While apt is a piece of the puzzle, it's the only concrete part of it that you can talk about. The repositorys have great coverage, only extremely obscure software won't be in debian. The debian policy means you get extremely high quality packages. Apt means that all of this is trivial to manage from a users PoV. Saying apt is what makes debian great is like saying flying makes aeroplanes great. While a paraglider does meet the requirement of flying, what's important is where you're going and how quickly you'll get there, flying is fun, and the obvious difference over a motorcar it's not the important part of why you are in a plane in the first place.
I agree entirely. The great thing about Debian is the project not the tools or the package format. The tools are just the enablers for end users. The last thing I want is for Debian to go away (even as a Fedora Core user). What I want is my distro of choice (Fedora) to get as good as Debian in the package repository and package building areas (we already have the user end package management tools thanks to Debian ;). Regards -- Oliver Jones » Roving Code Warrior oliver(a)deeperdesign.com » +64 (21) 41 2238 » www.deeperdesign.com