On Sun, Nov 30, 2014 at 09:42:43AM -0500, Miles Fidelman wrote:
> Franco Lanza wrote:
> >On Sun, Nov 30, 2014 at 12:54:23PM +0000, Noel Torres wrote:
> >>Do not look at me so fiercy.
> >>
> >>For me Devuan is about freedom. Specifically users' freedom. And with init
> >>freedom as a starting point.
> >>
> >As already known, we are NOT against systemd. We are pro-freedom.
> >Systemd WILL BE supported in devuan. Just not in the same manner as it
> >is in debian where it eat whole system.
> >
> >
>
> That seems like a rather dangerous technical choice, in that systemd
> (or, more precisely, its developers) seem hell-bent on engulfing
> more and more functionality into systemd, and related code - to the
> extent of writing publicly about their goals to radically change,
> engulf, and devour Linux as we know it (that's only a mild
> exaggeration - I suggest folks actually read Lennart Poettering's
> blog, at http://0pointer.net/blog/).
>
> Between its monolithic nature, changing API's (making things like
> systemd-shim a time-sink to maintain), and radical divergence from
> traditional Unix design philosophy, supporting systemd in Devuan
> might be a very dangerous choice. You know, the whole "camel's nose
> under the tent...." thing.

Agreed on all counts here.

While it would theoretically be nice to include systemd, in practice
it is likely that the effort required will make this impractical.
While I agree in principle with Noel's comments abount freedom, we
would not not prevent people from using systemd by not supporting it
in Devuan; it is supported in Debian by their choice, and they are
free to use it. I don't think the onus should be on us to support
everything, and in this case that differentiation may be necessary;
that doesn't imply any ill will toward it, merely that we don't
choose to support it.

In the 1990s Microsoft used changing proprietary APIs to lock
developers into Windows, the theory being that once you were using
them it would be too expensive in time and cost to move elsewhere.
And since they were provided to be convienient, many people were
ensnared in this fashion. Open, standard, documented APIs used
by open systems such as Linux won out. While I'm not going to
imply that the systemd developers have the same motives as
Microsoft, the changing APIs it provides are poorly documented,
mostly defined solely by their implementation and as such are
effectively proprietary. Once you start supporting and using them,
you will be locked in and forced to keep up to date with them as
they change. This will be a massive sink for limited developer
resources. Unless we have certain guarantees of them being
stable, fully documented, standardised and independently
re-implementable, I think we would be wise to avoid them.


Regards,
Roger

-- 
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