Joey Hess Resigns From Debian, Unhappy With How It's Changed

[gerddie]

Well, well

In this case it is the opposite; Ian Jackson wants to remove the freedom of the developers and force them to support SysVinit,
since there apparently aren't enough volunteers to provide such support.

Well, his point is that packages should not depend on a specific init system, a point he already brought up in February, when the CTTE decision was made [1]. Considering that Debian/kFreeBSD and Debian/Hurd exist as projects and don't (yet?) have systemd, packages that are available on these systems must not depend on systemd anyway. And I see Ians point: It doesn't make much sense that e.g, CD burning program pulls in a specific init system thanks to a dependency chain that could provide different alternatives but for some not so technical reason doesn't.

In addition it seems to me that systemd is still a fast moving target, depending on it too tightly might not be a good idea at this point in time.

If he wins the GR Debian developers will have no choice in doing what Ian Jackson demands.

If "he wins" that means that the majority of the DDs have the same or a similar opinion.

What apparently triggered Joey's resignation was yet another bureaucratic party game proposal from Ian Jackson that overruled a developer decision without any real discussion period and AFAIK, without even consulting the developers.

Well, the initial decision regarding systemd as default init system was made by the CTTE, and there was a draw between the votes cast, which means the chair made the final decision [2]. There was no clear decision regarding the dependency problem. It seems that over the course of the last year more and more packages got (indirect) dependencies on systemd, and this made people feel uncomfortable. Ian Jackson proposed a GR about this dependency question and enough people seconded it, which means he is not alone in his doubts, he is probably just the most vocal one. I see this GR as a normal democratic process and I think Sam Hartman put it best [3].

regards,
Gert


[1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-ctte.../msg00447.html
[2] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugr...ug=727708#6734
[3] https://lists.debian.org/debian-proj.../msg00002.html

[dungeon]

To what distro is he moving?

Probably NixOS or GNU Guix, he explore nix package managment in recent years:

http://nixos.org/nix/

http://www.gnu.org/software/guix/

http://www.irill.org/videos/debconf13/Debian_Cosmology.webm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGrcLEweglg

You can see on these videos even two years ago he mention he does not like Debian Constitution from 1998, that is nothing new he said now again

[interested]

Well, his point is that packages should not depend on a specific init system, a point he already brought up in February, when the CTTE decision was made [1]. Considering that Debian/kFreeBSD and Debian/Hurd exist as projects and don't (yet?) have systemd, packages that are available on these systems must not depend on systemd anyway. And I see Ians point: It doesn't make much sense that e.g, CD burning program pulls in a specific init system thanks to a dependency chain that could provide different alternatives but for some not so technical reason doesn't.

This isn't about Jessie, but about Jessie+1. It has long been decided that Jessie should also support SysVinit. The point is that Ian Jackson is now making decisions for Jessie+1. Both his GR proposal and his further "clarifications" are instruments in ensuring that e.g. SysVinit should be a "co-default" init system in Jessie+1, but not only that, but also that software packages will be banned if they use systemd features that e.g. SysVinit doesn't support.

In addition it seems to me that systemd is still a fast moving target, depending on it too tightly might not be a good idea at this point in time.

Well, it has already been decided that systemd is the default init system for Jessie. While your opinion may be shared by others, it wasn't covered by the original CTTE decision. The whole point is exactly that it now isn't the Debian developers who are deciding what is good for Debian.

If "he wins" that means that the majority of the DDs have the same or a similar opinion.

Sure, but it will create an unprecedented situation. Ian Jackson's proposal isn't just a decision, but a tool to enforce developers and maintainers to do work on SysVinit support, even though such a support doesn't exist.

Think a Debian package maintainer where his upstream project decides to remove daemon privilege dropping after the second security bug found in the code. They instead choose to rely on the init system handling this, so they remove the insecure code and refactor at the same time while upping the version number. systemd can handle privilege dropping, but SysVinit can't.

This means that the package will now be banned from Debian, unless the package maintainer add privilege dropping support for SysVinit himself. Or he risk that someone from Ian's faction places a NMU patch turd in the maintainers repo; An invasive patch (because of the refactoring) with potential security holes. It will essentially be a fork of the program which will make life difficult for the maintainer since he no longer just can apply patches from upstream.

In this case the developer is blameless for the lack of SysVinit support, but it is up to him to resolve all problems. This isn't how Debian used to work and it probably won't be much fun to be a volunteer developer in such a case.

Well, the initial decision regarding systemd as default init system was made by the CTTE, and there was a draw between the votes cast, which means the chair made the final decision [2]. There was no clear decision regarding the dependency problem. It seems that over the course of the last year more and more packages got (indirect) dependencies on systemd, and this made people feel uncomfortable. Ian Jackson proposed a GR about this dependency question and enough people seconded it, which means he is not alone in his doubts, he is probably just the most vocal one. I see this GR as a normal democratic process and I think Sam Hartman put it best [3].

If you go back to the original decision, you will see that the CTTE exactly didn't specify a lot of policies regarding implementation of the decision. They did that because historically it has always been up to Debian developers to do that, and only call upon e.g. the help of the CTTE in case of disputes that can't be resolved.

But Ian Jackson has found a committee weasel trick to circumvent Debian developer influence on their own work, by referring to the original decision as reason for further CTTE decisions. That way their will no longer be any developer dispute necessary for the CTTE to interfere. It effectively promotes the CTTE to a permanent top down steering committee regarding everything systemd and other init systems.

Letting the CTTE make technical implementation decisions that overrules developer decisions after a short (3 day) vote/discussion, without anybody asking the CTTE for such a ruling is highly problematic.

https://lists.debian.org/debian-ctte/2014/11/msg00045.html

[artivision]

After what happened with OpenSSH i think we all know that are bad elements everywhere. And just one bad element can do damage even indirectly (less funding for example) if he has the position. You should always think that a system (capitalism, socialism, good vote, god, linux) can't help people, there isn't magic correction, nor some hero will do it for all of as. People must take the responsibility and the trouble to help them selves, that way they compensate for all the gainings in life with their work, you should all know that even miracles will require compensation eventually. So to my opinion responsibility and work must be done to secure our achievements with free software, to do more achievements even with free hardware, p2p Internet, free energy and 3D precise printers, to remake linux to be for all people (d3d-gamers for example) and never think that we solve our problems magically with linux.

[interested]

Unrelated to Joey Hess leaving Debian, but Colin Watson is stepping down from the Debian Technical Committee: https://lists.debian.org/debian-ctte.../msg00052.html.

It looks like he is tired of the seeming endless political games that Ian Jackson plays, with endless "proposals" that require people to read hundreds of mails a day on several lists just to keep up. They are turning Debian away from being a fun-driven project, to a bureaucratic top down project where procedural matters is more important than code. Whether Ian Jackson wins or lose this GR, he will bury the CTTE with even more proposals in order to have his way. This will sap strength from Debian and anyone involved in it.

[gens]

It looks like he is tired of the seeming endless political games that Ian Jackson plays, with endless "proposals" that require people to read hundreds of mails a day on several lists just to keep up. They are turning Debian away from being a fun-driven project, to a bureaucratic top down project where procedural matters is more important than code. Whether Ian Jackson wins or lose this GR, he will bury the CTTE with even more proposals in order to have his way. This will sap strength from Debian and anyone involved in it.

what is your problem ?
did any one of those two people even mention Ian or systemd ?
why are you shoehorning your belief that everyone should blindly accept systemd into everything ?

Joey said that he didn't like the whole Debian constitution thing from its start
damn it, let the man leave with some respect

[GreatEmerald]

Oh god no, I'm helplessly falling behind! At this point I'd appreciate it if someone wanted to help with those. There's just so much information to go through and summarise, and the amount just keeps increasing...

[Baconmon]

Debian is d best

I know this wasn't a response to me, but I am going to throw my 2 cents in any way..

Well, his point is that packages should not depend on a specific init system, a point he already brought up in February, when the CTTE decision was made [1].

Would he have been pushing this hard on non-dependence of the init system if upstart had won instead of systemd??
Do you think he would really be saying "NO! We can't have packages just depend on upstart! We need to let them be coupled with any thing so they can be used with things like systemd!"..
He worked for ubuntu, which by its self isn't bad, but his actions and attitude makes it seem like he still wants to just help ubuntu out no matter the cost..

In addition it seems to me that systemd is still a fast moving target, depending on it too tightly might not be a good idea at this point in time.

I don't see why that is a bad idea.. Updates will get slower as it matures.. And even if the GR vote passes, devs would still have to make packages work with systemd any way still, right? Along with all the other init systems..

If "he wins" that means that the majority of the DDs have the same or a similar opinion.

He also worded it very sneakily.. He carefully crafted every sentence to talk about "protecting the freedom in debian" or some crap.. It is very obvious when you read his proposal.. It is the same thing political campaigns do to try to sway naive people in to voting for some thing that in reality hinders them, such as the "Right to work" thing we have in some states in the USA; It sounds like a good thing, but actually hurts the normal working people..

Well, the initial decision regarding systemd as default init system was made by the CTTE, and there was a draw between the votes cast

Wouldn't have been a draw if ian jackson was kicked out of debian like he should be..

[drSeehas]

... You will go to BSD from Linux??? Very unusual things, is there anyone else in the world like that?

Yes, at least me.

[DMJC]

Systemd

I am a long time Debian user, 10+ years now. I hate systemd. Yes, I can see the appeal, having pretty multicoloured dmesg trace logs. But what I don't like about it is this:

After upgrading to OSX Yosemite. My Boot bombed out into a single user mode under the new systemd startup process. Upon debugging/troubleshooting I determined it was because (and I am not making this up) OSX's partition failed to mount and it was listed in /etc/fstab. Now explain to me, why the fuck an incorrect fstab entry that is NOT the ROOT / filesystem, and not related to /bin or /sbin etc, why the hell that should cause a system to be unbootable? That's like nuking a Windows startup because a USB stick wasn't plugged in. That is a huge step backwards for usability.