Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

["Canek Peláez Valdés" <caneko@gmail.com>]

On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 1:30 PM, Frank Peters <frank.peters@comcast.net> wrote:
> On Sun, 21 Sep 2014 12:37:58 -0500
> Canek Peláez Valdés <caneko@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> This last part is important; if you don't like systemd, bitching about
>> it will do nothing: you have to use and contribute to the
>> alternatives. Linux (and Gentoo) are about choice, as long as there is
>> someone willing and able to provide that choice; no one will
>> (necessarily) provide that choice for you out of nothing.
>>
>
> The kind of choice I am speaking about is the choice of "rolling
> your own."  I want to be able to control and customize my system
> in a way that I deem fit.  The kernel, after it loads and does its
> initialization thing, passes control onto an arbitrary program for
> further configuration.  This simple design allows extreme versatility
> and customization for those who want it while also permitting more
> complex schemes as well.

To "roll your own", somebody needs to provide the parts, and test that
the integration works. Nobody (necessarily) will do it for you; and
you can contribute by testing the parts you use and the integration
among them. You can use OpenRC + eudev + ubus + Xfce, help detect the
problems in them, and help reporting the issues when they don't work
correctly together.

If you don't do it, and nobody else does, then don't act surprised if
eventually everybody uses systemd, because there is people working on
it and testing it in different configurations.

> In this case, there is no contribution to be made.  There can only
> be a rant about leaving things the way they are.

Wrong: see above.

> How do you feel about the accuracy of the following statements which
> are taken from a related web page at http://uselessd.darknedgy.net ?

It's a bunch of (very entertaining) FUD. To me, it losses all
credibility when it ascertains "Distro maintainers are lazy". Well
then, I expect that he maintains his own distro.

Also, I find it highly ironic that, after *years* of bashing systemd
and its design, when *no other* init system seems able to be a proper
competition, the next thing the systemd-haters try is to announce a
brand new init... by forking systemd. So, its design is not so bad
after all, right? Otherwise, they would have started from scratch.

> "Most core Linux applications and even the kernel are developed by
> a handful of companies, largely by Red Hat (who inherited much of the
> work on GNU after acquiring Cygnus Solutions, thus also leading GNOME
> and various other projects), who also support the opaque Freedesktop.org
> standards.

FUD. In systemd (and GNOME, for that matter) work people from *many*
companies; RedHat is obviously among them, but it also has developers
from Mageia, ProFusion (recently acquired by Intel), Canonical, Suse,
Collabora, Sun, IBM, etc., etc., etc. Also, it has contributors from
basically every distribution out there (including Gentoo). You can get
a list of contributors from the git repository using:

git log --format='%aN'

and then you don't need to trust anyone, but the code itself.

> "systemd is designed to be perpetually rolling software, not all that
> different from a kernel in user space, as was elucidated in a 2014 GNOME
> Asia talk. It has no clearly defined purpose beyond that other than the
> vague 'basic building block to make an OS from' ...

I actually agree with systemd being perpetually rolling software, but
I think it's a good thing. Gentoo itself is a rolling released
distribution; systemd fits perfectly with our distro; I've been using
it since 2010 in servers, desktops, laptops and everything I can put
it on, like my media center.

I don't know right now, but there was a point when I was pretty sure
systemd worked better on Gentoo than on Fedora. It's possible that
it's the case now.

Lastly, if someone sees "basic building block to make an OS from" like
something "vague", then she should do her homework.

> "The end goal appears to be the creation of what we dub a Grand Unified
> Linux Operating System (GULOS) and the destruction of the Linux distribution
> altogether beyond cosmetic changes. GnomeOS, in particular. The latter is
> actually a thing that GNOME aspire to accomplish."

I think unification among distributions is an excellent goal, but it
doesn't mean that distros will lose its identity. They will just work
better between them.

Also, I think there will be always distributions that will work with
SysV, or OpenRC, or what have you. It's Free Software.

> IMO such planning and goals are slowly taking over the Linux ecosystem.
> After all, RedHat cannot offer a fragmented and "hobbyist" OS to its paying
> corporate clients.  Only a "Grand Unified Linux OS," a la Microsoft Windows,
> can compete in a professional market, and RedHat will thus lead the way in
> destroying the simplicity of Linux.

Sorry, but I call it FUD. Truth is, everything in this discussion
(systemd, OpenRC, Linux, GNOME, even uselessd) is Free Software.
Therefore, nothing  is stopping anyone to take the software and
stripping out the things they don't like about it... which, BTW, is
exactly what the guy in uselessd is doing.

> These trends should be alarming to us all.

Why? Because developers are writing software as best as they think
they can? You cannot stop any developer from writing whatever the hell
they want and releasing it as Free Software. You cannot stop users
from using said software. You cannot stop distro maintainers from
deciding that software X or Y is the best option for a distribution.

In the Free Software world, you cannot stop anyone from nothing. The
only thing you can do is providing more software, or helping someone
else to provide it.

Which brings me back to my original post. Don't like systemd? Help the
competition.

Otherwise you can of course rant, but in the end that will do nothing.

Regards.
-- 
Canek Peláez Valdés
Profesor de asignatura, Facultad de Ciencias
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México