Dear Init Freedom lovers,

Once again the Veteran Unix Admin collective salutes you!

You are receiving this mail as an update on the progress of the
Devuan.org project, born out of the Debianfork.org declaration to
defend our growing community from the systemd avalanche.

Today's update is quite packed so we will break it down in sections.

# Infrastructure

Mostly thanks to the hard work made by our fellow VUA Franco Lanza we
have made a lot of progress setting up Devuan's infrastructure, from
code repository to building facility to packaging.

## Code repository

On popular request, Devuan has now its own Git repository and does not
depends anymore on GitHub, which can be optionally used as a mirror on
a per-project basis.

Devuan uses GitLab on https://git.devuan.org as the origin for the
official Devuan sources, as well as a wiki for documentation, planning
and collective drafting of documents.

We welcome any Init Freedom lover developing solutions to resist the
systemd avalanche to push code also into our repository, applying for
our review and evaluation and, if reasonably in need, request our
financial support. Those willing to get involved are welcome to
create an account on https://git.devuan.org and signal it on
`#devuan-dev` (freenode IRC).

## Build facility

This is the most recent achievement on infrastructure development:
last night the first devuan-baseconf package was built correctly
through our continuous integration infrastructure, pulling directly
from our source repository.

The pipeline `code -> build -> package` for Devuan is realized using
`git -> jenkins -> dak` and lays down a smooth road to automatise the
integration of mature codebases into the Devuan package repository.

## Package repository

This was the first part of our infrastructure to be set up & running,
it currently contains the devuan-baseconf package and is being tested
in various situations, including the very servers on which Devuan is
running! http://packages.devuan.org/devuan/

By the next update we can expect a range of packages ready for
beta-testing, providing a devuan package that automatically does
pinning on a Debian 8 "Jessie" and installs components and shims to
keep systemd away and stay with sysvinit as default for PID1.

# Research

Besides consolidating our own infrastructure, we are also following
and supporting any cutting-edge research on strategies and expedients
to support Init Freedom.

## ConsoleKit2

A prolific researcher known by the nickname of max2344 has made well
informed contributions and has already published a number of
repositories patched to avoid systemd: ConsoleKit2, udisks2,
policykit-1 and pcsc-lite https://github.com/max2344?tab=repositories

In the coming time we wish to support max2344 on these efforts, test
and, if useful for the 1.0 release, integrate this code into the
Devuan build pipeline. Meanwhile max2344 has set up an independent
repository to test his packages at http://packages.psycast.de/devuan

## Loginkitd (working name)

The research conducted by Dimkr went into the implementation of a
compatible, yet standalone alternative to logind and libsystemd which
does not depend on a specific init system. Loginkitd aims to act as a
glue layer that exposes logind's interface, but uses ConsoleKit2 as a
backend. This work made good progress and debunked several
undocumented aspects of how logind, DBus and GDM
interact. https://github.com/dimkr/LoginKit Dimkr is also the author
of "nosystem" a tiny library to replace libsystemd with stubs
https://github.com/dimkr/nosystem

The VUA collective has decided to use part of the donations received
on Devuan.org to support Dimkr's research with hardware he needed.

## libudev1

A fellow VUA and developer Matteo Panella is exploring the horizon of
libudev1 and is planning to present some of his findings any time
soon. He has been actively contributing to open technical discussions
on our first dng mailinglist.

## What to keep your eyes peeled for?

Around are more projects that are not directly linked to Devuan and
are worthed to support and keep an eye on. We recommend following:

- eudev http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/eudev/
- vdev https://github.com/jcnelson/vdev
https://www.freelists.org/post/modular-debian/Announcing-vdev
- uselessd http://uselessd.darknedgy.net/

We consider these projects also eligible for our financial support:
if you are involved in one of them and you are in need of it please
contact us! write an email to onelove@???

## Worth reading

The good folks at Troubleshooters.Com®, Linux Library and Init System
Ideas are presenting "The Manjaro Experiments"
http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/init/manjaro_experiments.htm

The documentation on the generic "Without systemd" wiki is growing and
seems to be the most comprehensive collection of links and
informations on initiatives trying to resist the systemd avalanche
http://without-systemd.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

# Finances

The finances of the Devuan project are administered by the Dyne.org
foundation, an international organization based in Amsterdam.

Dyne.org commits to financial transparency and will publish financial
reports for this project, keeping them updated every year.

The current financial report for 2014 is already made available:
https://devuan.org/devuan_financial_report_2014.pdf

Our gratitude goes to donors that supported us so far, despite the
early stage of the project, and to all those who will decide to do so
in the future. Through the year 2015 We intend to use donations to
advance towards a Devuan 1.0 release that can seamlessly substitute
Debian Jessie while keeping its users safe from the systemd avalanche.
At this stage, sponsors to support us in this quest are also welcome.

Donations to the Devuan project can be made in several ways:

- To Paypal account *foundation@???* with reason "VUA"
- Via Stripe (creditcard) from website https://devuan.org/donate
- To Bitcoin address *1QFbx3bKA8LABAGEaSe7EiP9JCxe2j4fN7*
- Via bank wiretransfer, with description 'VUA donation', to:```
Dyne.org bank ABN-AMRO (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
IBAN: NL87ABNA0406496021, BIC: ABNANL2A
```

# Community

The Devuan community is growing at a steady pace! Here some numbers:

## IRC (on freenode.net)

- #debianfork counts an average of 300 people present
(general talk, not strictly devuan related)
- #devuan counts an average of 200 people present
(devuan related talk)
- #devuan-dev is just born with a small group there
(devuan devevelopment talk, strictly technical issues)

## Mailinglist (dng at https://lists.dyne.org)

Counting 343 subscribers as of today, our mailinglist contains
discussions about a wide range of topic, maybe too wide :^) and
represents the first campfire for this project.

Subscription and archives are on:
https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng

BTW dng is now also archived on GMane and accessible via NNTP
http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.linux.devuan.devel

## Human language translations

Initiatives to translate the information around the Devuan project
have quickly and independently started and we are grateful to anyone
taking such initiatives. The French page on https://Devuan.fr has
already a translation of our frontpage! Donc:

Ne paniquez pas, on va fork Debian™! :^)

Also the Devuan.de domain is getting ready to translate and mirror
contents. Anyone willing to contribute to the project in this phase is
welcome to start such initiatives in his/her mother-language.

## Logo

Quite some threads went on the mailinglist about the Devuan logo and
way to present the project. While this is a minor priority for us now,
we appreciate the enthusiasm and quality of contributions.

Have a look at the gallery on the Without-systemd wiki
http://without-systemd.org/wiki/index.php/Category:Logo

As well to Alban Crommer's design study for Devuan
http://albancrommer.github.io/devuan/Logo.pdf
http://albancrommer.github.io/devuan/

Thanks! when the time will come for a 1.0 release we will certainly
have choosen the best. So far most people seem to be enthusiastic
about the galaxy designs in Alban's and Petrek's contributions.


## What to do about trolls

We must not become acquainted to the fact that systemd discussions are
swarmed by trolls fostering aggressive behaviour and personalized
attacks of sorts. With the Devuan project and its early Debianfork
declaration we did our best to avoid such dynamics, to bring forward a
constructive discussion and action plan to respond to the systemd
avalanche with technical analyses and solutions.

We kindly ask the community gathering around Devuan to take us
seriously on this and avoid aggressive behaviour. Everyone should use
extra attention when engaging criticism and in any case avoid any
personalization, but stick to facts.

Recently on our mailinglist we have seen at least two threads calling
the Devuan project a fraud. To such insults and defamations we believe
we can respond with attention to details and educated responses to
what can be a legitimate criticism, but should never become a
prejudicial attack beyond reasoning.

As an aftermath to certain aggressions we understand that some members
of the community have taken action against trolls to the point that
they went debunking their identity and threatening some sort of
revenge. The VUA collective, the Dyne.org foundation and its
representative Denis Roio who has been also targeted by trolls
aggressions do not take part in such retaliations, do not approve them
nor desire to be associated with them in any way. We will keep doing
everything possible to keep Devuan a pleasant project to get involved
in without any personal risk and we invite any member of the community
engaging such dynamics to desist, leave trolls alone and ignore them.
We will keep actively moderating the mailinglist and IRC channels with
a growing number of volunteers to avoid such situations.

At last, we applaud and deride the @shitdevuansays twitter account for
playing such an early parody on our project. We understand this is the
attitude of systemd supporters and we are not offended by it, rather
than thankful for contributing to the notoriety of Devuan.

# That's all folks!

And thanks for all the support and participation so far, we leave you
with a funny comic strip by Commitstrip.com titled "Systemd World: the
Park is open" featuring our project Devuan: we are honored to sit
besides Slackware, an ancient and respectable GNU/Linux distribution
that seems to have still a lot to teach, even to Veteran Unix Admins:

http://www.commitstrip.com/en/2014/12/01/systemd-world-the-park-is-open

To contact the Veteran Unix Admins, write to onelove@???

--
Happy hacking!