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

[Yuri K. Shatroff]

Sorry for entering others' dialog...

On 17.02.2014 21:13, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 17, 2014 at 6:17 AM, Tanstaafl <tanstaafl@×××××××××××.org> wrote:
> [snip]
>>>> Can you surgically remove systemd in the future without reverse
>>>> engineering
>>>> half of what the LSB would look at the time, or will its developers
>>>> ensure
>>>> that this is a one time choice only?
>>
>>
>>> You guys talk about software like if it was a big bad black magical
>>> box with inexplicable powers.
>>>
>>> If someone is willing and able, *everything* can be "surgically
>>> remove[d]". We got rid of devfs, remember? We got rid of OSS (thank
>>> the FSM for ALSA). We got rid of HAL (yuck!). GNOME got rid of bonobo,
>>> and ESD. KDE got rid of aRts (and who knows what more).
>>
>>
>> I think you are being a little disingenuous here.
>
> I am not.
>
>> The obvious unspoken meaning behind the 'can you surgically remove' was:
>>
>> Can you do it *easily*? I'm sure you would not suggest that getting rid of
>> the above were 'easy'?
>
> I've never said it was easy. I said it could be done by someone
> willing and able. I repeated that like five times I think. I said it
> was done before; I never said it was easy.

The whole point of creating new software is making things easier. Easier 
to use, easier to maintain, easier to remove.

> But it can be done, and that's a indisputable fact.

A total ground-up rewrite of the whole Linux is also quite possible.

>> It simply doesn't matter if systemd boils down to one monolithic binary, or
>> 600, if they are tied together in such a way that they can not
>> *individually* be replaced *easily and simply* (ie, without having to
>> rewrite the whole of systemd).
>
> You are setting a group of conditions that preemptively wants to stop
> adoption of anything that is tightly integrated. That is a losing
> strategy (different projects actually *want* tight integration), and
> besides the burden of work should not fall on the people wanting to
> use a tightly integrated stack.

How Integrated? The TCP/IP stack *is* integrated. But it is *protocol* 
integration, *standards* integration not *software* integration. You do 
want tight integration where it just can't work otherwise, but the 
design of Unix provides (well, again repeating this), and almost any 
robust design should provide, the ignorance of one abstraction level 
about another. Why HAL? Why udev? Why drivers as modules? Why not just 
go and integrate all stuff into the kernel, well (again!) like MS do, 
and don't please say I compare wrong things just because MS is not OSS.

> You want individual modules that are "easily and simply" replaced?
> Then WROTE THEM. Don't expect the systemd authors (or any other) to do
> it for you.

We really don't expect that systemd's authors do anything for us. 
Anything they do is not for us, thanks.

>> That said, it seems to me that, for now at least, it isn't that big a deal
>> to switch back and forth between systemd and, for example, OpenRC.

"For now" it's not, but take a look into the future when not a single 
product will be published without systemd's support, just because it's 
everywhere -- and since it's everywhere, then why bother support 
anything other? Time, money... So it's a matter of time -- you'll 
personally be happy with this scenario -- at first -- but think 
further... They'll be able to stuff everything into it, making 
effectively a thing in itself which will dictate you where to go and 
what to do, just because you're not technically competent enough to deal 
with it -- hence more support calls and more $ etc etc. I don't believe 
in Red Hat's being a corporation of Good, nor any other corporation 
being such, and please remember the notorious examples of almost 
privatizing OSS by other 'corporations of Good'. (Android, MySQL, almost 
OpenOffice...)
Well, there's some probability that by the time systemd occupies all 
linux distros, some clever RH guy (or a green soxx guy) will emerge and 
emerge systemd v2 which will be different ... But it's not something one 
should count on.

>  [...]
> If *someone*, *willing* AND *able* steps up to do ALL that work, MAYBE
> it would happen.
>
> But don't complain if no one does, and it doesn't.

That's your point -- and mine. We aren't complaining -- we want to 
prevent this. The forward-looking people must unite, it may sound 
ridiculous, against systemd -- not because of its design, technical 
details etc, but because otherwise in short time you'll end up comparing 
systemd to itself. You know what it is: everything's free but nothing to 
choose from. We had it before, it's called communism. Maybe it is not 
that bad but we don't want it anymore.

> Regards.


-- 
Best wishes,
Yuri K. Shatroff