Re: [gentoo-user] The future of linux, and Gentoo specifically now

[Sid S]

The reason this question is so hard to answer is because it is not a
technical question, it is a moral and ethical one. The links presented
start to approach the issue being discussed in this light but do not
entirely accept the right question. I suspect this is because it seems
rather absurd.

We shall analyze some popular responses in this light.

Systemd is easy to work around!
http://www.vitavonni.de/blog/201410/2014102101-avoiding-systemd.html
except,
https://lobste.rs/s/y5skqt/avoiding_systemd_isn_t_hard/comments/eayjn3#c_eayjn3
but http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/the-biggest-myths.html gives some
decent counterpoints,
which http://lwn.net/Articles/619992/ either supports or is ambivalent
about.

They all basically boil down to "someone is doing the work, and if it is a
better way to do it it will be okay." Except this isn't true. The proof by
contradiction is exceptionally simple:

If this was a just world, Lennart's pants would be on fire.
Lennart's pants are not on fire.
Therefore, this is not a just world, and justice must be manufactured.

You might ask why his pants (and the pants of most systemd supporters)
would be on fire. Well,
https://pappp.net/?p=969 clearly explains how FLOS is not UNIX, and
the easy counterpoints get thoroughly trashed
http://lwn.net/Articles/440843/, and
http://blog.lusis.org/blog/2014/11/20/systemd-redux/ here's a guy agreeing
and suggesting everyone hit the big red EJECT.

Why UNIX? Well, because that's just a concise, easy-to-phrase proxy for the
deeper issue of
https://pay.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/2k5b7e/the_concern_isnt_that_systemd_itself_isnt/
(aside: read the C++ in the kernel tangent if you are not familiar, it
seems to mirror this argument taking place and notably, Linus has chosen a
side on that one!)
which is echoed here http://lwn.net/Articles/440843/
and here http://lwn.net/Articles/576078/
and here http://uselessd.darknedgy.net/ProSystemdAntiSystemd/ (start with
unix philosophy)
and here http://lwn.net/Articles/494605/.

Once upon a time I met a very masterful troll who got me to say precisely
what I needed to say precisely when I did not want to say it. What he got
me to say was:
>Oct 27 06:05:30 <*******>    I study the orthodoxy consistently[sic]
>Oct 27 06:05:38 <R0b0t1`>    To find its flaws, yes

So did Lennart &co. study the orthodox to learn from its failures? Did they
construct a conservative (re)implementation of the software exhibiting
those failures? It has been shown and continues to be shown that: no, they
are flying by the seat of their pants. A solution could have been
constructed which requires far less labor. Not only far less of *their*
labor, but far less labor for *everyone else* using a *nix. But they did
not thoroughly investigate such avenues, even within their
reimplementation! They are recreating bugs! It is impossible for them to
claim they are doing it over to do it right, as they have already failed at
that purpose.

They have been shown to have wasted effort and continue to do so. When
labor is scarce, that is the most unethical action one can undertake.


On Fri, Nov 21, 2014 at 4:04 PM, Marc Joliet <marcec@×××.de> wrote:

> Am Fri, 21 Nov 2014 01:32:16 -0600
> schrieb Canek Peláez Valdés <caneko@×××××.com>:
>
> [...]
> > I highly recommend the article John Corbet wrote for LWN a week ago:
> >
> > http://lwn.net/Articles/619992/
> [...]
>
> Thanks for the link, it was a good read.
>
> FWIW, I found this linked in one of the comments:
>
>     http://uselessd.darknedgy.net/ProSystemdAntiSystemd/
>
> Both articles echo thoughts that I have more and more with every
> "discussion"
> regarding systemd.
>
> My takeaway is similar to that of the lwn.net article (that is, both
> sides are
> being unnecessarily thick-headed), and find it remarkable how much I
> recognise
> from "discussions" here on gentoo-user (in contrast, gentoo-amd64 has been
> much
> more level-headed).  However, I disagree with with the categorisation at
> the
> end, mainly because I hate it when people have to sort each other into
> "camps",
> so that they know who to hate and who to like (which isn't the author's
> fault,
> I think, politicised discussions tend to go that way as they intensify),
> but
> also because I think it is too strict and doesn't account for overlap (for
> myself I see reasons for both being and not being in either group).
>
> Greetings
> --
> Marc Joliet
> --
> "People who think they know everything really annoy those of us who know we
> don't" - Bjarne Stroustrup
>