Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Debian just voted in systemd for default init system in jessie

[Daniel Campbell <lists@sporkbox.us>]

On 02/20/2014 08:53 PM, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 20, 2014 at 8:39 PM, Daniel Campbell <lists@sporkbox.us> wrote:
>> On 02/20/2014 07:42 PM, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
>>> On Thu, Feb 20, 2014 at 6:08 PM, Daniel Campbell <lists@sporkbox.us> wrote:
>>>> On 02/15/2014 08:09 PM, walt wrote:
>>>>> On 02/15/2014 12:30 PM, Daniel Campbell wrote:
>>>>>> The social
>>>>>> tactics at work from the systemd team (and verily, other Red Hat
>>>>>> projects like GNOME) are reminiscent of Microsoft through the use of the
>>>>>> "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" methodology.
>>>>>
>>>>> I certainly share your hostility towards M$ for suppressing competition.
>>>>>
>>>>> Red Hat, like M$, is a for-profit corporation, so I share your suspicion
>>>>> that they want to suppress their competitors (though I don't know who
>>>>> their competitors are).
>>>>>
>>>>> But comparing a completely closed-source shop like M$ to any open source
>>>>> company leaves me feeling uneasy.  I can't find the exact argument to
>>>>> explain my unease, but I'm hoping someone else will jump in with a more
>>>>> rational argument.
>>>>>
>>>> I think I understand where you're coming from. "How can they compare
>>>> when Red Hat releases their source under a liberating license while MS
>>>> locks it down behind closed doors?"
>>>>
>>>> That's missing the point, though.
>>>
>>> No, it's not.
>>>
>>>> In the FOSS world, that's the "bait",
>>>> so to speak. The wolf in sheep's clothing. Red Hat can release (or hack
>>>> on) a bunch of attractive software or features, get people interested
>>>> (so interested that, say, the majority of distros depend on it *wink
>>>> wink*), and then use that influence to indirectly control where FOSS
>>>> moves. By striking the weakest part of the stack (sysv probably *did*
>>>> need a good replacement, but not one as ambitious as systemd) and
>>>> digging down into the kernel level (kdbus), Red Hat devs will now have a
>>>> very influential role in the FOSS world. This will in turn generate
>>>> interest (and thus profit) in Red Hat.
>>>
>>> First of all, you do realize that Greg Kroah-Hartman, the primary
>>> author of kdbus, works for the Linux Foundation, right? Not RedHat.
>>>
>>> Second, good for RedHat if they can turn a profit. Meanwhile the code
>>> from the whole stack is free, and anyone willing and able can fork it
>>> and use, enhance, or replace any part of it. And yes, I said replace.
>>>
>>> So, again, the comparison makes no sense at all.
>>>
>>>> It's marginally clever, but so clearly obvious at the same time. It's
>>>> sad (to me) that the community didn't see it coming.
>>>
>>> So you are saying we are idiots? Or just naive? Or both? And *all* of
>>> us who use systemd and think is a great idea?
>>>
>>> Damn, if only we had knew. Too bad you didn't come before to open our
>>> eyes to this undeniable truth. Now it's too late, the sky is falling
>>> and the world will end on fire and brim.
>>>
>>>> Those who did have
>>>> been written off as conspiracy theorists or FUDders. Time will reveal all.
>>>
>>> Indeed it will. Wanna bet a beer?
>>>
>>> Regards.
>>>
>>
>> Indeed, Greg doesn't work for Red Hat. Prior to working for LF, however,
>> he worked for Novell, another for-profit Linux company. Moot point.
>> Businesses tend to do favors for other businesses. What makes you think
>> Red Hat hasn't given LF some money at some point? Further, isn't Lennart
>> friends with Greg? Isn't that how he got udev into systemd, since Greg
>> maintained udev before it was merged into systemd? Tell the full story
>> if you're going to bring it up.
> 
> So, now it's RedHat, Novell and the Linux Foundation. Anyone else? The
> NSA? The CIA? The Cobra Commander?
> 
> The Cobra Commander is always involved.
> 
>> I will refrain from stooping to the level of petty insults... but yes,
>> collectively the FOSS community at large has *terrible* social awareness
>> within its own ecosystem and would not see an agenda coming until it was
>> too late and they had to fork or rebuild. It has nothing to do with me;
>> it has everything to do with foresight. And the FOSS world is lacking in
>> that. Those that have it are outnumbered by those who get distracted by
>> shiny objects and if they care about the future of FOSS, it's only in a
>> superficial sense.
> 
> Gee, if I though that about our community, then I would not want to be
> part of it.
> 
> Good think I don't think like you.
> 
>> FOSS is not just code, it's culture too.
> 
> Exactly, and it seems you miss the whole point about the FOSS culture too.
> 
> I will not answer any more of your mails until you present some actual
> evidence about this big bad group of people under the guidance of
> shady corporations trying to take advantage of the poor, stupid,
> social inept FOSS community.
> 
> I do not care about hearsay. I care about facts, and technological
> arguments. If you do not have any of those, I'm done with you in this
> thread.
> 
> Regards.
> 

Firstly, you don't control whether or not I send an e-mail. The high
horse is completely unnecessary. This particular thread (from walt) had
nothing to do with you directly, so I don't know why you're getting so
upset. You're free to hit the "Delete" button in your e-mail client or
add me to your spam filter.

I said nothing specific about the LF. What I *did* say is that Greg and
Lennart have some sort of friendship that resulted in systemd swallowing
udev. What technical argument supports that and makes systemd important
enough to be the only project worthy of guiding udev's development? What
technical reason does Greg have to implement kdbus? What technical
reason does the systemd community have to push its project onto every
single popular distribution?

Before you retort with "it hasn't", go read the numerous arguments (just
like this one) that have been had on all the distros' mailing lists. In
every last one of them, the systemd proponents pushed and pushed a
decision, insisting that one must be made, and systemd must be the one
that's chosen. It was aggressively evangelized and marketing. To see it
any other way is to be willfully ignorant or simply dishonest.

Here's a logical argument: Red Hat is a for-profit company. Employees
that do not earn them profits are not valuable assets. Ergo, Lennart
Poettering must be profitable to Red Hat in some way. He has created
PulseAudio, maintained *kit, and is now head of systemd and pushed for
kdbus in the kernel. His community has pushed for systemd across the
entire ecosystem. He pushed systemd as a dependency in GNOME, another
Red Hat employee-lead project. Why would Red Hat, as a company, allow
this to happen if they wouldn't profit from it? If Lennart's work is
profitable to Red Hat, then spreading systemd and implementing kdbus
will make Red Hat money. Red Hat's profiting from this growth of
development means that it was a deliberate effort and they intend to
continue taking advantage of the free labor that's built FOSS into what
it is today. This was not accidental and was not in the spirit of FOSS.
It's FOSS only as far as the code (copyleft licensing), which is the
bare minimum.

Other companies have contributed code, yes, but where? The kernel! To
support their devices! The only *legitimate* place for a company to
really contribute code. They make the hardware, so they're the most
qualified to write drivers for it.

So tell me what entitles Red Hat (or any other business) to financially
profit from the work of thousands of volunteers and influence the ecosystem.

I don't think it's some big huge generic evilness at all. It's just
greed, the fuel of every business. Like it or not, companies are based
on and are powered by greed. Even if they license their code under
GPL/MIT/BSD, it's still all about the money, or they wouldn't write code
at all. Consider the source (of the code and the source code itself). If
you disagree with this, I'm not sure why you think Red Hat is in the
software business.