Most of us "users" rely on the upstream.

I was around for the first release of Devuan, I even installed it and it was good. But I had to stick with Ubuntu because I just refurbished some HP servers I cannot even remember the Generation, but MAAS was also so cool.

I have been using Debian as long as I remember, and I started with Slackware on 5" floppies in 1993.

You need to communicate in a way where users understand your concerns. Today I build YunoHost servers on Debian, rooted on BIND servers on Debian, MTAs on Debian, all as lean and mean as possible. I build some of this on ProxMox - a LOT of Debian-based 512 MB 10GB LXC containers, a LOT of upstream.

This is all I understand.