On 19/02/15 13:36, hal wrote:
> Hello all, and great work on the Alpha! I am tagging this off-topic as it doesn't really pertain to Devuan development except in a tangential aspect.
>
> I've always thought it a bit odd that just a handful of people, leading certain Open Source projects, could get away with steering any certain Linux distro directly into the path of oncoming traffic. I ran across this
> article yesterday and thought it may explain some of the things that happened with SuSE, Caldera, Gnome and now Debian.
>
> There are many changes that have happened with Linux distros over the years and many just never made sense to me. Some new implementation supposing to make things easier was just a mess to work with (NetworkManager,
> resolvconf, udev, MDNS). Usually it was claimed "It is easier for users" but often the case was wrong. When things work, they work OK, but good luck if you need to fix it when it doesn't work.
>
> This articla was a bit concerning because the largest contributers to the Linux kernel come from private businesses now. That's always been fine with me until things like systemd happen which completely alter every aspect
> of the system causing new problems at every level. The fact that most of the major distros jumped on the band wagon without question was also strange to me. It now makes sense to me because the collective of private
> business makes up the majority of the development. There are far more private interests funding the drive behind these changes than there are hackers to fix/oversee them.
>
> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/02/linux-has-2000-new-developers-and-gets-10000-patches-for-each-version/

I read the following article a while back and the one reply that really
actually made the most sense to me and summed up my feelings that there
are wider political issues at stake - this was on page 3 of the
comments by Trevor Potts.

IMHO If RHEL can't make Mr Torvalds develop the way you want, build
another system to replace him - effectively 'fork Linux'

With a business head on rather than development, it make a lot of
sense..... They like things they can control.

Just my 2c worth :-)


========================================================

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/01/ttsystemdtt_row_ends_with_debian_getting_forked/


Trevor Potts :

Re: If systemd is so bad...

"If systemd is so bad... ...then why are so many distros using it?"

It's called blackmail.

RedHat are behind the whole thing. They spend the money that makes a lot
of critical pieces of your average Linux distribution work. Now those
things won't work without systemd and/or getting them to work without
systemd is a right bitch/there are roadmaps to make them not work
without systemd in short order.

The short version of this whole thing is that Poettering - and with him,
RedHat - are trying to take the kernel away from Linux Torvalds. They
are doing so by creating another kernel in userland that everything
depends on. Once they have enough stuff jacked into Poettering's matrix,
they'll use it to leverage Torvalds out of the picture and finally take
the whole cake for themselves.

Systemd is nothing more than a cynical play for domination and control
of the entire Linux ecosystem. To "own the stack" of a modern distro.
And since RedHat has managed to co-opt so many core projects, there is
precious little to stop them.

"Linux" as we think of it today is on life support. Android/Linux and
systemd/Linux are now looking to be the two dominant entities.
Traditional Linux - one that adheres to the Unix philosophy - is all but
dead. Hopefully, Devuan can save it.