Re: [gentoo-user] Systemd upower

[Greg Woodbury]

On 06/04/2014 11:11 AM, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 4, 2014 at 5:28 AM, Greg Woodbury <redwolfe@×××××.com> wrote:

>> To see this as only freedom for the developer is part of an attitude
>> shift over the years that only lessens the overall usefulness of Linux
>> and FOSS. It does, in fact, push quite a few folk I know away from the
>> Linux arena. It is, to use a political analogy, like the people who
>> claim there "is not any real difference" between *any* opposing
>> political movements -- that neglects taking into account a great deal of
>> technical and historical details.
>
> I have no idea what do you mean by the last paragraph. This is not a
> political discusion (although many would like to see it that way). It
> is a *technical* discusion, and therefore there is no real discusion:
> the general consensus is that systemd is the technological superior
> alternative.

It is a discussion about technological things, yes, but the art of
dealing with other people *is* politics [1].

Systemd *may* well be technologically superior in terms of having a
better method of doing things. (It certainly makes adding items to the
mix easier than re-doing all the numbering in SysVinit.)

Unfortunately, the advocates and implementers made some major political
choices when they (apparently deliberately) chose to put the systemd
stuff in /usr/lib instead of /lib.  It was pointed out that this
abrogated certain parts of the FHS, forced those who would like to adopt
it to *not* being able to continue using their machines they way they
wished to (I.e. they had to choose between several potentially major
changes to do so -- don't have a separate /usr or be forced to use a
kernel initrd/initramfs method in order to do so.)

These were not mere technical choices, but highly political/social
choices.  Early on, the violation of the "principle of least surprise"
could have been easily fixed by simply correcting the placement of
things from /usr back to / but the developers doing the work *chose* not
to see it as a mistake or poor choice, and steadfastly refused to accept
corrections or patches to improve the work by fixing what many saw as a
mistake.

That placement error was not the only social/political mistake they made
either.  Other suggestions and improvements were offered and were
ignored or rejected in rather flammable verbiage.

As it happens, some of the parties involved work for companies that
actually pay them to do work on Linux and FOSS, and have leveraged that
role to the fullest.

>> I occasionally think about forking projects and fixing some of the
>> things I think are the most egregious fsck-ups in some of them, but then
>> I really look at what I'm doing and what I enjoy doing, and realize that
>> I won't get enough (emotional?) reward for giving up time in other
>> significant parts of my life.
>
> And that's your right, and it's fine. But let *other* developers
> choose whatever technologies they want to choose, and (consequently)
> drop support for obsolete technologies like pm-utils.

Actually, that is not the objection.  Developers do and have always done
that, but often observed much more concern with a) letting folks who use
their stuff know what they were doing, and b) giving a bit more lead
time when introducing major changes.

>
> That's the reason for this whole thread: developers chose the
> technological superior alternative; saying that the reason for that is
> that there is cabals and conspiracies is blatant ignorance (in the
> best case), or spreading FUD (in the worst case).
>
>>> Or help Samuli to maintain upower-pm-utils; that would be *much* more
>>> helpful than spreding FUD about cabals and conspiracies.
>>
>> There is no need for me to invent Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt -- the
>> folks involved are doing quite well on their own.
>
> I never said you "invented" it. I say you are spreading it, and I
> still think that's the case.
>
>> Also, history (for
>> those not doomed to repeat it [1]) provides all that is required to make
>> calling it a "cabal"  [TINC - there is no cabal![2]]  There never was a
>> Usenet Backbone Cabal in any formal sense, but there was plenty of
>> semi-(un)coordinated activity -- based largely on shared ideals -- that
>> gave that appearance.  {I was there when Usenet/Netnews was invented,
>> closely observing, making minor and not-so-minor contributions, and was
>> responsible for some of the "cabal-like" activities.}
>
> Great; so any kind of group work "semi-(un)coordinated" can be called
> a cabal, and it has no (inherent) negative connotation. Then the Linux
> Kernel developers is a Cabal; the GNOME devs is a Cabal; the KDE ones
> are also a Cabal; and of course the Gentoo Developers who *oppose*
> systemd is a Cabal, and so are the ones that *support* systemd.

Mo, you misunderstand.  TINC is/was a humorous reminder that there was
NOT a real "cabal", but merely the appearance of one in the minds of
those not involved in the day-to-day operations of real systems and
networks.  The human mind sees patterns and invents explanations when
there is not enough information available.  There is no reason to
ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by ignorance or
stupidity (willful ignorance.)


>> The mere coinage of terms like "Lennertware," whether or not deserved,
>> show that there is a widespread awareness that some developers, in my
>> opinion, have over developed egos. [3]
>
> Yeah, please go and check out the "contributions" (when they exist) of
> the people that seriously use the term "Lennartware". Doesn't matter
> to what project, check out what they have contributed over the years.
> Go on, I wait; it would not take you long, because they usually are
> NOT developers, and the few that are actually developers haven't
> contributed really that much.

In *your* opinion.  I have heard some surprising folks say things in
private that they would never choose to state publicly.  And that covers
a lot of people in over 53 years of programming.


>> It is all so trite to say "become a developer and DO something instead
>> of complaining"  but it is not a realistic thing to say when the
>> problems are getting so large and interconnected.
>
> And that's the root of your misunderstanding Greg. There are no
> "problems"; this "interconnection" is by design, because many
> developers are fed up with a Lego-like plumbing where you can
> interchange any basic component like a Lego block, all of them equally
> weak and fragile, which makes the testing matrices of all
> distributions a nightmare to maintain.

I *do* no misunderstand this at all.  You attribute to folks (myself
included) motivations or misunderstandings that you simply do not have
the information or knowledge to know for certain.  If someone sees
something as a problems that you don't agree is a "problem" it may just
be that your experience or expertise is different.

There is a large amount of ego preservation and self-promotion involved
in these arguments, and many don't have enough insight to recognize that
humor and social skill are necessary to succeed.

>> Furthermore, it
>> denigrates and devalues the "pseudo-democratic" processes that FOSS and
>> Linux have worked for years to nurture.
>
> There was *never* a "pseudo-democratic" process in FOSS or Linux.
> NEVER. It would be a *terrible* mistake.
>
> It has always been a *meritocratic* process. That's why we have
> "benevolent dictators" everywhere in the community:

It merely claims to be a meritocracy. But like several other *political*
models, it boils down to an oligarchy, where those who obtain power by
whatever means, whether consciously or unconsciously, do what they must
to preserve it.

And the early days of Usenet was deliberately modeled in a
pseudo-democratic manner.  An opinion poll was set up in order to gain
some idea about the potential and perceived use for a topic area.  If
one wanted a topic group established on a widespread basis one needed a
fair bit of social skill and perception in order to do so.
>
> THOSE WHO WRITE THE CODE, MAKE THE RULES.
Those who has the gold makes the rules?
>
> So if you want to change the rules, start writing some code.

Been there. Done That. Have the T-shirt.
BUT, for *some* reason, I still care.

------------ Footnotes  --------

[1] Those who are politically active constantly deal with the more
politically naive who complain "there isn't really any difference
between <group_a> or <group_b> - they all suck."  This can be compared
to a technologically naive person saying "major software projects can be
thrown together by a bunch of programmers just sitting around together
at a coffee shop over the weekend."  (Don't laugh -- a US Supreme Court
Justice said almost exactly that within the past two weeks.)

-- 
G.Wolfe Woodbury
<No clever .sig found.>