On 12/29/2014 2:55 AM, KatolaZ wrote

If I can give my 2 cents to this discussion, I would like to point out
that the "Conquest of the Desktop Market" is just a nonsense, and I
believe that RedHat knows it very well. GNU/Linux has never taken off
on desktops, and probably never will, first because the battle has
already been won by Apple and second because desktops will practically
disappear (meaning that they will represent an even smaller fraction
of the overall market), replaced by smartphones and smart-tvs.

The whole "desktop is dead" is nothing more than a media blitz for the
uninformed and a distraction for the rest of us. . It is not worth the
waste of words. A computer is a computer. The form factor is almost
entirely irrelevant. What people want and need is software that runs where
they need it to. The whole idea of desktop software being a different
software than what you would use on a phone is silly. Yes, the UI might be
different, but the codebase is the same. The Linux kernel and libraries
are examples, both of which are used on desktops and phones.

The reason I'm writing this now is that I think we need to be careful not
to adopt a mindset that might be a detriment later

Let's focus on the niche in which GNU/Linux has still the possibility
to say a word, i.e. the server and backend world.


I must disagree, or at least I would have worded it differently. This a
bad mindset to get into. As software engineers, we shouldn't measure
success by popularity. We measure success by how well we filled a need.
If we aim our sights low, and say we are sticking with one area because
that is only where we will have success, then we are selling ourselves
short. Devuan should concern itself with filling a need and going from
there.

This is exactly what
RedHat is doing, in the end, with the systemd nonsense: one init to
rule them all. They know very well that the market that counts for
GNU/Linux is on the server side, and the systemd nonsense is the last
strike to effectively wipe out all its competitors there. And they
have already made a big step in that direction, mainly thanks to the
silent and quick adoption of the systemd nonsense by virtually all the
distros which might interfere with the plan, including SuSe and
Debian.

I'm sorry but "rubbish"!

Systemd is no more an attempt to "take over" more than Martians and the
common cold. They just have a different solution, and that is not a bad
thing. Choice is what we do.

Linux is open source, and as long as that is the case, no one can just
"take over" because you can fork whatever you want. The community is
interested in systemd because it easier to maintain that System 5. Easier
does not always mean better. I think we can all agree on that.