Debian To Seek A General Resolution Over Their Init System Policy

[fsfhfc2018]

One of the issues I have with the way systemD has been set up and developed boils down to the making use cases for those who don't want it unnecessarily difficult to implement and maintain.

This has several names now: Gratuitous interdependency (Steve Litt) Redix (anti-POSIX, my own) Punix (someone from the FSF) and "open source proprietary software" or OSPS (not mine.)

The easiest way to get away with such a design is to pretend it doesn't exist or is even possible. And yet the number of respected and respectable people who know it exists have only increased over the years. This isn't some passing fantasy, it is a widely criticised tactic that quite a lot of people are perfectly happy with the results of-- enough to pretend it doesn't exist, and that everybody who notices it is stupid or absurd.

There are ultimately cult tactics being used against critics, as well as censorship used to manufacture consensus (as documented thoroughly by Daniel Pocock.) The truth is, a lot of the reason critics seem like a minority these days is they keep getting shut down by pushy fanboys of "Hobson's choice." It makes free software less free, and open source less open, but we can pretend that nobody important cares. Even Bruce Perens (2nd DPL ever, author of DFSG, author of Open Source Definition, co-founder of OSI) uses Devuan. Is he really an idiot? You can't censor him like all the other critics, but some people can dismiss him. There is far more to it than great software to gaining a near monopoly-- it takes dirty pool as well. And a few years at least to expose the sham for what it is.

[L_A_G]

My point here is that everyone should get to decide what to do with their time. Everybody has things going on. Developing open source software is in itself something going on. Giving feedback is good, but expecting that feedback to be taken into account equates telling someone else what to do with their time, and that's not good.

At what point did I insist that people should drop what they're doing and do as I say? Did you actually read all that from my criticism of how systemD has been set up and developed? Because by that logic all criticisms as extensive as mine demands that people drop what they're doing and do what they think they should. This is about as asinine of an argument as the "Well you should either take loads of your time to work on a replacement or not bring up any valid criticisms you may have" deflection that I was originally replying to.

And here is where I blatantly contradict myself. If we're all selfish and dismissive, we won't get anything that works for most. If you have a vision for a whole ecosystem based on your project, you'll have to listen to some of the feedback, or you'll end up with a mess that your users will try (albeit hardly) to get rid of.

So I guess there should be a middle ground.

One of the issues I have with the way systemD has been set up and developed boils down to the making use cases for those who don't want it unnecessarily difficult to implement and maintain. As you can see from what's going on with Debian, the additional maintenance burden is causing them to reconsider supporting these use cases.

There's nothing that I can see which actually prevents the systemD developers from returning to more unics-esque philosophy and removing most of my concerns with it. However Lennart & Co instead chose not to do this and have simply scoffed at the idea, claiming that this approach is old fashioned and unnecessary.

[mrugiero]

The entire Linux open source project: kernel + userland dum dum.

Yeah, I know what you meant, I was joking
However, it's still arguable in the sense that they are multiple smaller projects.
And, specifically, while I should have made it explicit, I was pointing at the one with the most users.

Not sure what you're trying to say here... My point is that most people have lots of things going on and just don't have the time to work on a replacement for a fairly substantial amount of useful, albeit badly implemented, software so claiming that you need to be putting substantial time into working on a replacement for that software to be allowed to criticize said software is just plain asinine.

My point here is that everyone should get to decide what to do with their time. Everybody has things going on. Developing open source software is in itself something going on.
Giving feedback is good, but expecting that feedback to be taken into account equates telling someone else what to do with their time, and that's not good.

That said, I agree with most of your concerns, though I should check the facts and I just haven't yet.

Unfortunately as we can see in this thread, and basically every other thread on this subject, is that there's plenty of people who will dismiss these criticisms out of hand. Worse yet, they're really just following Lennart & Co's lead as they're infamous for having a very similar cavalier attitude towards criticisms and even bug reports in their own bug tracker.

And here is where I blatantly contradict myself. If we're all selfish and dismissive, we won't get anything that works for most.
If you have a vision for a whole ecosystem based on your project, you'll have to listen to some of the feedback, or you'll end up with a mess that your users will try (albeit hardly) to get rid of.

So I guess there should be a middle ground.

[L_A_G]

There's no need to disprove anything, tho.
You choose to have kids, hobbies and home life in general.
It's OK, and actually useful, to voice concerns and point out deficiencies. The best place to do so is in the bug tracker or mailing list, where they'll actually be seen, but of course you can do so wherever you want. It just won't be really effective to the change you want to achieve.
What is not OK is to expect to decide what others do with their time.
Nobody forces you to have children, or to not have them, nor tells you how to raise them. That's how you choose to use your time. You should have the same respect for other people's time. It's not like software maintainers make no sacrifice in other aspects of life to get to work on what they like. And, in the case of full time employees, they do what they get paid to do, they don't really have much of a choice.
When you pay someone for their time, then you get a tell on how it's used, and only *after* you both agreed on how (so, forcing money into someone's pocket doesn't get you a tell).

Not sure what you're trying to say here... My point is that most people have lots of things going on and just don't have the time to work on a replacement for a fairly substantial amount of useful, albeit badly implemented, software so claiming that you need to be putting substantial time into working on a replacement for that software to be allowed to criticize said software is just plain asinine.

Unfortunately as we can see in this thread, and basically every other thread on this subject, is that there's plenty of people who will dismiss these criticisms out of hand. Worse yet, they're really just following Lennart & Co's lead as they're infamous for having a very similar cavalier attitude towards criticisms and even bug reports in their own bug tracker.

[L_A_G]

Could you provide a link to that discussion? I've gone over my posts for over one year back (huge thanks for having me waste a portion of my weekend) and the only ones that I could find from you to me is your constant "there is a rat's nest of dependencies" without any further explanation or detail. Your recent post about logind was the only example that I could find.

Well you have an example right now so you can stop acting like I've never explained it. Honestly, I really can't be bothered to go back trough my post history on the subject as I've been bringing forward these criticisms for years now to be met by the same out of hand dismissals by the same people.

You cannot redefine the word "cross-dependency" and then make claims about it! Point to a single instance in systemd where the pid 1 binary of systemd have any dependency on logind what so ever.

You're using a very narrow technical definition of a dependency there. If you want to find dependency issues just look no further than the issues the Deband developers have had with maintaining support for alternatives and why they're now considering the support is worth the effort.

In fact I just now booted up a copy of CentOS7 in Virtualbox, removed /lib/systemd/systemd-logind, rebooted and it booted up just fine to a console. So the only way that your idea can work is if you redefine cross-dependency to be something else than what it is.

booted up just fine to a console

to a console

Yeah... The cross-dependency issues with loginD have been with DEs like Gnome and you're trying to insist a use case without one is somehow proof of these issues not being real. That's like insisting that catalytic converters didn't sap the power from cars when they were legally mandated by using a car that never had one.

More code leads to higher chances of bugs yes, but you are arguing that the systemd project bringing in more utilities to their repository somehow increases the security of systemd running as pid 1. Now that might not be what you are trying to argue but that is how you comes across.

I'm obviously not talking about utilities here and instead assuming basic level of competence from you.

Still not an analogue to "the implementation is botched". The (claimed) behaviour when replying to bug-reports is not and can not be seen as comparable to the implementation of a piece of software.

Now I get it... You just didn't get what the analogue was about and not the analogue itself.

The analogue was about how and why the two issues feed into each other so much as to effectively be the same issue. If you're anal beyond the point of being reasonable you can call then separate, but with the way they feed into each other they are still effectively part of the same issue.

To use another analogue; It's like how the self-certification and the need to cater to airlines' wishes to the detriment of safety came together to cause the 737-Max's MCAS safety system to become a deathtrap of bad thinking and workmanship. If they'd have sorted one or the other then the issue would have been much lesser or even resolved before it went badly wrong, but when they came together things went very wrong.

[fsfhfc2018]

The entitlement of the anti-systemd users that send zero patched but expect others is really annoying.

Hear, hear-- what kind of idiot says "don't break my operating system" without working to patch the things that the people they're making demands of are breaking instead of leaving well alone?

Who are these "users" telling people "I want the stability and reliability I've spent over a decade becoming accustomed to, not your fancy unstable nonsense." Get your own OS, neckbeards! One does not simply "Ask IBM for favours." Patch the sabs code, won't you lazy gits?

[BeardedGNUFreak]

What does Firefox have to do with any of this?

The entire Linux open source project: kernel + userland dum dum.

[mrugiero]

The point is, someone at Google thought it was easier to maintain these OOT patches and get a standalone journald than to switch completely to systemd for Chrome OS.
Chrome OS uses upstart still, and I doubt a single board/laptop maker ships Chrome OS with anything else. It also uses the original udev fork and has it's own session manager. Here are the updates made to upstart for Chome OS: https://chromium.googlesource.com/ch...s-apps/upstart

Using journald while rejecting systemd strikes me as an odd choice. Not that it makes it any less valid.
On switching to systemd, it isn't trivial, it would take several spins, so it makes a lot of sense they don't migrate just now. More so considering they are working in Zircon, so that kind of effort sounds futile.

As I told you already, this "Well you make something better then"-counter is just a completely non-productive attempt at trying to shut down criticism. It does absolutely nothing to disprove the criticism and merely tries to stop that criticism being potentially channeled into productive suggestions and improvements. Most people just don't have the time or energy to develop something as substantial as this in their free time on top of work, kids, hobbies and home life in general. However that doesn't mean that only the minority who do have the energy and spare time to do something as substantial as this in their spare time without the rest of their life suffering as a consequence.

There's no need to disprove anything, tho.
You choose to have kids, hobbies and home life in general.
It's OK, and actually useful, to voice concerns and point out deficiencies. The best place to do so is in the bug tracker or mailing list, where they'll actually be seen, but of course you can do so wherever you want. It just won't be really effective to the change you want to achieve.
What is not OK is to expect to decide what others do with their time.
Nobody forces you to have children, or to not have them, nor tells you how to raise them. That's how you choose to use your time. You should have the same respect for other people's time. It's not like software maintainers make no sacrifice in other aspects of life to get to work on what they like. And, in the case of full time employees, they do what they get paid to do, they don't really have much of a choice.
When you pay someone for their time, then you get a tell on how it's used, and only *after* you both agreed on how (so, forcing money into someone's pocket doesn't get you a tell).

A conversation needs to take place in the Linux community once the SystemD fiasco has been clean up about how a single clown backed by a corporation was able to hijack the biggest open source project in the world.

What does Firefox have to do with any of this?

[BeardedGNUFreak]

The thing that is most sickening about the SystemD Fiasco is how every day it goes on is just one more day it is going to be before the monumental cleanup effort it is going to start to clean up the giant steaming turd that has taken over Linux.

Remember how this disaster started? It was these very same fanboys in this thread now babbling about how SystemD was making Linux boot faster than Windows and now the year of Desktop Linux was about to arrive. That was all it took to create a legion of braindead fanboys to let the SystemD camel's nose under the door.

A conversation needs to take place in the Linux community once the SystemD fiasco has been clean up about how a single clown backed by a corporation was able to hijack the biggest open source project in the world. And how how the gatekeepers and safeguard technical committees were able to be hijacked by activists and fanboys to ram this garbage down the Linux community's throat.

[F.Ultra]

Wow, have you noticed that it's always the pro-systemD astroturfers that try to get the last word on every thread about Lennart?

Astroturfer? Have words lost their meaning completely nowadays?

So if we don't reply then it's because we cannot provide any arguments and if we do reply then we are trying to get the last word. Yeah that isn't disingenuous in any way or form...