Re: [gentoo-dev] last rites: sys-fs/eudev

["Eddie Chapman" <eddie@ehuk.net>]

Andrew Ammerlaan wrote:
>
> On 12 September 2023 21:47:31 CEST, Eddie Chapman <eddie@ehuk.net> wrote:
>
>> Andreas K. Huettel wrote:
>>
>>> The eudev experiment has failed.
>>> * It was false labeling from the start.[*]
>>> * It's barely alive and not keeping up with udev upstream.
>>
>> Why does it have to? It is advertised as a fork after all.
>>
>>> * It's effectively unmaintained in Gentoo.
>>
>> That could change. Isn't that why a last rite comes with 30 days
>> notice?
>>
>>> * You don't gain anything from using it instead of udev.
>>> (Nobody does.)
>>>
>> Is there only 1 tool for the job? Why do we have both the OpenIPMI and
>> ipmitool projects, both curl and wget, chrome and firefox. Wouldn't it
>> be better if we just choose one of each of those pairs and concentrate
>> on it?
>>>
>>> So why should anyone put up the effort to package it?
>>
>> Same question for the above choices and plenty of other examples.
>>
>> What's wrong with having an alternative purely for competition?
>
> Having options is only valuable if the different options actually bring
> something to the table. Choice for the sake of choice is just a waste of
> time and effort. Firefox is clearly different then Chrome, each comes
> with its own advantages and disadvantages, and based on this a user can
> make an educated choice. What I have not yet read in any message in this
> long thread, is **why** one would want to use eudev, what are its
> advantages? Why not use sys-apps/systemd-utils[udev]?

You really are on a slippery slope if you're going to insist that someone
"ought" to use a certain software, that there is no advantage in using an
alternative and therefore you shouldn't. Also, people choose alternatives
for entirely non-technical reasons which are valid. These might be
political, license, or they just like the author or community of one
project better than another. Microsoft Office is probably a better office
suite technically and feature-wise than Libreoffice, yet many people use
Libreoffice instead. That doesn't mean Libreoffice users are "just plain
wrong".  Why do we have so many Linux distributions if they all offer
largely the same set of software? Why use Ubuntu over Debian or vice
versa? What's the point of openrc? Which is better GCC or Clang/LLVM?

> You are free to spend your time and effort on whatever you wish, maintain
> eudev as proxy or in some overlay, but don't expect others to put in
> their time and effort if you can't convince them the extra choice has
> value and is therefore worth their time and effort.
>
> Best regards,
> Andrew

Why would you think that by having an alternative in tree it means that
everyone else is then forced into doing work that they don't want to and
it will inconvenience everyone?  What if someone came along now and said
they were willing to "step up" and maintain eudev and they were suitably
qualified? Is that really going to force everyone else to modify their
ways?