied patches for the same issues. It almost never happens.
This is why I might spend 2 hours on a package instead of 10 minutes.