[gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Frank Peters]

For any who need opposing information on systemd, check out the
following web page:

http://boycottsystemd.org

This page was referenced on Slashdot recently and contains
a good overview of the undesirability of systemd.  Of course,
Gentoo is mentioned as one of the few remaining distributions
that still offer a choice.

For me, point #7 is particularly odious:

"7. systemd is viral by its very nature. Its scope in functionality
and creeping in as a dependency to lots of packages means that distro
maintainers will have to necessitate a conversion, or suffer a drift.
As an example, the GNOME environment has adopted systemd as a hard
dependency..."

I do not oppose systemd.  In fact, I'd rather not care about it in the least.
But I want to be able to implement the boot process and system configuration
in my own way and it seems that systemd will threaten that in the future.

Take particular note of the end section "What You Can Do."  There
are plenty of alternatives and such an array of choices is what
has always made Linux highly interesting, attractive, and useful.
We all need to insist on keeping it this way.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Canek Peláez Valdés]

On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 12:25 PM, Frank Peters <frank.peters@comcast.net> wrote:
> For any who need opposing information on systemd, check out the
> following web page:
>
> http://boycottsystemd.org
>
> This page was referenced on Slashdot recently and contains
> a good overview of the undesirability of systemd.  Of course,
> Gentoo is mentioned as one of the few remaining distributions
> that still offer a choice.
>
> For me, point #7 is particularly odious:
>
> "7. systemd is viral by its very nature. Its scope in functionality
> and creeping in as a dependency to lots of packages means that distro
> maintainers will have to necessitate a conversion, or suffer a drift.
> As an example, the GNOME environment has adopted systemd as a hard
> dependency..."
>
> I do not oppose systemd.  In fact, I'd rather not care about it in the least.
> But I want to be able to implement the boot process and system configuration
> in my own way and it seems that systemd will threaten that in the future.
>
> Take particular note of the end section "What You Can Do."  There
> are plenty of alternatives and such an array of choices is what
> has always made Linux highly interesting, attractive, and useful.
> We all need to insist on keeping it this way.

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.

Also, I would use better arguments than those stated in the posted
link: several of them are inaccurate, or even straight lies: in
particular to the mentioned point 7, it is false that GNOME has
adopted systemd as a hard dependency. That's just not true: GNOME 3
runs in {Open,Free}BSD just fine.

GNOME supports both systemd (logind, actually) *AND* ConsoleKit as
backends[2], so if you hear or read someone saying that GNOME depends
on systemd, that person is either spreading FUD, or showing her
ignorance.

Regards.

[1] http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20140219085851
[2] https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-session/tree/configure.ac#n139
-- 
Canek Peláez Valdés
Profesor de asignatura, Facultad de Ciencias
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Frank Peters]

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.

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

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

"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.

"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' ...

"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."

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.

These trends should be alarming to us all.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Canek Peláez Valdés]

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

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Barry Schwartz]

The words ‘Red Hat’ have put a chill down my spine for nearly 20
years.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Canek Peláez Valdés]

On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 2:20 PM, Barry Schwartz
<chemoelectric@chemoelectric.org> wrote:
> The words ‘Red Hat’ have put a chill down my spine for nearly 20
> years.

I know, right? A company that actually pays money to developers so
they could work on Free Software.

How dare they!

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

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Barry Schwartz]

Canek Peláez Valdés <caneko@gmail.com> skribis:
> On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 2:20 PM, Barry Schwartz
> <chemoelectric@chemoelectric.org> wrote:
> > The words ‘Red Hat’ have put a chill down my spine for nearly 20
> > years.
> 
> I know, right? A company that actually pays money to developers so
> they could work on Free Software.

So does Apple, which puts an even colder chill down my spine.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Canek Peláez Valdés]

On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 2:33 PM, Barry Schwartz
<chemoelectric@chemoelectric.org> wrote:
> Canek Peláez Valdés <caneko@gmail.com> skribis:
>> On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 2:20 PM, Barry Schwartz
>> <chemoelectric@chemoelectric.org> wrote:
>> > The words ‘Red Hat’ have put a chill down my spine for nearly 20
>> > years.
>>
>> I know, right? A company that actually pays money to developers so
>> they could work on Free Software.
>
> So does Apple, which puts an even colder chill down my spine.

Good for them. As long as the code is free, I don't care who pays for
it. Even Microsoft.

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

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Canek Peláez Valdés]

On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 2:45 PM, Canek Peláez Valdés <caneko@gmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
> Good for them. As long as the code is free, I don't care who pays for
> it. Even Microsoft.

Free as in libre, obviously.

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

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Frank Peters]

On Sun, 21 Sep 2014 14:22:38 -0500
Canek Peláez Valdés <caneko@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 2:20 PM, Barry Schwartz
> <chemoelectric@chemoelectric.org> wrote:
> > The words ‘Red Hat’ have put a chill down my spine for nearly 20
> > years.
> 
> I know, right? A company that actually pays money to developers so
> they could work on Free Software.
> 

Check out page 18 of the 2014 GNOME Asia talk:
http://0pointer.de/public/gnomeasia2014.pdf

"Our objectives:

Turing Linux from a bag of bits into a competitive General Purpose
Operating System.

Building the Internet's Next Generation OS.

Unifying pointless differences between distributions."

Can it be any clearer that the Gnome (RedHat) folks desire to
usurp total control of the Linux ecosystem to serve their own
ends?  RedHat needs Linux to make a profit and it will mold
Linux to better attain this end.

Is Linux currently just a "bag of bits."  A lot of people
would take serious issue with this inane comment, but according
to the Gnome (RedHat) folks they are here to save us all
from the terrible shortcomings of Linux (whether we want it or
not).

Notice the remark about the "pointless differences between
distributions."  This is nothing more than a disguised condemnation
of the diversity, variety, and choice which has always been the
strongest feature of the Linux world.

Now check out page 5:

"What's systemd again?  ... The glue between the applications and
the kernel."

IOW, the kernel and the applications, once sufficient in themselves,
will now require the product that they (RedHat/Gnome) make and control
in order to function at all.  Don't like it?  Tough.  Try and find a
distribution without it, and good luck re-writing all this stuff from
scratch all by your lonesome. 

But why stop here?  All they need to do is get rid of Linus Torvalds
himself.  After all, he's just a nuisance from a previous and obsolescent
generation.  Let's have the truly progressive folks, like RedHat/Gnome,
assume command of it all.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Canek Peláez Valdés]

On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 4:13 PM, Frank Peters <frank.peters@comcast.net> wrote:
[ snip ]
> Check out page 18 of the 2014 GNOME Asia talk:
> http://0pointer.de/public/gnomeasia2014.pdf
>
> "Our objectives:
>
> Turing Linux from a bag of bits into a competitive General Purpose
> Operating System.
>
> Building the Internet's Next Generation OS.
>
> Unifying pointless differences between distributions."
>
> Can it be any clearer that the Gnome (RedHat) folks desire to
> usurp total control of the Linux ecosystem to serve their own
> ends?  RedHat needs Linux to make a profit and it will mold
> Linux to better attain this end.

Whoa. How did you jumped from "Turing Linux from a bag of bits into a
competitive General Purpose Operating System" to "usurp total control
of the Linux ecosystem to serve their own ends"? There is literally no
way you can start from the first and logically arrive to the second.

With Free Software you *cannot* usurp *anything*. The code is free and
is out there. Any large group of sufficiently talented developers can
take that code and do *anything* with it. Why it hasn't happened I
explain down below, but let me be very clear: that kind of talking is
nonsense.

> Is Linux currently just a "bag of bits."  A lot of people
> would take serious issue with this inane comment, but according
> to the Gnome (RedHat) folks they are here to save us all
> from the terrible shortcomings of Linux (whether we want it or
> not).

Linux *is* a bag of bits, meaning a lot of loose coupled components;
that's why when a third party developer wants to build something for
Linux they end up creating a whole distribution (SteamOS), or bundling
everything and the kitchen sink (Google Chrome). It is not demeaning,
is a statement of fact.

> Notice the remark about the "pointless differences between
> distributions."  This is nothing more than a disguised condemnation
> of the diversity, variety, and choice which has always been the
> strongest feature of the Linux world.

That diversity, variety, and choice is very well, but *someone* (in
fact, many "someones") needs to work maintaining that diversity,
variety, and choice. If there is a single tool that solves the
problems of many developers, they *will* rely on that tool, and stop
supporting any inferior/less featureful tool. You would like to keep
using the less featureful tool? Then help the developers of different
projects to keep using it.

> Now check out page 5:
>
> "What's systemd again?  ... The glue between the applications and
> the kernel."
>
> IOW, the kernel and the applications, once sufficient in themselves,
> will now require the product that they (RedHat/Gnome) make and control
> in order to function at all.  Don't like it?  Tough.  Try and find a
> distribution without it, and good luck re-writing all this stuff from
> scratch all by your lonesome.

As I stated in my previous mail to you, you are spreading FUD. GNOME,
systemd, *and* the kernel have developers from many companies and
projects. There is no Illuminati inside RedHat deciding the future of
no one but that company itself.

That's first of all; second of all, Gentoo doesn't require systemd.
You want to keep it that way? Help OpenRC, and eudev, and all the
alternative projects that don't want to rely on systemd. If you (and
all the others that don't want to use systemd) don't, then (I repeat)
don't act surprised when systemd is the only option in Linux.

> But why stop here?  All they need to do is get rid of Linus Torvalds
> himself.  After all, he's just a nuisance from a previous and obsolescent
> generation.  Let's have the truly progressive folks, like RedHat/Gnome,
> assume command of it all.

Actually, Linus seems to be OK with systemd[1]. It's probably not his
favorite project, but in that interview it ends up giving many of the
best pro-systemd arguments I've heard.

If you want to believe (or fabricate) conspiracy theories, that's
fine; I (and most Linux users) don't care about that. We care about
Linux and technological sound solutions and arguments. And that's the
crux of the matter: as I have previously stated, *any* large group of
talented developers can take the free software in all the Linux stack
(from kernel to userspace), and do *whatever* the hell they want with
it, as long as they continue to return the modified code to the
community. That's how Free Software works; that's *exactly* what
Google has done with Android.

Then why the alternatives are not attracting *huge* amount of
developers? Why uselessd is one guy, and OpenRC three or four, and
udev has a handful of developers trying to keep up with systemd-udev?

Some people will tell you that it's because of RedHat's money. And
that is so obviously wrong that is even laughable. In the kernel,
systemd, and all the other parts of the stack (including GNOME) there
are *many* companies involved. And not only small companies like
Collabora and Igalia; but *HUGE* ones like IBM and Intel. Why would
those companies let another one (RedHat) take "control" of Linux?

They don't. They *support* the idea of systemd, because (pardon me for
raising my voice) IS TECHNOLOGICALLY BETTER.

And that's what most systemd-haters don't understand. They scream and
throw tantrums about systemd, while most developers (the people that
*actually* gives us Linux, the whole stack) quietly check out the
benefits and downsides of using systemd, and in a large majority
decide that the right thing to do is using it.

That's why Arch, Suse, Gentoo-based Sabayon, Debian and even *Ubuntu*
switched (or are about to switch) to systemd. Why would Canonical
start using systemd in its distribution if it would help its rival,
RedHat, to take "control"? They would not; they switched because a
large majority of developers agree that systemd is the superior
option.

Rich Freeman (Gentoo developer, member of the Council) said better than I[2]:

"The argument about whether systemd is better/worse than sysvinit was
a debate back in 2012-2013.  Just about anybody actually contributing
to distros has moved on since then. That doesn't mean that there is
100% agreement on anything, just that at this point it seems unlikely
that things are going to change much either way on that front.  A few
distros are likely to avoid systemd, and the vast majority are in the
process of adopting it.

"With Gentoo you can run whatever you want for PID 1, just as you can
use whatever bootloader, kernel, syslog, etc you want.  Not all the
init options have equal support - upstart isn't even in the tree and
few packages supply scripts for runit.  But, nobody is going to get in
anybody's way if they want to introduce upstart, etc.

"The fact is among those actually contributing to projects like
openrc, udev, eudev, and systemd everybody tends to get along just
fine. There is plenty of interest in finding common ground and
collaborating so that anybody switching from one to another can do so
easily, and so that these projects don't diverge where it isn't
intended.  It seems like the heaviest fighting seems to involve folks
who don't contribute to any of these."

I will repeat the last sentence:

"It seems like the heaviest fighting seems to involve folks who don't
contribute to any of these."

You don't *have* to use systemd; but if you *want* something
different, then you *should* contribute to the alternatives. Otherwise
people (starting with me, for what it matters) will start ignoring
you. "Oh, another one that critiques systemd without contributing to
any alternative. Most likely, he doesn't know what he's talking about.
Next."

Regards.

[1] http://www.itwire.com/business-it-news/open-source/65402-torvalds-says-he-has-no-strong-opinions-on-systemd
[2] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.user/277512
-- 
Canek Peláez Valdés
Profesor de asignatura, Facultad de Ciencias
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Harry Holt]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 9079 bytes --]

On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 6:04 PM, Canek Peláez Valdés <caneko@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 4:13 PM, Frank Peters <frank.peters@comcast.net>
> wrote:
> [ snip ]
> > Check out page 18 of the 2014 GNOME Asia talk:
> > http://0pointer.de/public/gnomeasia2014.pdf
> >
> > "Our objectives:
> >
> > Turing Linux from a bag of bits into a competitive General Purpose
> > Operating System.
> >
> > Building the Internet's Next Generation OS.
> >
> > Unifying pointless differences between distributions."
> >
> > Can it be any clearer that the Gnome (RedHat) folks desire to
> > usurp total control of the Linux ecosystem to serve their own
> > ends?  RedHat needs Linux to make a profit and it will mold
> > Linux to better attain this end.
>
> Whoa. How did you jumped from "Turing Linux from a bag of bits into a
> competitive General Purpose Operating System" to "usurp total control
> of the Linux ecosystem to serve their own ends"? There is literally no
> way you can start from the first and logically arrive to the second.
>

Actually, it seems like a pretty clear synonymous interpretation to me.
Also, I think you are using "literally" wrong in this context, as Frank
clearly "literally" just did so.


>
> With Free Software you *cannot* usurp *anything*. The code is free and
> is out there. Any large group of sufficiently talented developers can
> take that code and do *anything* with it. Why it hasn't happened I
> explain down below, but let me be very clear: that kind of talking is
> nonsense.
>
> > Is Linux currently just a "bag of bits."  A lot of people
> > would take serious issue with this inane comment, but according
> > to the Gnome (RedHat) folks they are here to save us all
> > from the terrible shortcomings of Linux (whether we want it or
> > not).
>
> Linux *is* a bag of bits, meaning a lot of loose coupled components;
> that's why when a third party developer wants to build something for
> Linux they end up creating a whole distribution (SteamOS), or bundling
> everything and the kitchen sink (Google Chrome). It is not demeaning,
> is a statement of fact.
>

SteamOS and Google Chrome are both created by companies that want to have
THEIR pieces of top-down control over YOUR computer.  They may have
legitimate (read: "Intellectual Property") reasons for doing so, but that
*is* nevertheless their goal, so if you're okay with ceding control to
these for-profit corporations, and paying in tangibles and intangibles to
do so, then fine.  If not, do not use their products.


> > Notice the remark about the "pointless differences between
> > distributions."  This is nothing more than a disguised condemnation
> > of the diversity, variety, and choice which has always been the
> > strongest feature of the Linux world.
>
> That diversity, variety, and choice is very well, but *someone* (in
> fact, many "someones") needs to work maintaining that diversity,
> variety, and choice. If there is a single tool that solves the
> problems of many developers, they *will* rely on that tool, and stop
> supporting any inferior/less featureful tool. You would like to keep
> using the less featureful tool? Then help the developers of different
> projects to keep using it.
>
> > Now check out page 5:
> >
> > "What's systemd again?  ... The glue between the applications and
> > the kernel."
> >
> > IOW, the kernel and the applications, once sufficient in themselves,
> > will now require the product that they (RedHat/Gnome) make and control
> > in order to function at all.  Don't like it?  Tough.  Try and find a
> > distribution without it, and good luck re-writing all this stuff from
> > scratch all by your lonesome.
>
> As I stated in my previous mail to you, you are spreading FUD. GNOME,
> systemd, *and* the kernel have developers from many companies and
> projects. There is no Illuminati inside RedHat deciding the future of
> no one but that company itself.
>
> That's first of all; second of all, Gentoo doesn't require systemd.
> You want to keep it that way? Help OpenRC, and eudev, and all the
> alternative projects that don't want to rely on systemd. If you (and
> all the others that don't want to use systemd) don't, then (I repeat)
> don't act surprised when systemd is the only option in Linux.
>
> > But why stop here?  All they need to do is get rid of Linus Torvalds
> > himself.  After all, he's just a nuisance from a previous and obsolescent
> > generation.  Let's have the truly progressive folks, like RedHat/Gnome,
> > assume command of it all.
>
> Actually, Linus seems to be OK with systemd[1]. It's probably not his
> favorite project, but in that interview it ends up giving many of the
> best pro-systemd arguments I've heard.
>
> If you want to believe (or fabricate) conspiracy theories, that's
> fine; I (and most Linux users) don't care about that. We care about
> Linux and technological sound solutions and arguments. And that's the
> crux of the matter: as I have previously stated, *any* large group of
> talented developers can take the free software in all the Linux stack
> (from kernel to userspace), and do *whatever* the hell they want with
> it, as long as they continue to return the modified code to the
> community. That's how Free Software works; that's *exactly* what
> Google has done with Android.
>
> Then why the alternatives are not attracting *huge* amount of
> developers? Why uselessd is one guy, and OpenRC three or four, and
> udev has a handful of developers trying to keep up with systemd-udev?
>
> Some people will tell you that it's because of RedHat's money. And
> that is so obviously wrong that is even laughable. In the kernel,
> systemd, and all the other parts of the stack (including GNOME) there
> are *many* companies involved. And not only small companies like
> Collabora and Igalia; but *HUGE* ones like IBM and Intel. Why would
> those companies let another one (RedHat) take "control" of Linux?
>
> They don't. They *support* the idea of systemd, because (pardon me for
> raising my voice) IS TECHNOLOGICALLY BETTER.
>
> And that's what most systemd-haters don't understand. They scream and
> throw tantrums about systemd, while most developers (the people that
> *actually* gives us Linux, the whole stack) quietly check out the
> benefits and downsides of using systemd, and in a large majority
> decide that the right thing to do is using it.
>
> That's why Arch, Suse, Gentoo-based Sabayon, Debian and even *Ubuntu*
> switched (or are about to switch) to systemd. Why would Canonical
> start using systemd in its distribution if it would help its rival,
> RedHat, to take "control"? They would not; they switched because a
> large majority of developers agree that systemd is the superior
> option.
>
> Rich Freeman (Gentoo developer, member of the Council) said better than
> I[2]:
>
> "The argument about whether systemd is better/worse than sysvinit was
> a debate back in 2012-2013.  Just about anybody actually contributing
> to distros has moved on since then. That doesn't mean that there is
> 100% agreement on anything, just that at this point it seems unlikely
> that things are going to change much either way on that front.  A few
> distros are likely to avoid systemd, and the vast majority are in the
> process of adopting it.
>
> "With Gentoo you can run whatever you want for PID 1, just as you can
> use whatever bootloader, kernel, syslog, etc you want.  Not all the
> init options have equal support - upstart isn't even in the tree and
> few packages supply scripts for runit.  But, nobody is going to get in
> anybody's way if they want to introduce upstart, etc.
>
> "The fact is among those actually contributing to projects like
> openrc, udev, eudev, and systemd everybody tends to get along just
> fine. There is plenty of interest in finding common ground and
> collaborating so that anybody switching from one to another can do so
> easily, and so that these projects don't diverge where it isn't
> intended.  It seems like the heaviest fighting seems to involve folks
> who don't contribute to any of these."
>
> I will repeat the last sentence:
>
> "It seems like the heaviest fighting seems to involve folks who don't
> contribute to any of these."
>
> You don't *have* to use systemd; but if you *want* something
> different, then you *should* contribute to the alternatives. Otherwise
> people (starting with me, for what it matters) will start ignoring
> you. "Oh, another one that critiques systemd without contributing to
> any alternative. Most likely, he doesn't know what he's talking about.
> Next."
>
> Regards.
>
> [1]
> http://www.itwire.com/business-it-news/open-source/65402-torvalds-says-he-has-no-strong-opinions-on-systemd
> [2] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.user/277512
> --
> Canek Peláez Valdés
> Profesor de asignatura, Facultad de Ciencias
> Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
>
>

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Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Canek Peláez Valdés]

On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 5:15 PM, Harry Holt <harryholt@gmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
> Actually, it seems like a pretty clear synonymous interpretation to me.

I just happen to disagree.

> Also, I think you are using "literally" wrong in this context, as Frank
> clearly "literally" just did so.

Sorry; I'm not an English native speaker.

[snip]
> SteamOS and Google Chrome are both created by companies that want to have
> THEIR pieces of top-down control over YOUR computer.  They may have
> legitimate (read: "Intellectual Property") reasons for doing so, but that
> *is* nevertheless their goal, so if you're okay with ceding control to these
> for-profit corporations, and paying in tangibles and intangibles to do so,
> then fine.  If not, do not use their products.

That's your choice, and I respect that. But apart from the fact that I
would like to easily install whatever software I want in my computer,
is not only for-profit companies that want to do that; for any free
software program I wrote, if I want it available for all Linux users,
either I find a way to create packages/ebuilds for each distribution,
or I find someone that can do it for me.

Or even simpler than that: If I wrote a daemon, with SysV I could not
reliable write an script to starting it and stopping it in *all*
distributions. With systemd that actually works.

The old way doesn't scale.

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

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Frank Peters]

On Sun, 21 Sep 2014 17:04:32 -0500
Canek Peláez Valdés <caneko@gmail.com> wrote:

> 
> You don't *have* to use systemd; but if you *want* something
> different, then you *should* contribute to the alternatives. Otherwise
> people (starting with me, for what it matters) will start ignoring
> you. "Oh, another one that critiques systemd without contributing to
> any alternative. Most likely, he doesn't know what he's talking about.
> Next."
> 

I appreciate your insights but let me just briefly once again
state my concerns as they may have been missed.

I do not use openrc, eudev, or anything similar, and I have no plans
to ever use systemd.  All of these things are *unnecessary* at present. 
I simply do not need them and do not foresee a time where I will
ever need them.  In spite of any purported technical superiority they
still remain *optional*.

My system is booted and configured using my own custom scripts and
I doubt that anyone would be interested in those.  They work very well
for me and as a consequence I have no interest in contributing to
alternatives that I'll never utilize.  (In fact, I would encourage
everyone to develop his own set of boot/config routines.  It is
not that difficult.)

The concern is that one day this will no longer be possible due to
the hegemony imposed by players such as those already mentioned.
I believe that this concern is a valid one.  It will not happen
overnight but these changes will slowly creep into the Linux
universe.

My reasons are selfish.  For me (and I'm sure for many, many others
who just are not aware) implementing these methods are way too much
work and will bring *no* improvements or benefits whatsoever.

If others need them then others will use them.  But do not destroy
the ability to forge my own solutions.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Rich Freeman]

On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 8:26 PM, Frank Peters <frank.peters@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> My system is booted and configured using my own custom scripts and
> I doubt that anyone would be interested in those.  They work very well
> for me and as a consequence I have no interest in contributing to
> alternatives that I'll never utilize.  (In fact, I would encourage
> everyone to develop his own set of boot/config routines.  It is
> not that difficult.)
>
> The concern is that one day this will no longer be possible due to
> the hegemony imposed by players such as those already mentioned.

I think you need to relax a bit if that is really your worry.

You can still run a.out executables, and there is no roadmap for ever
disabling that.  You can create device nodes using mknod, and I'd be
shocked if that ever went away.  Just what is it that you actually
need the kernel to do for you that you don't think will still be
around in 20 years?  Linus is VERY conservative about removing system
calls.

It isn't like the bits in sysvinit have an expiration date on them.

Sysvinit is only 2900 lines of code, and you could probably cut out
half of them without losing much.  I doubt it will ever stop working,
but even if it did fixing whatever breaks will probably be trivial.

If the whole world moves to systemd the biggest problem you'll have is
that you'll have to write your own service startup scripts, but from
the sound of things you're doing that anyway.  Most of the services
you probably run aren't linux-exclusive either, so while it seems
likely that many will start reporting their status to systemd it seems
unlikely that they will refuse to work without it.

--
Rich

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Frank Peters]

On Sun, 21 Sep 2014 20:45:17 -0400
Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:

> 
> You can create device nodes using mknod, and I'd be
> shocked if that ever went away.
>

But now certain static USB nodes, in particular those for
scanners, have been removed in favor of dynamic allocation
using udev or its equivalents.  When this happened I was
certainly shocked, and it could be the beginning of a trend.

>
> Just what is it that you actually
> need the kernel to do for you that you don't think will still be
> around in 20 years?  Linus is VERY conservative about removing system
> calls.
> 

There are things which are not system calls that could easily be
changed.  It is not too far fetched to consider a time if and when
systemd became so popular and entrenched that the kernel would be
hard-coded to pass control only to systemd and nothing else.

> 
> If the whole world moves to systemd the biggest problem you'll have is
> that you'll have to write your own service startup scripts, but from
> the sound of things you're doing that anyway.  Most of the services
> you probably run aren't linux-exclusive either, so while it seems
> likely that many will start reporting their status to systemd it seems
> unlikely that they will refuse to work without it.
> 

There are a growing number of applications that will no longer compile
without either dbus or udev.  In fact, even though I don't use them,
I had to install both eudev and dbus in order to be able to use certain
applications (I just substituted a symlink to /bin/true in place of
dbus-launch to keep that unnecessary daemon from starting).

I am not that familiar with systemd components, but it is not too
unrealistic to consider many more applications in the future making
at least some components mandatory.

It is obvious that the Linux of 10 years ago is no longer appealing
to many people and there will be mounting pressure to introduce changes
just for the sake of having changes.

If I have to adapt then I will certainly adapt, but it would be better
to keep current options.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Rich Freeman]

On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 10:02 PM, Frank Peters <frank.peters@comcast.net> wrote:
> On Sun, 21 Sep 2014 20:45:17 -0400
> Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> You can create device nodes using mknod, and I'd be
>> shocked if that ever went away.
>>
>
> But now certain static USB nodes, in particular those for
> scanners, have been removed in favor of dynamic allocation
> using udev or its equivalents.  When this happened I was
> certainly shocked, and it could be the beginning of a trend.

Fair point, although to some extent this reflects the nature of how
modern devices work.  Back in the day you had a few serial/parallel
ports and you could tell which one was which because they all used
different IO ports or IRQs that were hard-coded into the designs.  Now
you just have one USB host controller which is really the only actual
true hardware device on the system and everything that is hooked up to
it is virtualized.  Plug-and-play really did away with the way device
nodes tended to work, and systems like udev are probably the cleanest
solution.  I for one am happy that I haven't had to configure an IRQ
since the 90s.

>
>>
>> Just what is it that you actually
>> need the kernel to do for you that you don't think will still be
>> around in 20 years?  Linus is VERY conservative about removing system
>> calls.
>>
>
> There are things which are not system calls that could easily be
> changed.  It is not too far fetched to consider a time if and when
> systemd became so popular and entrenched that the kernel would be
> hard-coded to pass control only to systemd and nothing else.

That seems extremely unlikely.  How many people ran anything other
than sysvinit as their init for the 15 years or so before upstart came
along?  Making the kernel dependent on systemd would defeat the whole
purpose of having a separation between userspace and kernelspace.

>
>>
>> If the whole world moves to systemd the biggest problem you'll have is
>> that you'll have to write your own service startup scripts, but from
>> the sound of things you're doing that anyway.  Most of the services
>> you probably run aren't linux-exclusive either, so while it seems
>> likely that many will start reporting their status to systemd it seems
>> unlikely that they will refuse to work without it.
>>
>
> There are a growing number of applications that will no longer compile
> without either dbus or udev.  In fact, even though I don't use them,
> I had to install both eudev and dbus in order to be able to use certain
> applications (I just substituted a symlink to /bin/true in place of
> dbus-launch to keep that unnecessary daemon from starting).

Well, it seems likely that dbus will be a kernel module before long,
so it will be readily available.  I'm sure there are plenty of
programs that don't work if you don't have any number of kernel
options disabled.  Kdbus is viewed as the future standard mechanism
for linux inter-process communication, so programs relying on it
should be as surprising as programs that rely on ptys.

Much of the issue boils down to the linux world becoming more
complex/functional.  Back when you could assume that your printer was
attached to a parallel port and spoke postscript things were simpler.
Today people want to plug in their USB headset and have the computer
know to use the USB headset for their teleconference and put the
output in the speakers when the phone rings.  That just isn't going to
work with a world where you output a sound by directing a .au file to
a device node.

--
Rich

[gentoo-amd64] Re: Boycott Systemd

[Duncan]

Canek Peláez Valdés posted on Sun, 21 Sep 2014 17:28:48 -0500 as
excerpted:

> Or even simpler than that: If I wrote a daemon, with SysV I could not
> reliable write an script to starting it and stopping it in *all*
> distributions. With systemd that actually works.

IMO this the the big reason why upstreams are supporting systemd; it's a 
small, often trivial, file, with a lot of bang for the buck.  Ship any 
other initscript and you cover a single distro.  Ship a systemd unit file 
or two and you cover a half-dozen rather major unrelated distros and 
growing, along with most of their derivatives.  Sure it's an upstream 
reference file that individual distros can and reasonably often do 
modify, but it's a reference file virtually guaranteed to work as-is on 
nearly all those distributions, and you just can't get that elsewhere, 
full-stop.  


Meanwhile, for me as a gentoo user one of the biggest benefits of systemd 
is that once it's the general standard pretty much everywhere I won't 
have the problem of having to learn something different to maintain for 
instance my openwrt-based router, as it'll be the same general init-
system on my main systems and on my router.  My biggest problem with the 
router right now is that it's not using an init system I'm familiar with, 
and having once gone thru everything and understood how it worked well 
enough to be comfortable working with the configuration, and then having 
configured it, I promptly forgot all that stuff once I got it working and 
had no need to screw with it any longer.  Now it's seriously outdated, 
but I don't want to deal with updating it and having to go thru all that 
stuff to learn its special-purpose init setup once again, just to get it 
working and be able to forget about it again.

I'm *REALLY* looking forward to the day when it's all standardized on 
systemd and I can put the same systemd knowledge I use while maintaining 
my general systems to work when I update openrc as well, and other than 
the few unique unit-files, I'll "just understand it" and not have to 
worry about relearning all that every time I decide it's time to upgrade 
the router again.

Of course the same thing applies if I decide to make a job out of my 
currently and long-term hobby of Linux.  Gentoo's openrc is certainly 
rather niche knowledge and won't help me much with the statistically more 
likely chance that my potential employer has standardized on
centos/sle[ds]/ubuntu-server/debian/whatever.  But my gentoo systemd 
knowledge will "just transfer", being as useful on any of them once 
everybody's switched, as on gentoo.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

[gentoo-amd64] Re: Boycott Systemd

[Duncan]

Rich Freeman posted on Sun, 21 Sep 2014 22:34:23 -0400 as excerpted:

> On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 10:02 PM, Frank Peters
> <frank.peters@comcast.net> wrote:

>> There are things which are not system calls that could easily be
>> changed.  It is not too far fetched to consider a time if and when
>> systemd became so popular and entrenched that the kernel would be
>> hard-coded to pass control only to systemd and nothing else.
> 
> That seems extremely unlikely.  How many people ran anything other than
> sysvinit as their init for the 15 years or so before upstart came along?
>  Making the kernel dependent on systemd would defeat the whole purpose
> of having a separation between userspace and kernelspace.

Agreed.  There's far too many and too broad usages of the Linux kernel 
for that sort of hard-coding, at least without at least a kconfig option 
for it.

Is android suddenly going to switch to systemd?  Unlikely, and it's 
generally acknowledged to be the biggest usage of the Linux kernel out 
there these days, so hard-coding android breakage isn't going to happen.

Plus even if it did, we're dealing with open source here and Google would 
simply patch that out and their own solution in as they do with a bunch 
of other stuff.  And if google could do that, so could anyone else.

Then there's the tivos and the embedded medical devices and the multiple 
automotive systems likely running their own little embedded Linux 
kernels.  Hard-coding systemd for all of that?  Not going to happen.

As for the loss of the usb static device nodes, did you (Frank) file a 
bug about it breaking your userspace?  That's one of Linus' most firm 
kernel rules -- you do *NOT* change the userspace/kernelspace API/ABI and 
break userspace.  However, there's a known exception.  Rather like the 
old philosophical question as to whether if a tree falls in the forest 
and nobody hears/sees it, did it actually fall at all, if nobody notices 
the userspace/kernelspace ABI breaking, did it really break at all?

Unfortunately, for support for stuff like the big databases, etc, the big 
users all tend to be on enterprise distros with years-old kernels and 
sometimes the changes that break that don't get noticed for years simply 
because nobody running those apps is running anything close to current 
kernels, or if they do, they aren't reporting the problem.  Bu the time 
the breakage is actually noticed and reported two years later, other 
userspace may depend on the new behavior and it can become a choice of 
which userspace to break, the newer stuff depending on the new behavior 
or the older stuff that was broken but that nobody noticed or reported 
for years.  That can cause problems, particularly when those old and now 
broken userspace programs are big-dollar enterprise users, but sometimes 
it happens.

And Linus and the other kernel devs are constantly pointing out that if 
they break userspace, report it as soon as possible so it can be fixed.  
Those who fail to do so, unfortunately very occasionally have to live 
with the resulting breakage, at least to some extent, tho they still go 
to rather extreme lengths to finesse things if and when they can.

So if your userspace breaks due to a kernel change, report it as soon as 
you detect it and ask that it be fixed.  Linus is very likely to make 
sure it happens.  If you didn't do that, well...

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Boycott Systemd

[Harry Holt]

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On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 2:00 AM, Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net> wrote:

> Rich Freeman posted on Sun, 21 Sep 2014 22:34:23 -0400 as excerpted:
>
>
> As for the loss of the usb static device nodes, did you (Frank) file a
> bug about it breaking your userspace?  That's one of Linus' most firm
> kernel rules -- you do *NOT* change the userspace/kernelspace API/ABI and
> break userspace.  However, there's a known exception.  Rather like the
> old philosophical question as to whether if a tree falls in the forest
> and nobody hears/sees it, did it actually fall at all, if nobody notices
> the userspace/kernelspace ABI breaking, did it really break at all?
>
> [snip]
>


> And Linus and the other kernel devs are constantly pointing out that if
> they break userspace, report it as soon as possible so it can be fixed.
> Those who fail to do so, unfortunately very occasionally have to live
> with the resulting breakage, at least to some extent, tho they still go
> to rather extreme lengths to finesse things if and when they can.
>
> So if your userspace breaks due to a kernel change, report it as soon as
> you detect it and ask that it be fixed.  Linus is very likely to make
> sure it happens.  If you didn't do that, well...
>
> --
> Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
> "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
> and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman
>
>
>
There are, in fact, a number of things that systemd breaks, and that the
devs refuse to fix, that even Linus has complained about.  To quote:

"Key, I'm f*cking tired of the fact that you don't fix problems in the code
*you* write, so that the kernel then has to work around the problems you
cause.

Greg - just for your information, I will *not* be merging any code from Kay
into the kernel until this constant pattern is fixed.

This has been going on for *years*, and doesn't seem to be getting any
better. This is relevant to you because I have seen you talk about the
kdbus patches, and this is a heads-up that you need to keep them separate
from other work. Let distributions merge it as they need to and maybe we
can merge it once it has been proven to be stable by whatever distro that
was willing to play games with the developers.

But I'm not willing to merge something where the maintainer is known to not
care about bugs and regressions and then forces people in other projects to
fix their project. Because I am *not* willing to take patches from people
who don't clean up after their problems, and don't admit that it's their
problem to fix.

Kay - one more time: you caused the problem, you need to fix it. None of
this "I can do whatever I want, others have to clean up after me" crap.

Linus
"

And it's not just Linus.  Something so pervasive, so entrenched into the
base of the system, AND that is causing problems for kernel devs to the
point that they have to implement work-arounds really needs to be reigned
in and forced to be more responsive to the needs of the OS / Linux
community as a whole, rather than the all-too-often response of "We don't
care that we've broken things you used to do in the past - this won't be
fixed and it's YOUR problem."  That is the pervasive attitude of Kay
Sievers, Red Hat, and others involved in systemd development.

Here's another take from Christopher Barry, in a mailing list post from
just last month:

systemd is a coup. It is a subversive interloper designed to destroy
Linux as we know it, foisted upon us by the snarky
we-know-better-than-you CamelCase crowd. They just don't get it down
deep where it matters. systemd is not pointing in a direction that we
should be going. It does not encourage freedom. It does not encourage
choice. It does not display transparency. It does not embrace
simplicity. It seizes control and forces you to cede it. It makes
applications and major system components depend on it, and they cannot
function without it. It's gaining speed by luring naive or lazy or just
plain clueless developers into the fold with the promise of making
their lives easier. Buying into this way of thinking ignores the
greater dangers that systemd represents.

https://lkml.org/lkml/2014/8/12/459

When someone wants to take away my freedom, I get concerned.

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Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Boycott Systemd

[Rich Freeman]

On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 8:47 AM, Harry Holt <harryholt@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 2:00 AM, Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net> wrote:
>>
>> Rich Freeman posted on Sun, 21 Sep 2014 22:34:23 -0400 as excerpted:
>>
>> And Linus and the other kernel devs are constantly pointing out that if
>> they break userspace, report it as soon as possible so it can be fixed.
>
> There are, in fact, a number of things that systemd breaks, and that the
> devs refuse to fix, that even Linus has complained about.  To quote:

Duncan was talking about linux, you're talking about systemd.  If Kay
broke the kernel Linus wouldn't be complaining about it, he would be
doing something about it.

--
Rich

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Boycott Systemd

[Barry Schwartz]

Harry Holt <harryholt@gmail.com> skribis:
> When someone wants to take away my freedom, I get concerned.

It isn’t even necessary to be concerned about nefarious plans to be
concerned. The kind of ‘vertical integration’ systemd represents is
plainly bad software design, on its face; it is a violation of
modularity and reusability. It takes away so-called freedom simply by
being bad software that ignores decades of programming experience,
with results that are predictable -- including failure or breakage if
you try to remove or replace the poorly separated parts.

This is Programming 101, but usually it is impossible to argue with
someone on such grounds, because <the usual excuses>.

The main reason the term ‘Red Hat’ has put a chill down my spine for
20 years is not that I figured they were some evil plot to steal
‘freedom’, but that they have never been good at simplicity,
modularity, or stability of interface.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Lie Ryan]

On 22 September 2014 07:13, Frank Peters <frank.peters@comcast.net> wrote:
> On Sun, 21 Sep 2014 14:22:38 -0500
> Canek Peláez Valdés <caneko@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 2:20 PM, Barry Schwartz
>> <chemoelectric@chemoelectric.org> wrote:
>> > The words ‘Red Hat’ have put a chill down my spine for nearly 20
>> > years.
>>
>> I know, right? A company that actually pays money to developers so
>> they could work on Free Software.
>>
>
> Check out page 18 of the 2014 GNOME Asia talk:
> http://0pointer.de/public/gnomeasia2014.pdf
>
> "Our objectives:
>
> Turing Linux from a bag of bits into a competitive General Purpose
> Operating System.
>
> Building the Internet's Next Generation OS.
>
> Unifying pointless differences between distributions."
>
> Can it be any clearer that the Gnome (RedHat) folks desire to
> usurp total control of the Linux ecosystem to serve their own
> ends?  RedHat needs Linux to make a profit and it will mold
> Linux to better attain this end.
>
> Is Linux currently just a "bag of bits."  A lot of people
> would take serious issue with this inane comment, but according
> to the Gnome (RedHat) folks they are here to save us all
> from the terrible shortcomings of Linux (whether we want it or
> not).
>
> Notice the remark about the "pointless differences between
> distributions."  This is nothing more than a disguised condemnation
> of the diversity, variety, and choice which has always been the
> strongest feature of the Linux world.

Let's make ten different electric sockets, twenty different way to
calculate version number for softwares, thirty software licenses, and
don't forget to make at least five mutually-incompatible APIs for
every browser features that all do roughly the same thing differently.
Oh, and everyone had to write their dates in Month-Year-Day, period.
Is your life any better from having this kind of "diversity"?

Encouraging pointless differences is not supporting diversity. In
contrary, encouraging pointless differences *kills* diversity.
Diversity is a mean to the end of producing better software system, it
isn't an end of itself. If having less diversity means that I can take
my software, bring it to another totally different system, and it
works just as well as it was, then so be it.

[gentoo-amd64] Re: Boycott Systemd

[Duncan]

Rich Freeman posted on Mon, 22 Sep 2014 08:53:44 -0400 as excerpted:

> On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 8:47 AM, Harry Holt <harryholt@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 2:00 AM, Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> Rich Freeman posted on Sun, 21 Sep 2014 22:34:23 -0400 as excerpted:
>>>
>>> And Linus and the other kernel devs are constantly pointing out that
>>> if they break userspace, report it as soon as possible so it can be
>>> fixed.
>>
>> There are, in fact, a number of things that systemd breaks, and that
>> the devs refuse to fix, that even Linus has complained about.  To
>> quote:
> 
> Duncan was talking about linux, you're talking about systemd.  If Kay
> broke the kernel Linus wouldn't be complaining about it, he would be
> doing something about it.

Exactly.  If a kernel change broke userspace, by Linus' definition, that 
kernel change is broken, full-stop.

If they find out about it in the same kernel cycle, it's reverted, and 
that's about as hard and fast a rule as it gets.  (The only exception 
would be if there's a break of userspace either way and no way to finesse 
it, in context, if that break was fixing a previous break, then Linus 
gets to call which break to fix.)

But of course it can only be found out about in the same kernel cycle if 
someone affected is testing kernel rcs and reporting breakage.

If the breakage is found later, it's still breakage and still subject to 
revert.  Only by then some other userspace may be depending on the new 
behavior, in which case there's a problem.  Obviously this is more likely 
the longer the "broken" behavior has remained in the kernel.  They'll try 
to finesse this case and it really is amazing sometimes the extents 
they'll go to do it (one case was a special-casing of the behavior to the 
specific usage in question, they were able to detect that specific usage 
and special-case the specific otherwise broken behavior around it), but 
if that's not possible and it has only been a kernel cycle (people only 
tested the release, not the rcs, so only the single release kernel has 
that behavior), they'll probably still revert it, in part because there's 
relatively little released userspace that will depend on it that quickly 
and very likely it'll not have made a major distro release yet.

But if the broken behavior isn't reported for several kernel cycles, say 
a year (about five kernel cycles), then it really is a tough call, 
particularly when there's established and widely used software already 
depending on the new behavior.

Again, bottom line, report kernel breakage of userspace, the same kernel 
cycle that breakage happens if at all possible, which means testing an 
early enough kernel rc (rc3 is good), and it'll normally either be fixed 
or the commit introducing the change reverted.  The longer you wait 
beyond the kernel cycle it was introduced, the more likely other 
userspace depends on the new behavior, with a revert becoming 
correspondingly more problematic.

And again, if it's not reported, was it a break in the first place?  Just 
make sure it's reported!

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Boycott Systemd

[Frank Peters]

On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 06:00:20 +0000 (UTC)
Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net> wrote:

> 
> As for the loss of the usb static device nodes, did you (Frank) file a 
> bug about it breaking your userspace?  That's one of Linus' most firm 
> kernel rules -- you do *NOT* change the userspace/kernelspace API/ABI and 
> break userspace.  However, there's a known exception.  Rather like the 
> old philosophical question as to whether if a tree falls in the forest 
> and nobody hears/sees it, did it actually fall at all, if nobody notices 
> the userspace/kernelspace ABI breaking, did it really break at all?
> 

Bug reports won't be considered.  The removal of the kernel scanner module
was well-planned and deliberate.  The new way is to use libusb to access
the scanner from user space.  If it affects me then it affects countless others
(and there are many forum posts about this issue) but these changes will
not be reversed.

One must move ahead along with the others or be crushed and forgotten.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Barry Schwartz]

Lie Ryan <lie.1296@gmail.com> skribis:
> Encouraging pointless differences is not supporting diversity. In
> contrary, encouraging pointless differences *kills* diversity.
> Diversity is a mean to the end of producing better software system, it
> isn't an end of itself. If having less diversity means that I can take
> my software, bring it to another totally different system, and it
> works just as well as it was, then so be it.

This argument has little power with the intended audience, because the
software you are intent on bringing to another system is precisely the
software one like myself is complaining about for its being
difference-intolerant due to bad system design. We do not like
it. Besides which, there _are_ other criteria by which to judge
software.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Boycott Systemd

[Frank Peters]

On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 08:47:30 -0400
Harry Holt <harryholt@gmail.com> wrote:

> 
> Here's another take from Christopher Barry, in a mailing list post from
> just last month:
> 
> systemd is a coup. It is a subversive interloper designed to destroy
> Linux as we know it, foisted upon us by the snarky
> we-know-better-than-you CamelCase crowd ...
> 

Thanks for this.  It's good to hear others rant against systemd.

However, as has already been indicated in this thread, complaining
and ranting are not enough.  There have to be developers stepping
forward with alternatives.  If Sievers, et. al. are the only ones
willing to push an agenda then they, and systemd, will rule.

I recall my earlier experiences with Linux and CD-RAM.  The Linux
drivers to access CD-RAM, controlled by certain folks as SuSe,
were poorly written and functioned terribly.  But since no one
else came forward with alternatives (everyone just bitched on
the forums) the sub-optimal code was kept and, for all I know,
is still present.

Of course, it's not that easy for someone to just jump into
systems programming without an extensive background.  Still,
one can keep hoping for more forks and more differing distributions
but it seems that Linux is destined to become highly monolithic
in the future.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Lie Ryan]

On 22 September 2014 10:26, Frank Peters <frank.peters@comcast.net> wrote:

> I do not use openrc, eudev, or anything similar, and I have no plans
> to ever use systemd.  All of these things are *unnecessary* at present.
> I simply do not need them and do not foresee a time where I will
> ever need them.  In spite of any purported technical superiority they
> still remain *optional*.
>
> My system is booted and configured using my own custom scripts and
> I doubt that anyone would be interested in those.  They work very well
> for me and as a consequence I have no interest in contributing to
> alternatives that I'll never utilize.  (In fact, I would encourage
> everyone to develop his own set of boot/config routines.  It is
> not that difficult.)

Diversity isn't about feeding people who feels everything not-invented
here is godawful. When you have a clearly defined problem and you can
create a solution that satisfies that niche better than any other
solutions, that is diversity. If you just want to keep using your own
stuffs but you don't have a clearly defined niche you want to solve, I
don't have any sympathy for that.

> The concern is that one day this will no longer be possible due to
> the hegemony imposed by players such as those already mentioned.
> I believe that this concern is a valid one.  It will not happen
> overnight but these changes will slowly creep into the Linux
> universe.
>
> My reasons are selfish.  For me (and I'm sure for many, many others
> who just are not aware) implementing these methods are way too much
> work and will bring *no* improvements or benefits whatsoever.
>
> If others need them then others will use them.  But do not destroy
> the ability to forge my own solutions.

If you are not contributing to the solutions I use then don't be
surprised if my software goes to directions that do not accomodate
your own in-house stuffs. There are thousands of people with their own
in-house stuffs that breaks due to the changes, and thousands other
in-house that becomes easier due to the changes, why should I care
about yours in particular. If you want me to care about your stuffs,
then put it in the open, make it useful for more than just you, and
fight it out with other similar solutions.

I never had to deploy a system where the choice of init system makes a
critical difference in the success or failure of the system. I don't
want to spend too much time on configuring init or syslogs or cron
system on every new systems I had to deploy, as long as it does its
job, the rest doesn't really matter. I'll know that I need another
solution when the bog standard doesn't work, but before that happens,
just give me whatever works, and make switching to other systems as
easy as possible.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Frank Peters]

On Tue, 23 Sep 2014 02:11:42 +1000
Lie Ryan <lie.1296@gmail.com> wrote:

> 
> Let's make ten different electric sockets, twenty different way to
> calculate version number for softwares, thirty software licenses, and
> don't forget to make at least five mutually-incompatible APIs for
> every browser features that all do roughly the same thing differently.
> Oh, and everyone had to write their dates in Month-Year-Day, period.
> Is your life any better from having this kind of "diversity"?
> 

The kind of diversity in Linux that should always be maintained is
the diversity that results from having a highly configurable and
customizable system.  Each user, or each distribution, is therefore
able to pick and choose what is best or preferable.  The Linux kernel
allows many different options/modules to be either enabled or disabled
and this is a good thing.  Some people require rigid security while
others do not.  Each is free to tune the security to a desired level.
It would not be right to impose a single configuration on all users.
Such freedom comes at the cost, I suppose, of higher system complexity
but anything other than complete flexibility and choice in design would
make Linux severely unattractive.

Whenever something like systemd comes along, its utility should be measured
against this need for freedom of configuration.  IMO, it's better to
be crude and flexible than elegant and rigid.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Barry Schwartz]

Lie Ryan <lie.1296@gmail.com> skribis:
> Diversity isn't about feeding people who feels everything not-invented
> here is godawful. When you have a clearly defined problem and you can
> create a solution that satisfies that niche better than any other
> solutions, that is diversity.

‘Diversity’ here is deviation from established Unix/POSIX philosophy
in system design. Years of effort to simplify programming are being
thrown away on grounds that resemble common arguments in favor of the
‘tight integration’ that is Microsoft Windows. I mean, seriously, many
of the pro-systemd arguments are like those I have heard for using
Windows: that applications ‘just work’, because they were written for
a dominant system.

But I view this like a programmer, not like a Windows user; I want my
software to be portable because it is written portably (in a POSIX
sense), not because it is written for a universally available
particular POSIX variant. What I see is something like a return to the
days when you had to write different code for variants of USG, BSD,
and whatnot, except that now, unlike then, one of the variants is
overwhelmingly dominant.

What I really fear, though, is what if one day the kernel team is a
different entity, more like other entities in the Linux world?

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Frank Peters]

On Tue, 23 Sep 2014 03:04:10 +1000
Lie Ryan <lie.1296@gmail.com> wrote:

> 
> If you are not contributing to the solutions I use then don't be
> surprised if my software goes to directions that do not accomodate
> your own in-house stuffs. There are thousands of people with their own
> in-house stuffs that breaks due to the changes, and thousands other
> in-house that becomes easier due to the changes, why should I care
> about yours in particular. If you want me to care about your stuffs,
> then put it in the open, make it useful for more than just you, and
> fight it out with other similar solutions.
> 

Rigidity of design serves only to accommodate the ignorant dummy.

A professional system is deliberately set up to allow infinite
configuration and customization by an informed user base.

In the Linux world there are distributions made for the dummy
and there are distributions intended for informed users.  The
diversity made possible by the inherent and extensive configurability
of Linux allows this.

All developers should never lose sight of the need to keep the
overall design open and flexible.

Someone else mentioned the concept of "vertical integration."
It is important to always understand this concept and how it can
lead to a loss of flexibility and consequently a loss for the
Linux community as a whole.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Canek Peláez Valdés]

On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 12:58 PM, Barry Schwartz
<chemoelectric@chemoelectric.org> wrote:
> Lie Ryan <lie.1296@gmail.com> skribis:
>> Diversity isn't about feeding people who feels everything not-invented
>> here is godawful. When you have a clearly defined problem and you can
>> create a solution that satisfies that niche better than any other
>> solutions, that is diversity.
>
> ‘Diversity’ here is deviation from established Unix/POSIX philosophy
> in system design. Years of effort to simplify programming are being
> thrown away on grounds that resemble common arguments in favor of the
> ‘tight integration’ that is Microsoft Windows. I mean, seriously, many
> of the pro-systemd arguments are like those I have heard for using
> Windows: that applications ‘just work’, because they were written for
> a dominant system.
>
> But I view this like a programmer, not like a Windows user; I want my
> software to be portable because it is written portably (in a POSIX
> sense), not because it is written for a universally available
> particular POSIX variant. What I see is something like a return to the
> days when you had to write different code for variants of USG, BSD,
> and whatnot, except that now, unlike then, one of the variants is
> overwhelmingly dominant.
>
> What I really fear, though, is what if one day the kernel team is a
> different entity, more like other entities in the Linux world?

As a professional programmer, I completely disagree with any dogma
based on "philosophy" rather than technical merits. I will not rehash
here the same discussion we have had several times in gentoo-user, so
I will just paste what Linus recently had to say about "the
traditional unix"[1].

"So I think many of the "original ideals" of UNIX are these days more
of a mindset issue than necessarily reflecting reality of the
situation.

"There's still value in understanding the traditional UNIX "do one
thing and do it well" model where many workflows can be done as a
pipeline of simple tools each adding their own value, but let's face
it, it's not how complex systems really work, and it's not how major
applications have been working or been designed for a long time. It's
a useful simplification, and it's still true at *some* level, but I
think it's also clear that it doesn't really describe most of reality.

"It might describe some particular case, though, and I do think it's a
useful teaching tool. People obviously still do those traditional
pipelines of processes and file descriptors that UNIX is perhaps
associated with, but there's a *lot* of cases where you have big
complex unified systems."

Let me emphasize the important part:

"There's still value in understanding the traditional UNIX [...] model
[...], but let's face it, it's not how complex systems really work".

So, I'm sorry, but if I'm going to take a programmer's word, is going
to be Linus over almost anyone else. And to quote Rob Pike: "Not only
is UNIX dead, it’s starting to smell really bad."

Regards.

[1] http://www.itwire.com/business-it-news/open-source/65402-torvalds-says-he-has-no-strong-opinions-on-systemd
-- 
Canek Peláez Valdés
Profesor de asignatura, Facultad de Ciencias
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Frank Peters]

On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 12:58:46 -0500
Barry Schwartz <chemoelectric@chemoelectric.org> wrote:

> 
> ‘Diversity’ here is deviation from established Unix/POSIX philosophy
> in system design. Years of effort to simplify programming are being
> thrown away on grounds that resemble common arguments in favor of the
> ‘tight integration’ that is Microsoft Windows. I mean, seriously, many
> of the pro-systemd arguments are like those I have heard for using
> Windows: that applications ‘just work’, because they were written for
> a dominant system.
> 

Good design is highly flexible and configurable with little assumption
made on the nature or needs of the user.

Let's consider a simple program to display digital images.  A good program
design will not only contain built-in routines to accommodate the standard
image formats but will also provide non-specific raster buffers to allow
a user to view unconventional or even non-existent formats.  A good program
design will also make no assumptions about the nature of the image data but
rather allow the user to create any needed specifications.  A professional
program thus allows both standard conventions but keeps the overall capability
unrestricted and open ended.

As best as I can understand (I am not an expert in systems programming)
under Torvalds the Linux OS conforms to such professional design goals.

> 
> What I really fear, though, is what if one day the kernel team is a
> different entity, more like other entities in the Linux world?
> 

Someone has to write an apocalyptic novel about Linus Torvalds being
assassinated and his role taken over by the evil figures from ???.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Canek Peláez Valdés]

On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 1:41 PM, Frank Peters <frank.peters@comcast.net> wrote:
> On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 12:58:46 -0500
> Barry Schwartz <chemoelectric@chemoelectric.org> wrote:
>
>>
>> ‘Diversity’ here is deviation from established Unix/POSIX philosophy
>> in system design. Years of effort to simplify programming are being
>> thrown away on grounds that resemble common arguments in favor of the
>> ‘tight integration’ that is Microsoft Windows. I mean, seriously, many
>> of the pro-systemd arguments are like those I have heard for using
>> Windows: that applications ‘just work’, because they were written for
>> a dominant system.
>>
>
> Good design is highly flexible and configurable with little assumption
> made on the nature or needs of the user.
>
> Let's consider a simple program to display digital images.  A good program
> design will not only contain built-in routines to accommodate the standard
> image formats but will also provide non-specific raster buffers to allow
> a user to view unconventional or even non-existent formats.  A good program
> design will also make no assumptions about the nature of the image data but
> rather allow the user to create any needed specifications.  A professional
> program thus allows both standard conventions but keeps the overall capability
> unrestricted and open ended.
>
> As best as I can understand (I am not an expert in systems programming)
> under Torvalds the Linux OS conforms to such professional design goals.

No, the Linux kernel follows sound technical reasoning, not dogma.

>> What I really fear, though, is what if one day the kernel team is a
>> different entity, more like other entities in the Linux world?
>
> Someone has to write an apocalyptic novel about Linus Torvalds being
> assassinated and his role taken over by the evil figures from ???.

Read the link I just posted. Linus basically agrees with the "evil
figures" from your conspiracy theories.

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

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Barry Schwartz]

Canek Peláez Valdés <caneko@gmail.com> skribis:
> As a professional programmer, I completely disagree with any dogma
> based on "philosophy" rather than technical merits.

False dilemma. I _am_ arguing on grounds of technical merit, and
simply using the term ‘philosophy’ to refer to design.

Authorities saying bad things about Unix means little to me; it
certainly is not an argument in favor of bad software and hacks. Of
course Unix is very old and very tired; but here we are not really
talking about advances beyond that, which I think would look like such
experimental systems as Plan 9 or GNU Hurd, not mere complicated hacks
within the old framework, which is what systemd is.

In this field the arguments go round and round, however, and never
change. The ‘programming practices’ columns of all the software
magazines are always the same article, pressed with a rubber stamp
that was worn out already 30 years ago.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Canek Peláez Valdés]

On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 2:08 PM, Barry Schwartz
<chemoelectric@chemoelectric.org> wrote:
[snip]
> In this field the arguments go round and round, however, and never
> change.

That's the definition of dogma.

Things always keep changing; Linux has little to do with PDP-{7,11}
Unix, and it has evolved (and will continue to do so) thanks to
developers not thinking that "rules of thumb" hold the universal
truth. Which, again, would be dogma.

Vertical integration has its merits when you want to bound the
integration tests. So it does non-portability when you don't want to
conform to the minimum common set of features. So it does binary
formats when you care for performance. I could go on, but as I said, I
will not rehash the same discussion from gentoo-user and million other
places.

So, I will finish with this: if you really believe that there are no
more new arguments for new paradigms and design principles, and that
PDP-11 Unix is the answer to life, the universe, and everything, then
go out and find and kill Buddha, please.

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

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Barry Schwartz]

Frank Peters <frank.peters@comcast.net> skribis:
> > What I really fear, though, is what if one day the kernel team is a
> > different entity, more like other entities in the Linux world?
> > 
> 
> Someone has to write an apocalyptic novel about Linus Torvalds being
> assassinated and his role taken over by the evil figures from ???.

I’m simply concerned that one day he will retire. I myself have been
‘medically retired’ for over a decade; stuff happens.

We cannot rely on the programming community to do the right thing. We
are, for instance, sticking canaries on the stack while continuing to
write crucial software like OpenSSL entirely in languages that
_guarantee_ buffer overruns; and the programmer will continue to be
blamed, instead of the practices. (Those who care may want to check
out www.ats-lang.org for a practical alternative to C, suitable even
for writing kernel modules.)

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Frank Peters]

On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 13:22:28 -0500
Canek Peláez Valdés <caneko@gmail.com> wrote:

> 
> As a professional programmer, I completely disagree with any dogma
> based on "philosophy" rather than technical merits.
>
> "So I think many of the "original ideals" of UNIX are these days more
> of a mindset issue than necessarily reflecting reality of the
> situation.
> 

That's not the issue here at all.  The issue is the possible
hegemony being imposed by systemd.  Whether or not this is true
this issue at least deserves some attention.

Regarding the "Unix philosophy," I doubt that anyone still considers
that a "pipeline of simple tools" is the ideal approach.  Software
has assumed gigantic proportions (to match hardware capabilities) of
late and that traditional Unix model certainly would never fit.

But not all software is gigantic.  I would venture a guess that
a large majority of programs are simple one-off concoctions designed
to meet some simple individual need.  In these cases it sure is nice
to have the standard Unix tools available.  I use them frequently
for various simple purposes.

Regarding the booting and configuring of a Linux system, the job can be
either very complex or very simple.  For the simple case, is there
technical merit in having to use systemd?  I would claim that there
is not.  For complex scenarios, by all means utilize systemd.
But let's keep the appropriate tools available for the appropriate job.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Rich Freeman]

On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 3:30 PM, Frank Peters <frank.peters@comcast.net> wrote:
> On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 13:22:28 -0500
> Canek Peláez Valdés <caneko@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> As a professional programmer, I completely disagree with any dogma
>> based on "philosophy" rather than technical merits.
>>
>> "So I think many of the "original ideals" of UNIX are these days more
>> of a mindset issue than necessarily reflecting reality of the
>> situation.
>>
>
> That's not the issue here at all.  The issue is the possible
> hegemony being imposed by systemd.  Whether or not this is true
> this issue at least deserves some attention.

Uh, systemd isn't imposing anything.

I think you're taking issue with the hegemony being imposed by the 90%
of the FOSS community who wants to use systemd.  :)

--
Rich

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Canek Peláez Valdés]

On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 2:30 PM, Frank Peters <frank.peters@comcast.net> wrote:
> On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 13:22:28 -0500
> Canek Peláez Valdés <caneko@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> As a professional programmer, I completely disagree with any dogma
>> based on "philosophy" rather than technical merits.
>>
>> "So I think many of the "original ideals" of UNIX are these days more
>> of a mindset issue than necessarily reflecting reality of the
>> situation.
>>
>
> That's not the issue here at all.  The issue is the possible
> hegemony being imposed by systemd.  Whether or not this is true
> this issue at least deserves some attention.

It's free software, as long as there is developers willing to work on
alternatives, there will be alternatives.

> Regarding the "Unix philosophy," I doubt that anyone still considers
> that a "pipeline of simple tools" is the ideal approach.  Software
> has assumed gigantic proportions (to match hardware capabilities) of
> late and that traditional Unix model certainly would never fit.

Agreed.

> But not all software is gigantic.  I would venture a guess that
> a large majority of programs are simple one-off concoctions designed
> to meet some simple individual need.  In these cases it sure is nice
> to have the standard Unix tools available.  I use them frequently
> for various simple purposes.

They are free software. You can keep them forever.

> Regarding the booting and configuring of a Linux system, the job can be
> either very complex or very simple.  For the simple case, is there
> technical merit in having to use systemd?  I would claim that there
> is not.  For complex scenarios, by all means utilize systemd.
> But let's keep the appropriate tools available for the appropriate job.

Who's going to take them away? And besides, it is FREE SOFTWARE. Clone
the repositories, and keep a personal copy around forever if you like.

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

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Barry Schwartz]

Canek Peláez Valdés <caneko@gmail.com> skribis:
> So, I will finish with this: if you really believe that there are no
> more new arguments for new paradigms and design principles, and that
> PDP-11 Unix is the answer to life, the universe, and everything, then
> go out and find and kill Buddha, please.

Implications that one is being a quasi-religious mystic are among the
predictable responses to criticism of current practices. As I say, the
arguments go round and round in this field.

We will, for instance, continue to have the article that says if only
we copied what civil engineers do then everything would be okay. (It
is the same article, ‘written’ over and over and over again. Somewhere
I have a copy of the expansion of it into an entire book.)

[gentoo-amd64] Re: Boycott Systemd

[Duncan]

Frank Peters posted on Mon, 22 Sep 2014 12:21:42 -0400 as excerpted:

> On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 06:00:20 +0000 (UTC)
> Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net> wrote:
> 
> 
>> As for the loss of the usb static device nodes, did you (Frank) file a
>> bug about it breaking your userspace?  That's one of Linus' most firm
>> kernel rules -- you do *NOT* change the userspace/kernelspace API/ABI
>> and break userspace.  However, there's a known exception.  Rather like
>> the old philosophical question as to whether if a tree falls in the
>> forest and nobody hears/sees it, did it actually fall at all, if nobody
>> notices the userspace/kernelspace ABI breaking, did it really break at
>> all?
>> 
>> 
> Bug reports won't be considered.  The removal of the kernel scanner
> module was well-planned and deliberate.  The new way is to use libusb to
> access the scanner from user space.  If it affects me then it affects
> countless others (and there are many forum posts about this issue) but
> these changes will not be reversed.

Perhaps, but if nobody bugged it on the don't break userspace issue...

Even if the decision didn't change, such a discussion would have been 
useful, as at minimum it would have helped delimit the boundaries of that 
rule, and may well have encouraged being somewhat less bold in its 
pronouncements, perhaps effecting a footnote or the like where 
appropriate, etc.

FWIW, I have a similar personal parallel, which illustrates the work-
around concept rather nicely.  I was running a first-gen AMD Opteron 
machine for 8+ years, upgrading it to dual-cores and upping the memory 
over time.  Eventually the mobo died (bulging/bad capacitors), but well 
before that, some kernel broke lm_sensors for some of its temp sensors, 
etc.

Turns out there was a problem with that and other functionality claiming 
the same I/O addresses that was common in hardware of that generation and 
the kernel was updated to be stricter about that, disabling one or the 
other so they didn't interfere.  But either I didn't happen to use 
whatever else was interfering, or whatever other claim on that IO space 
there was wasn't actually used on my hardware, or something.  Of course 
that didn't change the fact that lm_sensors, a userspace program, was now 
broken.

What *DID* change it was the fact that when they made that change, they 
added a kernel command-line option to be less strict with those 
reservations, effectively returning to the old functionality.  When this 
was pointed out on the bug I filed, I added that option to my kernel 
commandline, and sure enough, lm_sensors functionality was back to 
normal. =:^)

Other times they make it a kernel option, enabling deprecated procfs or 
sysfs interfaces, for instance.


The point being, if userspace was broken because of the change and 
somebody called them on exactly that, they'd have had to respond in 
/some/ way or other, and very likely the functionality would have 
remained available as a result, even if it took enabling some obscure 
kconfig option or adding a kernel commandline option to get it back.

If not, then precedent would have been set and we'd have an established 
line on the limits of that rule.

But someone would have had to file that bug in the first place, in 
ordered for that to happen.  Now it's likely too late, and the "if it 
breaks and nobody reports it, did it actually break" clause, along with 
the "other software now depends on the new behavior" clause, would likely 
be invoked, and unless the software broken was rather high profile, it's 
unlikely you'd get a change.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Barry Schwartz]

Frank Peters <frank.peters@comcast.net> skribis:
> Regarding the booting and configuring of a Linux system, the job can be
> either very complex or very simple.  For the simple case, is there
> technical merit in having to use systemd?  I would claim that there
> is not.  For complex scenarios, by all means utilize systemd.
> But let's keep the appropriate tools available for the appropriate job.

Yeah, I think people may not be getting my point. For instance, my
complaint is not that systemd exists, but, for instance, that someone
thought it a good idea to integrate udev and systemd, rather than make
the effort to keep them distinct.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Frank Peters]

On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 14:24:39 -0500
Barry Schwartz <chemoelectric@chemoelectric.org> wrote:

> > 
> > Someone has to write an apocalyptic novel about Linus Torvalds being
> > assassinated and his role taken over by the evil figures from ???.
> 
> I’m simply concerned that one day he will retire. 
> 

We are now going into a completely different area.

But to proceed we have to understand the psychology which underlies
open source development.

In open source, ideally, there is no money involved.  (I ignore
those who are on some corporate payroll.)  What then is the motivation
to produce and develop open source software?

It is EGO which drives open source.  Let there be no denying.  Open
source developers obtain their primary satisfaction by showing off
their programming prowess.  They want to be well known and famous
for their programming achievements.

When Torvalds steps out of the picture, for whatever reason, the
void will be filled by ego maniacs who want to claim the title
of Prime Linux Guru.  Linus is Top Dog Numero Uno now, but we
can imagine that all his subordinates eagerly crave his status
and there will be great contention among them to be enthroned
in his place when he is gone.

I predict, if this were to happen, that Linux would transform into
the personal toy of its egotistical developers.

Of course, we would also have to anticipate the gabbing (or buying)
of Linux by big corporate interests.  In this case, the market forces
surrounding the "lowest common denominator" would be the guiding
principle of development.

In either case we would have degeneration. 

>
> We cannot rely on the programming community to do the right thing. We
> are, for instance, sticking canaries on the stack while continuing to
> write crucial software like OpenSSL entirely in languages that
> _guarantee_ buffer overruns; and the programmer will continue to be
> blamed, instead of the practices. (Those who care may want to check
> out www.ats-lang.org for a practical alternative to C, suitable even
> for writing kernel modules.)
> 

How difficult would it be to introduce bounds checking on all
C arrays as with some other languages?  Would bounds checking
reduce the efficiency and speed of C, as these are probably
its most desired characteristics?  C is essentially only one
small step away from machine language and that's why it's
preferred for systems programming.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Harry Holt]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 4455 bytes --]

On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 2:22 PM, Canek Peláez Valdés <caneko@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 12:58 PM, Barry Schwartz
> <chemoelectric@chemoelectric.org> wrote:
> > Lie Ryan <lie.1296@gmail.com> skribis:
> >> Diversity isn't about feeding people who feels everything not-invented
> >> here is godawful. When you have a clearly defined problem and you can
> >> create a solution that satisfies that niche better than any other
> >> solutions, that is diversity.
> >
> > 'Diversity' here is deviation from established Unix/POSIX philosophy
> > in system design. Years of effort to simplify programming are being
> > thrown away on grounds that resemble common arguments in favor of the
> > 'tight integration' that is Microsoft Windows. I mean, seriously, many
> > of the pro-systemd arguments are like those I have heard for using
> > Windows: that applications 'just work', because they were written for
> > a dominant system.
> >
> > But I view this like a programmer, not like a Windows user; I want my
> > software to be portable because it is written portably (in a POSIX
> > sense), not because it is written for a universally available
> > particular POSIX variant. What I see is something like a return to the
> > days when you had to write different code for variants of USG, BSD,
> > and whatnot, except that now, unlike then, one of the variants is
> > overwhelmingly dominant.
> >
> > What I really fear, though, is what if one day the kernel team is a
> > different entity, more like other entities in the Linux world?
>
> As a professional programmer, I completely disagree with any dogma
> based on "philosophy" rather than technical merits. I will not rehash
> here the same discussion we have had several times in gentoo-user, so
> I will just paste what Linus recently had to say about "the
> traditional unix"[1].
>
> "So I think many of the "original ideals" of UNIX are these days more
> of a mindset issue than necessarily reflecting reality of the
> situation.
>
> "There's still value in understanding the traditional UNIX "do one
> thing and do it well" model where many workflows can be done as a
> pipeline of simple tools each adding their own value, but let's face
> it, it's not how complex systems really work, and it's not how major
> applications have been working or been designed for a long time. It's
> a useful simplification, and it's still true at *some* level, but I
> think it's also clear that it doesn't really describe most of reality.
>
> "It might describe some particular case, though, and I do think it's a
> useful teaching tool. People obviously still do those traditional
> pipelines of processes and file descriptors that UNIX is perhaps
> associated with, but there's a *lot* of cases where you have big
> complex unified systems."
>
> Let me emphasize the important part:
>
> "There's still value in understanding the traditional UNIX [...] model
> [...], but let's face it, it's not how complex systems really work".
>
> So, I'm sorry, but if I'm going to take a programmer's word, is going
> to be Linus over almost anyone else. And to quote Rob Pike: "Not only
> is UNIX dead, it's starting to smell really bad."
>
> Regards.
>
> [1]
> http://www.itwire.com/business-it-news/open-source/65402-torvalds-says-he-has-no-strong-opinions-on-systemd
> --
> Canek Peláez Valdés
> Profesor de asignatura, Facultad de Ciencias
> Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
>
>
You left out a few gems from Linus.  I already posted Linus' rant about
some of the major failings of systemd and its developers - there are some
issues he brings up in his article that you still refuse to acknowledge as
major short-comings:

"I don't actually have any particularly strong opinions on systemd itself.
I've had issues with some of the core developers that I think are much too
cavalier about bugs and compatibility, and I think some of the design
details are insane (I dislike the binary logs, for example), but those are
details, not big issues."

"Now, I'm still old-fashioned enough that I like my log-files in text, not
binary, so I think sometimes systemd hasn't necessarily had the best of
taste, but hey, details.."

But of course, actions speak louder than words.  Linus may have explained
why he kicked Kay Sievers out of the kernel maintainers, but if he did, it
wasn't included in the edited transcript.

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 5657 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Canek Peláez Valdés]

On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 3:08 PM, Harry Holt <harryholt@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 2:22 PM, Canek Peláez Valdés <caneko@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 12:58 PM, Barry Schwartz
>> <chemoelectric@chemoelectric.org> wrote:
>> > Lie Ryan <lie.1296@gmail.com> skribis:
>> >> Diversity isn't about feeding people who feels everything not-invented
>> >> here is godawful. When you have a clearly defined problem and you can
>> >> create a solution that satisfies that niche better than any other
>> >> solutions, that is diversity.
>> >
>> > ‘Diversity’ here is deviation from established Unix/POSIX philosophy
>> > in system design. Years of effort to simplify programming are being
>> > thrown away on grounds that resemble common arguments in favor of the
>> > ‘tight integration’ that is Microsoft Windows. I mean, seriously, many
>> > of the pro-systemd arguments are like those I have heard for using
>> > Windows: that applications ‘just work’, because they were written for
>> > a dominant system.
>> >
>> > But I view this like a programmer, not like a Windows user; I want my
>> > software to be portable because it is written portably (in a POSIX
>> > sense), not because it is written for a universally available
>> > particular POSIX variant. What I see is something like a return to the
>> > days when you had to write different code for variants of USG, BSD,
>> > and whatnot, except that now, unlike then, one of the variants is
>> > overwhelmingly dominant.
>> >
>> > What I really fear, though, is what if one day the kernel team is a
>> > different entity, more like other entities in the Linux world?
>>
>> As a professional programmer, I completely disagree with any dogma
>> based on "philosophy" rather than technical merits. I will not rehash
>> here the same discussion we have had several times in gentoo-user, so
>> I will just paste what Linus recently had to say about "the
>> traditional unix"[1].
>>
>> "So I think many of the "original ideals" of UNIX are these days more
>> of a mindset issue than necessarily reflecting reality of the
>> situation.
>>
>> "There's still value in understanding the traditional UNIX "do one
>> thing and do it well" model where many workflows can be done as a
>> pipeline of simple tools each adding their own value, but let's face
>> it, it's not how complex systems really work, and it's not how major
>> applications have been working or been designed for a long time. It's
>> a useful simplification, and it's still true at *some* level, but I
>> think it's also clear that it doesn't really describe most of reality.
>>
>> "It might describe some particular case, though, and I do think it's a
>> useful teaching tool. People obviously still do those traditional
>> pipelines of processes and file descriptors that UNIX is perhaps
>> associated with, but there's a *lot* of cases where you have big
>> complex unified systems."
>>
>> Let me emphasize the important part:
>>
>> "There's still value in understanding the traditional UNIX [...] model
>> [...], but let's face it, it's not how complex systems really work".
>>
>> So, I'm sorry, but if I'm going to take a programmer's word, is going
>> to be Linus over almost anyone else. And to quote Rob Pike: "Not only
>> is UNIX dead, it’s starting to smell really bad."
>>
>> Regards.
>>
>> [1]
>> http://www.itwire.com/business-it-news/open-source/65402-torvalds-says-he-has-no-strong-opinions-on-systemd
>> --
>> Canek Peláez Valdés
>> Profesor de asignatura, Facultad de Ciencias
>> Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
>>
>
> You left out a few gems from Linus.  I already posted Linus' rant about some
> of the major failings of systemd and its developers - there are some issues
> he brings up in his article that you still refuse to acknowledge as major
> short-comings:
>
> "I don't actually have any particularly strong opinions on systemd itself.
> I've had issues with some of the core developers that I think are much too
> cavalier about bugs and compatibility, and I think some of the design
> details are insane (I dislike the binary logs, for example), but those are
> details, not big issues."
>
> "Now, I'm still old-fashioned enough that I like my log-files in text, not
> binary, so I think sometimes systemd hasn't necessarily had the best of
> taste, but hey, details.."

You make my point: all the things Linus doesn't like about systemd are
"details".

> But of course, actions speak louder than words.  Linus may have explained
> why he kicked Kay Sievers out of the kernel maintainers, but if he did, it
> wasn't included in the edited transcript.

That happened almost six months ago. Nobody in LKML really cares about
that; only systemd-haters keep bring it up.

And yeah, actions speak louder than words. See which distributions
switched or are about to switch to systemd.

In the end, those are the only actions that matter.

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

[gentoo-amd64] Re: Boycott Systemd

[Duncan]

Frank Peters posted on Mon, 22 Sep 2014 14:41:14 -0400 as excerpted:

> Good design is highly flexible and configurable with little assumption
> made on the nature or needs of the user.
> 
> Let's consider a simple program to display digital images.  A good
> program design will not only contain built-in routines to accommodate
> the standard image formats but will also provide non-specific raster
> buffers to allow a user to view unconventional or even non-existent
> formats.  A good program design will also make no assumptions about the
> nature of the image data but rather allow the user to create any needed
> specifications.  A professional program thus allows both standard
> conventions but keeps the overall capability unrestricted and open
> ended.
> 
> As best as I can understand (I am not an expert in systems programming)
> under Torvalds the Linux OS conforms to such professional design goals.

/The/ Linux OS?  There is no such single entity.

There is /the/ Linux kernel.  There are all sorts of OSs designed and 
deployed for all sorts of different usage, using that kernel.  Linus 
controls the kernel, and had a hand in developing a few relatively 
insignificant userspace bits that run on that kernel and some subset of 
available userspace OS platforms, but he doesn't control userspace, and 
AFAIK, has no interest in doing so.

By raw number of deployments out there "The Linux OS" would have to refer 
to Android.  But systemd isn't part of the Android Linux OS/platform, nor 
does Android have much to do with the gentoo of the list on which this 
discussion is taking place, so that doesn't make sense in the context of 
this thread.

In the context of this thread, one might make an educated guess that what 
you refer to as "The Linux OS" would be what is technically known as
GNU/Linux, the GNU libc and various development tools, etc, that run on 
top of it and the Linux kernel, and on which most common Linux 
distributions other than android, including gentoo, base themselves.

And while individual bits of that platform may have happened to conform 
to your description in the past, there's no reason other bits included in 
the most common implementations of that platform in the future have to 
continue to do so.  That's fine, however, as it's all FLOSS, and devs and 
users are free to develop and use what works for them best, forking off 
of the most common solution where they find it worth their while to do 
so.  If /enough/ people do so, then the most common solution will switch 
to a different one as a result.

Which at a slightly different level is what we've already seen happen 
with Android.  Enough people found it useful that it's now the most 
common, rather more so than GNU/Linux.  But the same GNU/Linux ecosystem 
and its many variants that was around before, still continues to exist, 
as enough people with the skills to continue to continue development, 
continue to find it useful enough to do just that, continue development.

Which is exactly the situation non-systemd GNU/Linux looks to be headed 
for as well.  The systemd variant appears to be fast becoming the most 
common, but at least at this point, there's enough interest in the 
continued existence and development of non-systemd variants, that they 
continue to exist and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, 
as well.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Barry Schwartz]

Frank Peters <frank.peters@comcast.net> skribis:
> How difficult would it be to introduce bounds checking on all
> C arrays as with some other languages?  Would bounds checking
> reduce the efficiency and speed of C, as these are probably
> its most desired characteristics?  C is essentially only one
> small step away from machine language and that's why it's
> preferred for systems programming.

ATS allows the writing of code that prevents buffer overruns,
_without_ bounds checking. The ‘bounds checking’ is done by the type
system; you will get a compile-time error.

Most programming errors are type errors in some language that people
are not using.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Antoine Martin]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3463 bytes --]

On 23/09/14 01:22, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 12:58 PM, Barry Schwartz
> <chemoelectric@chemoelectric.org> wrote:
>> Lie Ryan <lie.1296@gmail.com> skribis:
>>> Diversity isn't about feeding people who feels everything not-invented
>>> here is godawful. When you have a clearly defined problem and you can
>>> create a solution that satisfies that niche better than any other
>>> solutions, that is diversity.
>> ‘Diversity’ here is deviation from established Unix/POSIX philosophy
>> in system design. Years of effort to simplify programming are being
>> thrown away on grounds that resemble common arguments in favor of the
>> ‘tight integration’ that is Microsoft Windows. I mean, seriously, many
>> of the pro-systemd arguments are like those I have heard for using
>> Windows: that applications ‘just work’, because they were written for
>> a dominant system.
>>
>> But I view this like a programmer, not like a Windows user; I want my
>> software to be portable because it is written portably (in a POSIX
>> sense), not because it is written for a universally available
>> particular POSIX variant. What I see is something like a return to the
>> days when you had to write different code for variants of USG, BSD,
>> and whatnot, except that now, unlike then, one of the variants is
>> overwhelmingly dominant.
>>
>> What I really fear, though, is what if one day the kernel team is a
>> different entity, more like other entities in the Linux world?
> As a professional programmer, I completely disagree with any dogma
> based on "philosophy" rather than technical merits. I will not rehash
> here the same discussion we have had several times in gentoo-user, so
> I will just paste what Linus recently had to say about "the
> traditional unix"[1].
Your attempt to dismiss other people's concern with an appeal to
authority is cute.
And as was pointed later, this is very much a case of "cherry picking"
from the interview, I've also seen " appeal to the majority" used in
this thread.

Personally, I am quite surprised to see that very few have mentioned the
one thing that makes me cringe in all the systemd discussions, namely
that anyone who disagrees with the systemd crowd is either misinformed,
stupid or holding back progress. Though this thread is a lot less acrid
than some (I am not posting to create further tension, but rather to
explain where I think some of this tension is coming from).
Many have legitimate gripes with systemd, but the dismissive attitude of
many systemd proponents is more of a social problem, and a worrying one.
It is almost impossible to have a technical discussion on the subject.

Now for my anecdotal evidence, which may help explain my position on the
subject: in 20 years of Linux, no other system level change has caused
me more time wasted than systemd (admitedly, the grub2 "upgrade" comes
close), this is both as a developer and as a user.
I do not make the claim that systemd does not have advantages for
others, please don't make the mistake of claiming that it does or will
do something beneficial for *me*. Even if it did, it would take many
many years to get me back on level terms :/

Apologies if this link was posted in this thread before, I think it
eloquently captures some of the concerns about systemd (sense of humour
required for reading):
https://lkml.org/lkml/2014/8/12/459

Cheers
Antoine

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Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Canek Peláez Valdés]

On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 3:22 PM, Canek Peláez Valdés <caneko@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 3:08 PM, Harry Holt <harryholt@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 2:22 PM, Canek Peláez Valdés <caneko@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 12:58 PM, Barry Schwartz
>>> <chemoelectric@chemoelectric.org> wrote:
>>> > Lie Ryan <lie.1296@gmail.com> skribis:
>>> >> Diversity isn't about feeding people who feels everything not-invented
>>> >> here is godawful. When you have a clearly defined problem and you can
>>> >> create a solution that satisfies that niche better than any other
>>> >> solutions, that is diversity.
>>> >
>>> > ‘Diversity’ here is deviation from established Unix/POSIX philosophy
>>> > in system design. Years of effort to simplify programming are being
>>> > thrown away on grounds that resemble common arguments in favor of the
>>> > ‘tight integration’ that is Microsoft Windows. I mean, seriously, many
>>> > of the pro-systemd arguments are like those I have heard for using
>>> > Windows: that applications ‘just work’, because they were written for
>>> > a dominant system.
>>> >
>>> > But I view this like a programmer, not like a Windows user; I want my
>>> > software to be portable because it is written portably (in a POSIX
>>> > sense), not because it is written for a universally available
>>> > particular POSIX variant. What I see is something like a return to the
>>> > days when you had to write different code for variants of USG, BSD,
>>> > and whatnot, except that now, unlike then, one of the variants is
>>> > overwhelmingly dominant.
>>> >
>>> > What I really fear, though, is what if one day the kernel team is a
>>> > different entity, more like other entities in the Linux world?
>>>
>>> As a professional programmer, I completely disagree with any dogma
>>> based on "philosophy" rather than technical merits. I will not rehash
>>> here the same discussion we have had several times in gentoo-user, so
>>> I will just paste what Linus recently had to say about "the
>>> traditional unix"[1].
>>>
>>> "So I think many of the "original ideals" of UNIX are these days more
>>> of a mindset issue than necessarily reflecting reality of the
>>> situation.
>>>
>>> "There's still value in understanding the traditional UNIX "do one
>>> thing and do it well" model where many workflows can be done as a
>>> pipeline of simple tools each adding their own value, but let's face
>>> it, it's not how complex systems really work, and it's not how major
>>> applications have been working or been designed for a long time. It's
>>> a useful simplification, and it's still true at *some* level, but I
>>> think it's also clear that it doesn't really describe most of reality.
>>>
>>> "It might describe some particular case, though, and I do think it's a
>>> useful teaching tool. People obviously still do those traditional
>>> pipelines of processes and file descriptors that UNIX is perhaps
>>> associated with, but there's a *lot* of cases where you have big
>>> complex unified systems."
>>>
>>> Let me emphasize the important part:
>>>
>>> "There's still value in understanding the traditional UNIX [...] model
>>> [...], but let's face it, it's not how complex systems really work".
>>>
>>> So, I'm sorry, but if I'm going to take a programmer's word, is going
>>> to be Linus over almost anyone else. And to quote Rob Pike: "Not only
>>> is UNIX dead, it’s starting to smell really bad."
>>>
>>> Regards.
>>>
>>> [1]
>>> http://www.itwire.com/business-it-news/open-source/65402-torvalds-says-he-has-no-strong-opinions-on-systemd
>>> --
>>> Canek Peláez Valdés
>>> Profesor de asignatura, Facultad de Ciencias
>>> Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
>>>
>>
>> You left out a few gems from Linus.  I already posted Linus' rant about some
>> of the major failings of systemd and its developers - there are some issues
>> he brings up in his article that you still refuse to acknowledge as major
>> short-comings:
>>
>> "I don't actually have any particularly strong opinions on systemd itself.
>> I've had issues with some of the core developers that I think are much too
>> cavalier about bugs and compatibility, and I think some of the design
>> details are insane (I dislike the binary logs, for example), but those are
>> details, not big issues."
>>
>> "Now, I'm still old-fashioned enough that I like my log-files in text, not
>> binary, so I think sometimes systemd hasn't necessarily had the best of
>> taste, but hey, details.."
>
> You make my point: all the things Linus doesn't like about systemd are
> "details".
>
>> But of course, actions speak louder than words.  Linus may have explained
>> why he kicked Kay Sievers out of the kernel maintainers, but if he did, it
>> wasn't included in the edited transcript.
>
> That happened almost six months ago. Nobody in LKML really cares about
> that; only systemd-haters keep bring it up.
>
> And yeah, actions speak louder than words. See which distributions
> switched or are about to switch to systemd.
>
> In the end, those are the only actions that matter.

And BTW, check the git logs for the Linux kernel; after Linus'
outburst in April, Kay has continued to be involved in several patches
to the Linux kernel, basically at the same rate that before the
outburst.

So, he was not kicked from anywhere. But that will not retract the
systemd-haters from bringing up that "argument".

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

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Barry Schwartz]

Antoine Martin <antoine@nagafix.co.uk> skribis:
> Now for my anecdotal evidence, which may help explain my position on the
> subject: in 20 years of Linux, no other system level change has caused
> me more time wasted than systemd (admitedly, the grub2 "upgrade" comes
> close), this is both as a developer and as a user.

I had the advantage of setting up Grub 2 originally as part of an
Exherbo installation a few years ago, where one was encouraged to do
it in the simplest possible way. If you do it that way, it’s actually
like Grub 1 except ever so slightly cleaner. I still do it that way.

If you do it like Ubuntu does, heaven help you. :)

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Canek Peláez Valdés]

On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 10:51 PM, Antoine Martin <antoine@nagafix.co.uk> wrote:
> Your attempt to dismiss other people's concern with an appeal to authority
> is cute.

Thank you, I think so too.

> And as was pointed later, this is very much a case of "cherry picking" from
> the interview, I've also seen " appeal to the majority" used in this thread.

It's not an appeal to the "majority". I don't care what the "majority"
of Linux users wants... in the first place because there is no
reliable way to measure such thing, and in the second place because I
think an admin with dominion over 100 systems, his opinion should have
more weight than the high school student that it's learning Linux.

I care about technical arguments (which this thread has been
*incredibly* lacking, except for the failed attempts to call a
"philosophy" a technical argument), and the opinion of experts on the
subject.

And more than that, even, I care about code. Talk is cheap; coding is
hard. Look at the git repositories, and basically all the answers that
you want are there.

Finally, I know you didn't specifically said it was me, but I want to
make something clear: I've *never* in this thread said that anyone was
stupid or "holding back" progress. I said that the anonymous author
from boycottsystemd.org was either spreading FUD or ignorant, but I
presented proof of why it's blatantly false that GNOME has a hard
dependency on systemd. Here are the links again: [1], [2].

[1] http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20140219085851
[2] https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-session/tree/configure.ac#n139

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

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Barry Schwartz]

Canek Peláez Valdés <caneko@gmail.com> skribis:
> On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 10:51 PM, Antoine Martin <antoine@nagafix.co.uk> wrote:
> > Your attempt to dismiss other people's concern with an appeal to authority
> > is cute.
> 
> Thank you, I think so too.

...

> I care about technical arguments (which this thread has been
> *incredibly* lacking, except for the failed attempts to call a
> "philosophy" a technical argument), and the opinion of experts on the
> subject.

...

> Canek Peláez Valdés
> Profesor de asignatura, Facultad de Ciencias
> Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Am I to understand that you are an actual academic and yet consider
this kind of speech a reasonable discussion of technical issues?

It is more like an exchange between political candidates or lawyers in
a courtroom.

This is why I don’t even bother to explain how fontconfig is ruining
everything, even though I can do so in exquisite detail.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Canek Peláez Valdés]

On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 11:32 PM, Barry Schwartz
<chemoelectric@chemoelectric.org> wrote:
[snip]
> Am I to understand that you are an actual academic and yet consider
> this kind of speech a reasonable discussion of technical issues?

I just said that this thread has *seriously* lacked on technical
arguments. I haven't made almost any technical argument, because
basically all the discussion has been around conspiracy theories about
"evil figures" (not my words), for "profit" companies (again, not my
words), and the infallibility of the Unix "philosophy", in which this
field apparently the arguments "go round and round, however, and never
change"... again, not my words, *yours* actually.

*You* call *that* "a reasonable discussion of technical issues"?

> It is more like an exchange between political candidates or lawyers in
> a courtroom.

I agree. But I just started participating in this thread to expose a
blatantly false claim, that GNOME has systemd as hard dependency. All
that has followed (except for a few precious good comments from Rich
and others), has been like you have described, "an exchange between
political candidates or lawyers in a courtroom".

You in particular ignored my comment about why vertical integration,
non-portability, and binary formats have its merits.

> This is why I don’t even bother to explain how fontconfig is ruining
> everything, even though I can do so in exquisite detail.

No offense, but I do not care about your opinion on fontconfig or
programming languages with built-in provisions against buffer
overflows. However, I would *love* to discuss, in a reasonable way,
about the merits and weakness of systemd.

So bring it on.

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

Re: [gentoo-amd64] grub2 upgrade fail (was Boycott Systemd)

[Antoine Martin]

On 23/09/14 11:07, Barry Schwartz wrote:
> Antoine Martin <antoine@nagafix.co.uk> skribis:
>> Now for my anecdotal evidence, which may help explain my position on the
>> subject: in 20 years of Linux, no other system level change has caused
>> me more time wasted than systemd (admitedly, the grub2 "upgrade" comes
>> close), this is both as a developer and as a user.
> I had the advantage of setting up Grub 2 originally as part of an
> Exherbo installation a few years ago, where one was encouraged to do
> it in the simplest possible way. If you do it that way, it’s actually
> like Grub 1 except ever so slightly cleaner. I still do it that way.
"Simple" and the large collection of scripts that is grub2 is not
something I often hear in the same sentence ;)
FWIW: the problem I hit during this particular upgrade was caused by
grub2 being flat out incompatible with the disk geometry found on that
system, when grub1 was not.. I believe this is the ticket for it:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=737508

I really didn't have time to investigate this problem during the short
planned downtime window.
Thankfully, lilo came to the rescue. Choice is good!
> If you do it like Ubuntu does, heaven help you. :)
:)

Antoine

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Barry Schwartz]

Canek Peláez Valdés <caneko@gmail.com> skribis:
> Finally, I know you didn't specifically said it was me, but I want to
> make something clear: I've *never* in this thread said that anyone was
> stupid or "holding back" progress. I said that the anonymous author
> from boycottsystemd.org was either spreading FUD or ignorant, but I
> presented proof of why it's blatantly false that GNOME has a hard
> dependency on systemd. Here are the links again: [1], [2].

I verified the inaccuracy when you first mentioned it. The ebuilds, at
least in the cases I examined, can use consolekit. I would not rush to
use that website as a citation.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] grub2 upgrade fail (was Boycott Systemd)

[Barry Schwartz]

Antoine Martin <antoine@nagafix.co.uk> skribis:
> "Simple" and the large collection of scripts that is grub2 is not
> something I often hear in the same sentence ;)

I don’t use any of the scripts, and just have a very simple, hand
edited grub config file. Lilo, however, has the huge advantage that it
tries to verify the config before it does anything hazardous.

Grub 2 seems to me better than Grub 1 (though still not very good) if
you find yourself editing things at the Grub command line. However, if
it does not work on a given computer then this is what I call ‘a fact
of life’. :)

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Frank Peters]

On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 23:48:46 -0500
Canek Peláez Valdés <caneko@gmail.com> wrote:

> 
> I just said that this thread has *seriously* lacked on technical
> arguments. I haven't made almost any technical argument, because
> basically all the discussion has been around conspiracy theories
> ...
> *You* call *that* "a reasonable discussion of technical issues"?
> 

Any *good* programmer realizes that programming is not at all
about writing code.  The foremost tasks of a good programmer
are problem analysis, planning, and understanding both the overall
scheme and ramifications of any proposed solution.  Once these
tasks are accomplished the actual coding, which is a relatively
trivial matter, can begin.

Therefore it is not unreasonable or unproductive to approach
the systemd issue from a political or philosophical perspective.

But having said that, I will admit that this thread has served
its purpose for me.  My concerns about systemd have been addressed
and my fears have been calmed by the responses.  I want to thank
all those who participated.

However, I do remain cautiously optimistic.  Anyone who understands
the human world knows all too well that idealistic causes do not
persist for long.  I am sometimes surprised at the longevity of
Linux as a free and open project, but I realize that in time it too shall
succumb to the social forces that have destroyed similar endeavors.
I can only hope that the time will be long in coming.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] grub2 upgrade fail (was Boycott Systemd)

[Barry Schwartz]

Expanding on this:
> Subject: Re: [gentoo-amd64] grub2 upgrade fail (was Boycott Systemd)
> From: Barry Schwartz <chemoelectric@chemoelectric.org>
> Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 00:42:44 -0500
> To: gentoo-amd64@lists.gentoo.org
> 
> Antoine Martin <antoine@nagafix.co.uk> skribis:
> > "Simple" and the large collection of scripts that is grub2 is not
> > something I often hear in the same sentence ;)
> 
> I don’t use any of the scripts, and just have a very simple, hand
> edited grub config file. Lilo, however, has the huge advantage that it
> tries to verify the config before it does anything hazardous.
> 
> Grub 2 seems to me better than Grub 1 (though still not very good) if
> you find yourself editing things at the Grub command line. However, if
> it does not work on a given computer then this is what I call ‘a fact
> of life’. :)

See http://exherbo.org/docs/install-guide.html for how simple it can
be to use GRUB 2, if you just ignore the hoopla. My own config is
kmore complicated; it installs some fonts and has entries for memtest;
but these are minor niceties.

(Completely avoiding initrd by simply putting / and /usr on one
filesystem is another of those measures you wouldn’t think existed if
your experience were entirely Ubuntu, etc.)

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Barry Schwartz]

Frank Peters <frank.peters@comcast.net> skribis:
> However, I do remain cautiously optimistic.  Anyone who understands
> the human world knows all too well that idealistic causes do not
> persist for long.  I am sometimes surprised at the longevity of
> Linux as a free and open project, but I realize that in time it too shall
> succumb to the social forces that have destroyed similar endeavors.
> I can only hope that the time will be long in coming.

I think the perhaps inevitable devolution may have more to do with the
complacency that is why we use a bloated clone of Unix instead of
something that is actually a fundamental advance on Unix. But this is
speculative.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Canek Peláez Valdés]

On Tue, Sep 23, 2014 at 12:49 AM, Frank Peters <frank.peters@comcast.net> wrote:
> On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 23:48:46 -0500
> Canek Peláez Valdés <caneko@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> I just said that this thread has *seriously* lacked on technical
>> arguments. I haven't made almost any technical argument, because
>> basically all the discussion has been around conspiracy theories
>> ...
>> *You* call *that* "a reasonable discussion of technical issues"?
>>
>
> Any *good* programmer realizes that programming is not at all
> about writing code.  The foremost tasks of a good programmer
> are problem analysis, planning, and understanding both the overall
> scheme and ramifications of any proposed solution.  Once these
> tasks are accomplished the actual coding, which is a relatively
> trivial matter, can begin.

http://0pointer.net/blog/projects/systemd.html

You may not agree with the points presented there, but there was
*ample* "analysis, planning, and understanding of the overall scheme
and ramifications" of the "proposed solution" (systemd in this case)
before a single line of core was written.

And then they also wrote the code.

> Therefore it is not unreasonable or unproductive to approach
> the systemd issue from a political or philosophical perspective.

I will just answer: code talks.

> But having said that, I will admit that this thread has served
> its purpose for me.  My concerns about systemd have been addressed
> and my fears have been calmed by the responses.  I want to thank
> all those who participated.

You are welcome.

> However, I do remain cautiously optimistic.  Anyone who understands
> the human world knows all too well that idealistic causes do not
> persist for long.  I am sometimes surprised at the longevity of
> Linux as a free and open project, but I realize that in time it too shall
> succumb to the social forces that have destroyed similar endeavors.
> I can only hope that the time will be long in coming.

Again, code talks. And Linux is not idealistic at all; I believe Linus
and his lieutenants would laugh at the notion that it is.

Linux is a technological triumph, created, maintained and evolved by
highly technically qualified people. Idealism had nothing to do with
it; contrary to GNU/Hurd, the GPL-2 license was chosen because it was
the best choice for technical reasons (highly collaborative project
over the Internet). And because idealism has nothing to do with it, it
didn't switched over to GPL-3.

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

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Boycott Systemd

[Frank Peters]

On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 16:14:11 +0000 (UTC)
Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net> wrote:

> 
> Again, bottom line, report kernel breakage of userspace, the same kernel 
> cycle that breakage happens if at all possible, which means testing an 
> early enough kernel rc (rc3 is good)
>

That certainly is good advice but unfortunately, even if I had the
desire, I do not have the wherewithal to follow kernel development
too closely.  But the next time I see breakage with a new kernel
I will fire off a quick message to LKML about it.

Also, my example of the changes in USB device nodes is not the only
recent occurrence of /dev tree modifications.  The kernel folks also
removed the static /dev/rtc, or real-time clock device node.  In place
there is now /dev/rtc1, /dev/rtc2, etc., and the intention is to
dynamically allocate these nodes with udev.  This change broke my
use space but it was easy to fix.

But does this represent a creep toward having the kernel depend on
the user-space udev (or its equivalents)?  Because I don't closely
follow kernel development I cannot say for certain, but it sure seems
that way.

Let's face it.  The static device tree is "old" Unix and is way
out of the current fashion.  The "old" way is to know your hardware
and manually configure accordingly.  The "new" way is to have the system
determine your hardware and do the configuration for you (based
on a distributed database of zillions of entries, possibilities,
and permutations).

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Paul Jewell]

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On 23/09/14 04:51, Antoine Martin wrote:
>
> Apologies if this link was posted in this thread before, I think it
> eloquently captures some of the concerns about systemd (sense of
> humour required for reading):
> https://lkml.org/lkml/2014/8/12/459
>
> Cheers
> Antoine
Thanks for posting this link Antoine. I have not come across it
previously, but I agree entirely with the sentiments expressed in it.

Rgds.,
Paul


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Systemd is really beside the point, anyway (was Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd)

[Barry Schwartz]

Paul Jewell <paul@teulu.org> skribis:
> On 23/09/14 04:51, Antoine Martin wrote:
> >
> > Apologies if this link was posted in this thread before, I think it
> > eloquently captures some of the concerns about systemd (sense of
> > humour required for reading):
> > https://lkml.org/lkml/2014/8/12/459
> >
> > Cheers
> > Antoine
> Thanks for posting this link Antoine. I have not come across it
> previously, but I agree entirely with the sentiments expressed in it.

The really funny thing, to me, is that, if one wanted to go head to
head on the desktop and laptop with the behemoths, one of the most
obvious actions would be to build up GNUstep, to actually make a
working a Flash alternative, duplicate some of Microsoft’s
‘infrastructure’ crapola, and to do some other things that
_supposedly_ are top priorities for the FSF.

Nothing to do with Linux or init whatsoever, really.

Not to mention that fontconfig _guarantees_ that people who try to use
GIMP or Inkscape professionally on a POSIX platform will find a random
hash instead of a font menu, for instance if they try to use Adobe
Opticals. And there is no usable desktop publishing; just some
semi-functional and niche applications.

Again, nothing to with Linux, systemd, udev, or any of that. And one
would think breaking into the Macintosh desktop market was important,
since these people already were willing to use something
non-Microsoft.

Really I think the whole shebang, from FSF on down, gives more lip
service than effort towards the foremost of its supposed goals (which
are very difficult and not very computer sciency), and so free
software remains the domain mostly of people who would rather use
something Unix-like even if all OSes were slaveware.


To keep this thread Gentoo-specific, here is my unsatisfactory but
functioning fontconfig workaround, as an ebuild:

https://bitbucket.org/chemoelectric/chemoelectric-overlay/src/5f1f4ef766bf7d0527670170bf625fa72bfc0dc0/media-libs/fontconfig/?at=master

Most importantly the workaround disables use of some OpenType name
fields by the pattern matcher, because those fields are grossly
misused by fontconfig (although in a very computer sciency way --
naive pattern matching). There is some functionality added to allow
playing around with search priorities, too; I forget what, because
this is work from years ago already, and the software ‘just works’ so
I do not fiddle with it anymore.

[gentoo-amd64] Re: Boycott Systemd

[Duncan]

Frank Peters posted on Tue, 23 Sep 2014 10:55:58 -0400 as excerpted:

> Also, my example of the changes in USB device nodes is not the only
> recent occurrence of /dev tree modifications.  The kernel folks also
> removed the static /dev/rtc, or real-time clock device node.  In place
> there is now /dev/rtc1, /dev/rtc2, etc., and the intention is to
> dynamically allocate these nodes with udev.  This change broke my use
> space but it was easy to fix.

I guess you'd be the one to ask about this...

Have you tried the kernel's own devtmpfs?  How well does it work compared 
to a static dev, etc?

I run devtmpfs but with udev (and actually now full systemd) on top, so I 
don't know how it does by itself.  But best I know, the idea is that it 
dynamically handles the default kernel devices, popping them in place as 
the corresponding hardware is detected.  For general desktop systems udev 
is assumed to be run on top and do fancy stuff like the /dev/disk/by-* 
symlinks and specific non-default permissions (with default being root/
root 0660 IIRC), but for embedded and systems that have a pretty static 
device config and thus don't want/need the fancy udev stuff, devtmpfs is 
supposed to provide basic dynamic-device-node service.

So I'm wondering how well it works with your sort of config by itself, 
and whether it's a reasonable basic replacement for a static device 
tree.  It seems to me that might be the expected middle-road for those 
who don't want/need a full udev, and since it's a pure kernel and kconfig 
solution, including an option to have the kernel automount it without 
userspace help, that might be what they'd point you to as an answer to 
the otherwise userspace breakage.

But I haven't the foggiest whether devtmpfs would handle those dynamic USB 
device nodes without udev, or not.  My /guess/ would be that if it 
doesn't, making it do so might be the bug-fix they'd offer if someone 
/did/ complain about userspace breakage in that regard.

Like I said, you'd be the one to ask, so I am. =:^)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

[gentoo-amd64] Re: grub2 upgrade fail (was Boycott Systemd)

[Duncan]

Barry Schwartz posted on Tue, 23 Sep 2014 00:50:51 -0500 as excerpted:

> Expanding on this:
>> From: Barry Schwartz <chemoelectric@chemoelectric.org>
>> Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 00:42:44 -0500
>> 
>> Antoine Martin <antoine@nagafix.co.uk> skribis:
>>> "Simple" and the large collection of scripts that is grub2 is not
>>> something I often hear in the same sentence ;)
>> 
>> I don’t use any of the scripts, and just have a very simple, hand
>> edited grub config file.
> 
> See http://exherbo.org/docs/install-guide.html for how simple it can be
> to use GRUB 2, if you just ignore the hoopla. My own config is more
> complicated; it installs some fonts and has entries for memtest; but
> these are minor niceties.

When I installed grub2 I was running four drives in (mdraid) raid1 mode.  
While most of the system was 4-way raid1, I already had my /boot as two-
way raid1, with a backup /boot on a second two-device raid1.  That 
allowed me to update one grub and/or /boot at a time, leaving the other 
one in place and changing much more slowly.  I run git kernels and 
normally load another git kernel on the "working" /boot every few days, 
updating the backup only with the .0 stable kernel releases.  (I don't 
usually bother with the stable-series .1, and usually switch to the new 
development kernel about the time stable .2 or .3 comes out, so the .0 
releases are my "stable" kernels.)

Between that and the fact that I was already running GPT partitions and 
had already reserved a BIOS partition for grub2's usage when I switched 
to GPT, made the switch to grub2 reasonably easy.

But I too don't use the scripts, and indeed, have the primary scripted 
installer install-masked, so there's no way anything could /possibly/ run 
it accidentally, as it simply doesn't exist /to/ run!

And my grub2 native scripted config is probably one of the more complex 
ones here.  My grub.cfg is a short stub that primarily sets up the main 
grub menu and exports a few vars, with only the primary boot and a couple 
submenus listed on the initial boot menu.

The first submenu is backups.  This loads another config file that lets 
me choose from several kernels (primary, backup, stable, all set in grub 
vars and I simply assign the appropriate one to the bootkernel var), 
choose which root I'm going to boot (working, primary backup, secondary 
backup on another device, again, all set in vars so selecting one simply 
loads the rootselect var from the appropriate one), choose whether I'm 
going to boot systemd or bash as pid1/init (again via vars, with the 
default of course openrc previously, and with both openrc and systemd 
available for awhile when I switched), and yet another choice that gives 
me a prompt to fill in additional kernel-commandline options if I want to 
(again assigned to a grub var, that's normally null).  Finally, there's a 
reset option that resets all these choices back to the defaults, if I 
screw up on one of them.

Actual booting, whether the default boot as chosen from the initial menu, 
or from the backups submenu, loads yet another config file, that simply 
loads all those vars into the appropriate place in the kernel command and 
runs it.  Additionally, it detects (via another var) whether I'm loading 
it from the backups submenu/config, or the default boot, from the main 
menu/config.  If it's the default it simply runs it, if it's loaded from 
the backups submenu, it loads all the vars and displays what it's going 
to do, asking me if that's correct, before actually running it.  If I 
tell it no, it loads the backups menu/config again and lets me try again.

The second submenu/config available from the primary menu is utils.  This 
contains built-in grub-command choices such as reboot/halt, a command 
that loads all my partitions into various vars so I can switch to grub-
command mode and browse arbitrary files from them (using the vars) if 
need be (good for loading the kernel dir to read about kernel commandline 
options if I'm troubleshooting! =:^), an entry that cats out (with the 
grub-pager activated) my grub-notes files with various useful grub and 
kernel-commandline options I've discovered over the years, etc.

Of course I could switch to grub-commandline mode and do most of these 
same things, including directly editing the kernel commandline that grub 
will hand off, but it's nice to have the choices all setup in a nice menu-
based system so I can simply select the appropriate ones, instead. =:^)

And because it's all grub-var based, with many of the basic choices 
already preset in grubenv, changing many of the settings is simply a 
matter of mounting /boot and running grub-editenv from a terminal. =:^)

> (Completely avoiding initrd by simply putting / and /usr on one
> filesystem is another of those measures you wouldn’t think existed if
> your experience were entirely Ubuntu, etc.)

That's how my system is setup, not to avoid an initr* altho it's nice for 
that, but rather, so that everything installed by portage is on the same 
partition as the portage installation database (/var/db/pkg).  I learned 
to do that the hard way, after having a drive die and having to recover 
from backups, but with the backup for /, /var, and /usr, being three 
different backups created at different times, so when I had finished 
restoring from backup, the installed-package database didn't match what 
was actually on / and /usr!  I was still cleaning up from that fiasco, 
finding stale files that hadn't been updated because portage lost track 
of them due to all this, over a year later!

I vowed never again!  So now most of /var along with most of /usr, pretty 
much everything portage installs, is on /, along with the database 
tracking it.  That way, whatever backup I end up booting to and restoring 
from, the installed-package database will match it, because it's on the 
same backup! =:^)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

[gentoo-amd64] Re: Boycott Systemd

[Duncan]

Antoine Martin posted on Tue, 23 Sep 2014 10:51:49 +0700 as excerpted:

> Personally, I am quite surprised to see that very few have mentioned the
> one thing that makes me cringe in all the systemd discussions, namely
> that anyone who disagrees with the systemd crowd is either misinformed,
> stupid or holding back progress. Though this thread is a lot less acrid
> than some (I am not posting to create further tension, but rather to
> explain where I think some of this tension is coming from).
> Many have legitimate gripes with systemd, but the dismissive attitude of
> many systemd proponents is more of a social problem, and a worrying one.
> It is almost impossible to have a technical discussion on the subject.

It has been implied as some of the other points (the LKML discussion 
where Linus got mad at ksievers, for isntance) are there as a result of 
this, but you're correct, nobody had been naming it directly.

And that was and remains my biggest concern as well, even tho I'm running 
systemd now.  Well, that and the "gray goo" problem.  But I decided I'd 
try it anyway, knowing I could always switch inits by just setting init= 
appropriately if I decided it wasn't something I was ready to use just 
yet, and once I did enough research to actually try it properly and had 
actually done so, I found that despite my misgivings in these two areas, 
it was enough faster and easier to work with than openrc, that despite 
having to figuratively "hold my nose" to do it, I wanted to keep using 
systemd.

I'm still "holding my nose", but from the systemd side of town, now.  
Time will reveal how it all turns out, I guess, but meanwhile, I can 
always boot the backup to get back to sanity, if some new version of 
systemd either won't boot or does something I consider insane and don't 
want on my system, and from that backup, if necessary I can reinstall 
openrc.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Boycott Systemd

[Frank Peters]

On Wed, 24 Sep 2014 11:25:34 +0000 (UTC)
Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net> wrote:

> 
> Have you tried the kernel's own devtmpfs?  How well does it work compared 
> to a static dev, etc?
> 

No, I have not tried devtmpfs.

The reason for devtmpfs is to allow faster boots by not having udev
need to parse the sysfs hierarchy to discover devices.  Thus devtmpfs,
although it can be used independently of udev, is really intended to
assist udev.

A static /dev tree is good enough for me at this point.  I always build
my own machines (even laptops) and I know exactly what hardware I have
and what device nodes to create.  For plug-in or USB hardware, I can parse
sysfs with my own code as easily as udev can.

This method may seem strange and even regressive and stubborn to many
Linux users.  All I can say in response is that one has to be a little
bit fanatical to even use Linux, and I am probably more than just a little
bit fanatical.

But I certainly appreciate the suggestion and I will keep it mind
when eventually I am forced, kicking and screaming, to accept udev,
systemd, etc., etc., etc.

[gentoo-amd64] Re: Boycott Systemd

[Duncan]

Frank Peters posted on Wed, 24 Sep 2014 12:58:22 -0400 as excerpted:

> This method may seem strange and even regressive and stubborn to many
> Linux users.  All I can say in response is that one has to be a little
> bit fanatical to even use Linux,

... let alone Gentoo,...

> and I am probably more than just a little bit fanatical.

=:^)

While few gentooers take it to the level you have, I expect most 
understand the concept.  After all, they /are/ gentooers. =:^)

FWIW, I was doing something similar with my own suspend/hibernate script 
for awhile.  I stopped once I switched to systemd as its related 
functionality works well enough, and does what I want and need without 
the whole policykit, etc, circus, which I do *NOT* want or need.

There's a certain "direct drive", "close to the metal" confidence you get 
from mastering the concepts well enough to do it yourself like that.  Any 
gentooer should appreciate the concept to some extent, but those that 
have actually gone beyond gentoo and bare-scripted at that level I think 
appreciate even more both the concept, and how powerful and even 
addicting it can be.  For those who have done it, there's a definite loss 
in doing it any other way.  For some people at some point, that loss is 
worth it to avoid the additional maintenance and responsibility that 
comes with it, while for others there is and can be no acceptable 
replacement for that direct control.

FWIW, as I said I've accepted that loss in letting systemd handle the 
suspend and hibernate details for me now, but OTOH, while I can 
appreciate those who for instance leave gentoo for arch, assuming gentoo 
is still viable at the time, I have a hard time envisioning me running 
anything else even 20-30 years from now when chances are I'll be in a 
retirement home.  I /am/ nearing 50 after all, and 30 years from now 
would put me at 77, at which point there is definitely a fair chance I'll 
be in a retirement home, if I'm even around any longer...  And yes, I 
think there's a fair chance I'll still be running gentoo, even then. =:^)

IOW, I think it's fair to say that most/all gentooers are at least a bit 
fanatical in that way, enough to appreciate and respect your position.  
Certainly I do. =:^)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Boycott Systemd

[Harry Holt]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2755 bytes --]

On Thu, Sep 25, 2014 at 12:12 AM, Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net> wrote:

> Frank Peters posted on Wed, 24 Sep 2014 12:58:22 -0400 as excerpted:
>
> > This method may seem strange and even regressive and stubborn to many
> > Linux users.  All I can say in response is that one has to be a little
> > bit fanatical to even use Linux,
>
> ... let alone Gentoo,...
>
> > and I am probably more than just a little bit fanatical.
>
> =:^)
>
> While few gentooers take it to the level you have, I expect most
> understand the concept.  After all, they /are/ gentooers. =:^)
>
> FWIW, I was doing something similar with my own suspend/hibernate script
> for awhile.  I stopped once I switched to systemd as its related
> functionality works well enough, and does what I want and need without
> the whole policykit, etc, circus, which I do *NOT* want or need.
>
> There's a certain "direct drive", "close to the metal" confidence you get
> from mastering the concepts well enough to do it yourself like that.  Any
> gentooer should appreciate the concept to some extent, but those that
> have actually gone beyond gentoo and bare-scripted at that level I think
> appreciate even more both the concept, and how powerful and even
> addicting it can be.  For those who have done it, there's a definite loss
> in doing it any other way.  For some people at some point, that loss is
> worth it to avoid the additional maintenance and responsibility that
> comes with it, while for others there is and can be no acceptable
> replacement for that direct control.
>

Oh, come now.  Gentoo is for the folks who want it all simple and easy,
packaged pretty and tied with a bow.

Real Linux techies only use Linux from Scratch
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

;)



>
> FWIW, as I said I've accepted that loss in letting systemd handle the
> suspend and hibernate details for me now, but OTOH, while I can
> appreciate those who for instance leave gentoo for arch, assuming gentoo
> is still viable at the time, I have a hard time envisioning me running
> anything else even 20-30 years from now when chances are I'll be in a
> retirement home.  I /am/ nearing 50 after all, and 30 years from now
> would put me at 77, at which point there is definitely a fair chance I'll
> be in a retirement home, if I'm even around any longer...  And yes, I
> think there's a fair chance I'll still be running gentoo, even then. =:^)
>
> IOW, I think it's fair to say that most/all gentooers are at least a bit
> fanatical in that way, enough to appreciate and respect your position.
> Certainly I do. =:^)
>
> --
> Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
> "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
> and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman
>
>
>

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Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Boycott Systemd

[Harry Holt]

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Oh, I get it now.

The systemd folks are fine - it's all the other Linux devs (Linus, too)
that are the real problem:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/10/06/poettering_says_linux_kernel_community_is_hostil/

https://plus.google.com/app/basic/stream/z13rdjryqyn1xlt3522sxpugoz3gujbhh04



Harry Holt, PMP
Cyber Architect
Social Media Strategist

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Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Boycott Systemd

[Barry Schwartz]

Harry Holt <harryholt@gmail.com> skribis:
> Oh, I get it now.
> 
> The systemd folks are fine - it's all the other Linux devs (Linus, too)
> that are the real problem:
> 
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/10/06/poettering_says_linux_kernel_community_is_hostil/
> 
> https://plus.google.com/app/basic/stream/z13rdjryqyn1xlt3522sxpugoz3gujbhh04

It’s a good thing free software was _invented_ by a polite,
unopinionated guy like RMS, or Poettering would have _real_ problems.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Boycott Systemd

[Rich Freeman]

On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 10:18 AM, Harry Holt <harryholt@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The systemd folks are fine - it's all the other Linux devs (Linus, too) that
> are the real problem:
>

I think we're all part of the problem to an extent.   Many of us
contribute to the flames, and many more of us contribute by tolerating
them.

Sometimes Lennart contributes his own flames to the mix, but I don't
think that really makes his comments any less valid.  I've been around
Gentoo long enough to see several cycles of people ragequitting over
this kind of nonsense, and fortunately some do return.  We probably
also receive in contributors who ragequit elsewhere, and other
projects take on those we abandon along the way.  It is a bit sad, to
be honest, that despite the fact that we all share some common
passions for FOSS we still manage to drive each other up the wall at
times.

Somebody once commented at a Linux User Group meeting I attended that
if somebody came up with a "cure" for Aspergers it would destroy FOSS
overnight, and maybe this has something to do with it.  :)

When I am confronted with this sort of stuff I always recall some
words of wisdom from the 90s - "Cypherpunks write code."  In the end
we can complain about this or that, but the biggest lasting impact you
can have on an FOSS project is writing code.   When I think about
that, I find myself spending less time tearing down people who are
actually writing code, and more time writing code myself.

--
Rich

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Boycott Systemd

[Barry Schwartz]

Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> skribis:
> I've been around
> Gentoo long enough to see several cycles of people ragequitting over
> this kind of nonsense, and fortunately some do return.

Ragequitters do not matter for the projects we are talking about, even
if they happen to matter for Gentoo (which I stipulate only for
argument’s sake). Is not the goal supposed to be to get users who
normally aren’t even discussing ‘Linux’?

Certainly this is equivalent to the stated goals of the FSF.

So then the question becomes: is systemd the way to achieve the goal,
and, if not, why all the person-hours spent on it?

We have very serious problems with effort-misdirection in free
software. Would that one one-thousandth of the effort went into making
fonts and typography work correctly on GNU systems.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Boycott Systemd

[Damien Levac]

My humble opinion:

If people want to work on a project, it is their own decision. Adoption
is the decision of higher-level developers and users. It makes
absolutely no sense to bash people developing a particular software. You
don't like it? Don't use it. You are mad because software X, you were
using, decided to depend on software Y that you hate? Fork software X,
use something else, express (politely) your disappointment to X's
developers, but why would you go hate on Y's developers?

Makes no sense.


In the open-source world, we run softwares made by millions of man-hours
for free because these motivated people liked what they were doing and
was altruist enough to share with the World.

So World, STFU.




On 10/07/2014 04:43 PM, Barry Schwartz wrote:
> Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> skribis:
>> I've been around
>> Gentoo long enough to see several cycles of people ragequitting over
>> this kind of nonsense, and fortunately some do return.
> Ragequitters do not matter for the projects we are talking about, even
> if they happen to matter for Gentoo (which I stipulate only for
> argument’s sake). Is not the goal supposed to be to get users who
> normally aren’t even discussing ‘Linux’?
>
> Certainly this is equivalent to the stated goals of the FSF.
>
> So then the question becomes: is systemd the way to achieve the goal,
> and, if not, why all the person-hours spent on it?
>
> We have very serious problems with effort-misdirection in free
> software. Would that one one-thousandth of the effort went into making
> fonts and typography work correctly on GNU systems.
>
>

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Boycott Systemd

[Barry Schwartz]

Damien Levac <damien.levac@gmail.com> skribis:
> My humble opinion:
> 
> If people want to work on a project, it is their own decision.

That pertains to hobbyists. I’m purely a hobbyist, filling timek; I
work on what I enjoy. Anyone who argues with that can keep it to
themselves.

But we are talking, instead, about profit and non-profit organizations
that have goals and in some cases ask for our donations. Whose goals
are being achieved? Are they the FSF’s, or are they Red Hat’s? How
much do these goals overlap? Is one organization’s work hindering the
stated goals of the other? Is Freedesktop.org serving the community
well, or is it dysfunctional?  Etc., etc. And are _many_ (not all)
Gentoo users caught in the middle of something they do not want to be
caught in?

(My system still is working with OpenRC, so I am not sure how much
caught in the middle I am. It is not time to panic.)

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Boycott Systemd

[Rich Freeman]

On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 5:19 PM, Barry Schwartz
<chemoelectric@chemoelectric.org> wrote:
> Damien Levac <damien.levac@gmail.com> skribis:
>> My humble opinion:
>>
>> If people want to work on a project, it is their own decision.
>
> That pertains to hobbyists. I’m purely a hobbyist, filling timek; I
> work on what I enjoy. Anyone who argues with that can keep it to
> themselves.
>
> But we are talking, instead, about profit and non-profit organizations
> that have goals and in some cases ask for our donations. Whose goals
> are being achieved?

You do need to consider the resources you're actually talking about
here.  You can't compare the resources of a community-driven distro
like Gentoo to something like RedHat, and you can't even compare
something like RedHat with the likes of Google.  At my workplace the
entire annual Gentoo budget would pay one employee for a few weeks
tops.  Most of the more community-oriented distros try to use their
money as effort-multipliers.  The Gentoo mailing lists, cvs, forums,
etc don't cost that much to run but they enable huge amounts of
community interaction.

And when you look at stuff like Freedesktop the goal is for you to be
able to plug a USB headset in and have it suddenly usable for phone
calls, just like on any other modern OS.  Sure, fonts are also
something that can stand improvement, but they've actually come a long
way.  I'd say that getting printers to work is more important - though
it is telling that even major vendors like Apple, Google, and
Microsoft haven't even tried to solve that problem on their new OSes.

--
Rich

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Boycott Systemd

[Frank Peters]

On Tue, 7 Oct 2014 17:45:20 -0400
Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:

> 
> And when you look at stuff like Freedesktop the goal is for you to be
> able to plug a USB headset in and have it suddenly usable for phone
> calls, just like on any other modern OS.
>

Here is where I, among many others I would hope, differ philosophically.

The key phrase is "just like any other modern OS."  Is the function
of an OS to do everything for the user?  In my view, an OS is merely
an enabler.  It provides a general framework for executing programs.
Anything beyond this basic, nonspecific functionality is to be left
entirely up to the user.

Freedesktop, or any of its equivalents, should remain just another option
among a wide array of options that is enabled by the basic OS.  The
danger arises when a certain clique of developers, with the backing
of corporate big bucks, unilaterally decides that a general, nonspecific
OS is somehow antiquated, "old school," and irrelevant for modern times.
For such a clique, an OS cannot be bare or sparse, but absolutely must
incorporate certain "features" as standard and inviolable components.

To give an example, regarding freedesktop (FD), color management is one
such feature.  Formerly, color management (CM) was implemented by the user
in his own way using a variety of available tools.  Now, however, CM is to be
accomplished as an integral part of the FD environment with no need for
user supervision, and, even though FD is supposedly only an option, more
and more image/graphics software will likely be written to utilize only
the FD approach rather than to keep CM open and flexible.  All other alternatives
to CM will then be left to slowly rot and wither away.

FOSS developers have to maintain an awareness that there is no One True
Way.  A computer has always been and always will be a general purpose machine.
Therefore, the only rational philosophy for OS development is for an OS
to empower the user to apply this generality for his own needs.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Boycott Systemd

[Rich Freeman]

On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 9:15 PM, Frank Peters <frank.peters@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> FOSS developers have to maintain an awareness that there is no One True
> Way.  A computer has always been and always will be a general purpose machine.
> Therefore, the only rational philosophy for OS development is for an OS
> to empower the user to apply this generality for his own needs.
>

You're basically arguing that if somebody putting together an OS has a
working solution for something, they should spend just as much effort
maintaining 3 other solutions for that something, and ensure that none
of the solutions becomes any better than the others.  OpenRC and
Portage should work just as well with only csh installed as it does
with bash installed, etc.

That just isn't realistic.  Most distros would rather support 47
features that users want, and not 3 features implemented 5 different
ways each in a manner that is completely interchangeable.  If a distro
did things the way you wanted, very few would bother to use it, and
likely fewer would bother to maintain it.

You'll always have alternative solutions in FOSS because volunteers
will work on things that interest them.  Even after 99% of everything
supports systemd exclusively you'll still find people writing sysvinit
implementations from scratch in Ruby, just for the fun of it.
However, you'll never find those alternative solutions receiving
mainstream support, unless one actually tips the scale to the point
where it is considered an equal.  Heck, look at postgres - most would
say that it is superior to mysql in many ways and yet many packages
still don't support it.

Nothing is preventing you from starting a "Foundation for Redundant
Solutions" - with the express aim of maintaining all the stuff nobody
uses any longer.  I can't imagine you'll get a lot of donations - even
if people might agree with you philosophically at some level, they're
going to want to spend their money investing in stuff they actually
use.

--
Rich

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Boycott Systemd

[Harry Holt]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 4333 bytes --]

On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 10:28 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:

> On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 9:15 PM, Frank Peters <frank.peters@comcast.net>
> wrote:
> >
> > FOSS developers have to maintain an awareness that there is no One True
> > Way.  A computer has always been and always will be a general purpose
> machine.
> > Therefore, the only rational philosophy for OS development is for an OS
> > to empower the user to apply this generality for his own needs.
> >
>
> You're basically arguing that if somebody putting together an OS has a
> working solution for something, they should spend just as much effort
> maintaining 3 other solutions for that something, and ensure that none
> of the solutions becomes any better than the others.  OpenRC and
> Portage should work just as well with only csh installed as it does
> with bash installed, etc.
>

No.  Just no.  If somebody is putting together an OS, they maintain the
interfaces / APIs that applications on top would use.  That's all.  If one
solution for, say, package managers or daemon startup works better than
another, so be it.  It's not the responsibility of the Kernel / OS
developer, unless some application reveals a bug that others do not.  Other
than that, pick the package manager / initializer / etc. that works best
for YOU.

>
> That just isn't realistic.


The above scenario is ABSOLUTELY realistic, and the way it should work.
The straw man you've created above, not so much.  But it's just a straw man.


>   Most distros would rather support 47
> features that users want, and not 3 features implemented 5 different
> ways each in a manner that is completely interchangeable.  If a distro
> did things the way you wanted, very few would bother to use it, and
> likely fewer would bother to maintain it.
>

But isn't that the point of Gentoo in the first place?  You're selecting
packages for various functions that are typically source compatible, and
you compile them yourself.  How many text editors can you choose from?  How
many cron implementations?  How many development languages and libraries?
How many email servers and clients?  What would happen if the maintainers
decided Gentoo should only support one desktop environment, one shell, one
option for everything?  Would emacs users look elsewhere because only VI is
available in Portage?  I suspect so.

The beauty of Gentoo is that even options not available from official
sources can be integrated with either an overlay, your own ebuild, or even
just building from source.


> You'll always have alternative solutions in FOSS because volunteers
> will work on things that interest them.  Even after 99% of everything
> supports systemd exclusively you'll still find people writing sysvinit
> implementations from scratch in Ruby, just for the fun of it.
> However, you'll never find those alternative solutions receiving
> mainstream support, unless one actually tips the scale to the point
> where it is considered an equal.  Heck, look at postgres - most would
> say that it is superior to mysql in many ways and yet many packages
> still don't support it.
>

Ah - but au contraire. For that type of thing, it is very rare that any
application that needs a relational database can't be plugged into
postgresql through some mechanism or another.  Sure, server-specific
support packages don't (phpmyadmin won't work with it any more than pgAdmin
will work with MySQL), but out side of that, you will find very few
applications that have a hard dependency on a specific relational
database.  That's the kind of thing that Oracle does.  Even though they now
own MySQL, you still can't run Oracle's PeopleSoft on top of it - you need
Oracle 11g or whatever.


> Nothing is preventing you from starting a "Foundation for Redundant
> Solutions" - with the express aim of maintaining all the stuff nobody
> uses any longer.  I can't imagine you'll get a lot of donations - even
> if people might agree with you philosophically at some level, they're
> going to want to spend their money investing in stuff they actually
> use.
>

Before all these deep dependencies on borked does-it-all-but-nothing-well
solutions like Pulse Audio and systemd came along, we used to call that
Foundation "The Open Source Community".


>
> --
> Rich
>
>

Harry Holt, PMP
Cyber Architect
Social Media Strategist

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Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Boycott Systemd

[Frank Peters]

On Tue, 7 Oct 2014 22:28:58 -0400
Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:

> 
> You're basically arguing that if somebody putting together an OS has a
> working solution for something, they should spend just as much effort
> maintaining 3 other solutions for that something ...
>

No.  I am simply stating that some things do not belong within an OS
as they are better for individual users to implement.

Is file searching an integral part of an OS?  For MS Windows it is.
Should it be for Linux?  I would hope not, but maybe the Freedesktop
folks would not agree.

There are many ways to search files, such as regular expressions using
grep, sed, or perl, or utilizing special software devoted to the purpose.
Why then would we demand that the OS include functionality for searching
and indexing?

The same can be said for my other example of color management.

>
> Nothing is preventing you from starting a "Foundation for Redundant
> Solutions"
>

So, then, an OS which includes integral searching/indexing, CM, image
viewers, video players, word processors, etc., in spite of already existing
software devoted to those tasks, is not being redundant?

My original point may have been misunderstood but I am still aware of a
great divide between my conceptions and those of others.

The GNU project and FSF were born in a time when people used computers
and not vice versa, but that time seems to be fading fast.  The motivating
concept is now "user transparency" where everything just works without
having to know why or how it works.  I used to believe that GNU/Linux
was immune to these trends but now I have my doubts.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Boycott Systemd

[Phil Turmel]

On 10/07/2014 11:19 PM, Harry Holt wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 10:28 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:

>> You're basically arguing that if somebody putting together an OS has a
>> working solution for something, they should spend just as much effort
>> maintaining 3 other solutions for that something, and ensure that none
>> of the solutions becomes any better than the others.  OpenRC and
>> Portage should work just as well with only csh installed as it does
>> with bash installed, etc.
>>
> 
> No.  Just no.  If somebody is putting together an OS, they maintain the
> interfaces / APIs that applications on top would use.  That's all.  If one
> solution for, say, package managers or daemon startup works better than
> another, so be it.  It's not the responsibility of the Kernel / OS
> developer, unless some application reveals a bug that others do not.  Other
> than that, pick the package manager / initializer / etc. that works best
> for YOU.
> 
>>
>> That just isn't realistic.
> 
> 
> The above scenario is ABSOLUTELY realistic, and the way it should work.
> The straw man you've created above, not so much.  But it's just a straw man.

You may think its absolutely realistic, but the market doesn't agree
with you.  Red Hat, SUSE, Canonical, et al call their products
*distributions*, not *operating systems* because their customers don't
want to create their own solutions.  They want a collection of software
pieces--kernel, libraries, applications--that solve their (end-user)
problems.

>>   Most distros would rather support 47
>> features that users want, and not 3 features implemented 5 different
>> ways each in a manner that is completely interchangeable.  If a distro
>> did things the way you wanted, very few would bother to use it, and
>> likely fewer would bother to maintain it.

Precisely.

> But isn't that the point of Gentoo in the first place?  You're selecting
> packages for various functions that are typically source compatible, and
> you compile them yourself.  How many text editors can you choose from?  How
> many cron implementations?  How many development languages and libraries?
> How many email servers and clients?  What would happen if the maintainers
> decided Gentoo should only support one desktop environment, one shell, one
> option for everything?  Would emacs users look elsewhere because only VI is
> available in Portage?  I suspect so.
> 
> The beauty of Gentoo is that even options not available from official
> sources can be integrated with either an overlay, your own ebuild, or even
> just building from source.

But Gentoo is still a *distro*, not just an operating system.  And it is
less commercial than most, relying on volunteers to code "useful" stuff.
 There's coding going on, and a lot of whining going on.  It's easy to
see who's credible.

>> Nothing is preventing you from starting a "Foundation for Redundant
>> Solutions" - with the express aim of maintaining all the stuff nobody
>> uses any longer.  I can't imagine you'll get a lot of donations - even
>> if people might agree with you philosophically at some level, they're
>> going to want to spend their money investing in stuff they actually
>> use.

Thank you, Rich.  This is perfect.

Phil

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Boycott Systemd

[Frank Peters]

On Wed, 08 Oct 2014 08:34:10 -0400
Phil Turmel <philip@turmel.org> wrote:

> 
> You may think its absolutely realistic, but the market doesn't agree
> with you.  Red Hat, SUSE, Canonical, et al call their products
> *distributions*, not *operating systems* because their customers don't
> want to create their own solutions.  They want a collection of software
> pieces--kernel, libraries, applications--that solve their (end-user)
> problems.
> 

Market???  This whole spiel sounds like the snooty squawking of some
MBA automaton.

FOSS is neither market-oriented nor market-driven.  In fact, I would
hope that all FOSS developers, secretly or otherwise, give the middle-finger
salute to all market advocates.  FOSS is motivated by a computer science idealism,
i.e. what is technically good and proper rules the day and let the market
be damned.

Are we to start judging merit by counting the number of users?  Most
POS software packages (and I don't mean "point of sale") tend to be
quite popular because they cater to total idiots, and such useless statistics
would only appeal to a deluded and delirious marketdroid.

Red Hat, SUSE, Canonical, et. al. should fork off their corporate concerns
and leave the FOSS community entirely.  Under their direction, we'll soon
be having "new and improved" Linux releases every Black Friday to snag
all the impulse buyers within the demented Xmas crowd.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Boycott Systemd

[Barry Schwartz]

Frank Peters <frank.peters@comcast.net> skribis:
> Red Hat, SUSE, Canonical, et. al. should fork off their corporate concerns
> and leave the FOSS community entirely.  Under their direction, we'll soon
> be having "new and improved" Linux releases every Black Friday to snag
> all the impulse buyers within the demented Xmas crowd.

Except failing at it. Canonical are the ones marketing to Xmas crowd,
and the main thing I have been observing Ubuntu do lately is create
Arch users. :)