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Author: T.J. Duchene
Date:  
To: 'Steve Litt', dng
Subject: Re: [Dng] Devuan commitments - will trade-off be applied?


-----Original Message-----

> On Fri 20 March 2015 08:56:47 Go Linux wrote:
> > I support this idea. Put all the systemd stuff in a 'quarantine'
> > repo with the appropriate 'use at your own risk' caveats.
>


From: Steve Litt [mailto:slitt@troubleshooters.com]

What would especially float my boat, once there's a truly depoetterized
Devuan, is to have the package manager warn me at 160 decibles if I decide
to install something that pulls in any systemd code, because if there's a
way to run without systemd code, that's how I want to run, even if it means
someday I can no longer use Gnumeric or Gimp.

Let me give an analogy that's absolutely offtopic here, I use it only as an
analogy. Three years ago, I made a policy that no KDE library or software
would ever exist on any of Troubleshooters.Com computers, any computers
owned by Steve Litt, or any computers owned by family members who expected
me to be their IT department. For the most part, I simply never install a
package beginning with "k". But once in a while I install an excellent
sounding package, only to see it starting to pull in KDE Krap, have to
Ctrl+C out of it, and then go back and painstakingly remove everything my
install put there. My life would have been easier if the package manager
told me THIS PACKAGE HAS KDE REQUIREMENTS, PROCEED N/y.

In the same way, I'd like a big old warning from any package that brought in
systemd code of any kind, and that *is* ontopic here.

I think a very simple way is to put all packages that pull in systemd code,
directly or indirectly, in a "contaminated" repository, and have that
repository not enabled by default. This way, everyone gets their choice of
how much or how little poetterization they want, and nobody accidentally
gets a smarmy, fast talking read headed bespecticled bug in their operating
system.

And once again, I'd like to state the opinion that getting anything working
that will long term be systemd-encumbered should be a much lower priority
than depoetterizing what we can.

SteveT


Gentlemen, if I might add my two cents before moving onward?    


In the general picture of the universe, everything opensource or not is
classified as "use at your own risk." To be frank, Devuan has such a small
team that the reality is that everyone is depending on upstream to get the
kinks out. The only software that really receives a review by Devuan is the
software that Devuan patches or creates from scratch. 99% percent of the
Devuan 1.0 will have little to no actual code review other than what Debian
or someone else provides.

That said, Devuan does not have the manpower to review, or the inclination
to support systemd software in any form. There are a few exceptions in the
Debian upstream that actually require systemd, but only a scant few. Kick
them to the curb, and be done with it. If Devuan has any singular goal, it
should be to get rid of systemd entirely because of none of the developers
want to support a questionable product. That has been made clear again and
again to me, even in situations where I feel it is a bit extreme. That's
fair enough. The OS can live without it, but systemd cannot live without
the OS. Devuan can succeed without systemd support of any kind.

Trying to maintain branches of systemd-ified software is a HUGE chore. Even
if you intend to provide a replacement shim, it's still going to be a QA
support problem that no one is going to want to do.

Systemd is someone else's problem.  I think that the conversation is really
losing sight of that fact.    If that means that KDE, Gnome, and whatever
have to be tossed out of Devuan, then so be it. 



Just my two cents.

t.j.