Things in other are basically all individual projects. So they're not included in any overarching project or grouping. And I actually find that very interesting as it means that development is highly fragmented and distributions do an essential job in putting it all together.

I think it makes more sense than ever to call the operating system "Other" instead.

"So, what OS are you running?" "Debian Other on the laptop, Ubuntu Other at work"

This would also make the usage polls more relevant. You usually have "Windows", "OS X" and "Other" in the results already.