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

[Andrew Savchenko]

On Mon, 17 Feb 2014 18:49:47 -0600 Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
> > The whole deep integration approach and lack of
> > inter-module boundaries doesn't allow one to write replaceable blocks
> > without crazy hacking.
>
> Well, then go and show them how it's done. And please don't say that
> "it's already done", because if that were the case, no distro would
> have adopted systemd.
>
> They adopted it because of the features it offers.

What features? As far as I can see if we compare to openrc, the only
missed feature is logind for which it is declared to be better than
consolekit. I can't argue here because I never used either one.

At this moment I have about 50 Gentoo boxes (in hardware) at my
control including both personal and work hardware including laptops,
desktops, production servers and two HPC setups (not to count
hundreds of LXC containers). And I see neither reason nor need for
systemd here.

From what I can see, all this systemd boom started from Gnome's GDM
dropping support for anything aside from systemd. Afterwards
distributions started to switch to systemd one after another in order
to fully support Gnome-3 setups. And now we have a little fact here:
Lennart Poettering is a long time Gnome contributor. Which leads me to
only one conclusion: situation we have now is a deliberate sabotage
in order to acquire as much influence by RH as possible. Influence
leads to a sales market expansion, which leads to a profit. So we
have money here as a root cause of all this boom — a root of all evil
and a root of systemd. All "features and benefits" are nothing more
than just an excuse for the aim for market domination and more profit.

> > Just imagine that one have PCI-E bus and this bug is being replaced
> > with some other PC-systemd bus, where one have to interface each
> > component differently. And if one removes e.g. audio card some other
> > seemingly independent component e.g. network controller becomes
> > broken. That is the nature of systemd and that is many people dislike
> > this technology.
>
> That is a broken analogy; if logind has a bug, that doesn't affect
> timedated, nor udev.

No, it is not. You can not remove systemd-udevd and replace it
with mdev or static dev without broking most of other systemd
components. The same way in my analogy you can not remove audio card
without broking network controller.

> >> > 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.
> >>
> >> It depends; right now you can't switch back and forth between OpenRC
> >> and systemd without reemerging some stuff. Some of those packages
> >> *could* be made to switch functionality at run time instead of compile
> >> time, but SOMEONE has to write that support, and it's probably that
> >> the upstream for the package will not accept those changes, since for
> >> binary distributions it makes no sense to have the complexity on the
> >> code of switching behavior at runtime when doing at compile time is
> >> easier and the distribution generates one binary per architecture for
> >> all its users.
> >
> > The most sane and fair solution was already proposed: create a
> > systemd profile for those who need it. I personally highly dislike
> > systemd technology, but I respect the right of other to shoot them in
> > the leg (or head) as much as they want to. This is Gentoo: a universal
> > constructor providing people means to build any system in any shape
> > they need.
>
> If someone willing and able provides any choice, that choice will be available.

What choice? For features neither used nor needed before? Before
systemd we had our choice: sysvinit, openrc, runit, epoch... By
enforcing unwanted features to us systemd takes our freedom and our
choice.
 
> > Unfortunately chances are that in future some software may become
> > unusable or unsupported outside of systemd profile. But patches may
> > be created and other profiles will continue to live the same way
> > hardened exists now and will continue to exist later.
>
> Yeah, and that's my whole point: if you want that the world outside of
> systemd keeps working, you need to step in. Complaining about systemd
> will get no one nowhere.

That's the point of systemd adepts: we'll break things the way we
want, fix them yourself if you dare. Behind the curtain you're just
offloading your work to others or, more precisely, your time efforts
to others. I don't like that. Do whatever you want to do, but please
do not be intrusive into other domains and respect the freedom of
choice of others.
 
> > BTW it was shown at the recent LVEE Winter 2014 conference that GDM
> > can be easily freed from systemd and OpenBSD guys have an interesting
> > idea for faking systemd presence for applications requesting one
> > mandatory. Though IMO any end-user application strictly dependable on
> > any init system is broken by design: for a daemon there should be no
> > difference by which tool it was started.
>
> GNOME depends on logind, not systemd. And no one has been willing and
> able to produce a compatible replacement: logind works with a dbus
> API, so it's (in theory) *easy* to duplicate its functionality. Ubuntu
> has been working in a replacement, but (AFAIU) is not finished.

And logind hardly depends on systemd . That's why Gnome depends on
systemd.

> > The real reason is money: systemd is a Red
> > Hat project (despite being formally open for everyone) and is their
> > tool^Wweapon to fight with Canonical for a sales market. It the last
> > years RH was pushed near even in a server market and now they are
> > fighting back.
>
> Nice conspiracy theory you have going on.

You may call facts as like as you want to. This will not change them.
 
> > They were lucky enough to acquire Poettiring guy and
> > create from a simple and sound sysvinit (which is an important but
> > not dictating peace of software) a key component where they can
> > dictate their own line, where they can lead all Linux community in
> > a way they need.
>
> And it gets better. Citation needed? Any hard proof?

Citation for what? You're free to analyze fact and trends yourself.
 
> > That the real reason I despise systemd: in replaces the freedom of
> > choice by a dictatorship of a small bunch of managers of a single
> > corporation (yes, managers, not developers). And all this is under the
> > veil of GPL and technical merits. This is the poison in the well of
> > FOSS.
>
> I don't work for RedHat; I teach in a University. Nobody pays me for
> using systemd; I just choose to because I think is a technical sound
> solution for the chaos that was the plumbing layer in Linux.

This chaos is called freedom, freedom of choice, which leads to
diversity, evolution and security. With every system unified in
its core component we'll have a nice single and easily targeted point
of failure. With systemd on most Linux distributions viruses (in
terms of self-spreading windows malware) are just a matter of time.
If this folly will not be stopped before it's spread you may recall my
words in about five years.

> The technical merits and advantages of systemd are there in the open
> for anyone willing to study a little about it. *After* you carefully
> read the code, the documentation, and test the software in real life,
> you *may* still think you don't like the software or its design.

Believe me or not, but I tested it, I read its docs and I studied its
code. I vomited.

There are two major types of failures: design failure and
implementation failure. I'm tolerant to implementation issues, anyone
have them after all. But monolithic deeply integrated approach is
flawed by design. Even this issue can be tolerated as long as project
is supposed to be compatible and replaceable with other solutions
(remember, everyone has right to shoot oneself in the leg). But if
project is being aggressively enforced, this is no way to go.

Best regards,
Andrew Savchenko