Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Antoine Martin]

On 23/09/14 01:22, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 12:58 PM, Barry Schwartz
> <chemoelectric@×××××××××××××.org> wrote:
>> Lie Ryan <lie.1296@×××××.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