>     On Sat, 2015-03-21 at 17:04 +0100, Didier Kryn wrote:

>     >      However, the long term policy of Devuan can't be "We hate
>     systemd
>     > and Lennart Poetering". Instead Devuan should advertize the
>     reasons to
>     > reject software like systemd, in the form of  a set of rules for
>     > acceptability, in a sensible and attractive form, for users,
>     > developpers, and distros to easily share. I see these rules as an
>     > addendum to the definition of free software.

>     Yea, this is a topic I have been pondering along with apparently many
>     others.  Easy to say what we don't want, but what do we want?  I
>     think I
>     have an idea.  Lemme start with an analogy that I think is similar to
>     where we are now.

>     Imagine a bunch of Boy Scout Troops in an area.  Now imagine a large
>     influx of new people into the area joining and contributing much
>     volunteer labor, etc.  Great!  But these new people have some strange
>     ideas.  They want to organize baseball leagues into the
>     activities.  Ok,
>     that isn't too strange, why not?  Then they want to convert the normal
>     summer camps into baseball camp.  Oh, and you start noticing a lot of
>     nike.com <http://nike.com> and spalding.com <http://spalding.com>,
>     etc. addresses on these new guys.  Next thing
>     you know they have simply outvoted the guys who think Scouting is
>     camping, pinewood derbies and merit badges and by dint of numbers now
>     own all of the physical and cultural assets, leaving the folks who
>     wanted traditional Scouting to go found a new organization and start
>     raising money to buy new campgrounds, design new uniforms, etc.

>     The Troops are the distros, the newcomers are the Pottering and Gnome
>     armies, nike.com <http://nike.com> is of course redhat.com
>     <http://redhat.com> and so on.  That is sorta where
>     I see us being, driven off of what we thought we had built as
>     permanent
>     institutions and forced to reinvent most of them again.  But there are
>     differences which is why I settled on this particular analogy; the
>     differences point to what might be a better way to see the
>     situation and
>     the way forward.

>     The situation described couldn't really happen because the BSA has a
>     written statement of what it exists for and the National organization
>     would eventually move in and set things aright.  Debian didn't
>     have one.
>     It didn't really even have an unwritten one.  Ask "What is Debian
>     trying
>     to build?" and get a different answer from every person asked. 
>     Building
>     a Great Free Software OS is not an answer.  systemd/linux is a
>     perfectly
>     valid direction if that is the mission.  For that matter so is ReactOS
>     but Debian was never about that, so why not?

>     What has happened is that a decade ago, Linux was Linux, distributions
>     had different package managers, included/excluded a few less used
>     applications, upgraded to newer versions of things on their own
>     schedule, etc. but they were all the same basic thing. Without
>     havingspell it out, we
>     to spell it out, we all knew we were building a POSIX/UNIX/GNU sort of
>     thing.  And then things, quietly at first, changed.  Where once there
>     was one, one has already arrived and two more are clearly visible
>     on the
>     horizon.  Google had the decency to go off and build their own
>     infrastructure for their projects, unlike the Windows refugees and
>     other
>     misfits who have swarmed and seized most of the existing Linux distros
>     and other infrastructure to host their fork.

>     1.  For want of a better term, GNU/Linux.  The original POSIX/UNIX
>     Operating System with Linux as the OS kernel, Glibc (usually) as the C
>     Library, a mix of BSD and GNU userland, the GNU toolchain and X for
>     workstations along with one of the many Desktop Environments.

>     2.  Android/Linux.  Not too important for today's topic but it
>     probably
>     set some minds to thinking of the possibilities of putting a totally
>     alien userland atop a Linux kernel.

>     3.  ChromeOS/Linux.  For now basically a mutant Gentoo but the wise
>     shouldn't put a lot of money on that remaining true.  Today it is
>     only a
>     distro but a full fork is likely.

>     4.  Systemd/Linux, PotteringOS/Linux, POS/Linux, GNOME/Linux, whatever
>     it eventually adopts as a brand.  It ain't just GNOME3 and it
>     ain't just
>     Systemd.  Reading what just Pottering has in store makes that
>     clear; yum
>     and apt-get relegated to 'distro maintainer use only', the OS
>     shrunk to
>     an anonymous stripped down platform to launch apps running in
>     containers, all user space software appified into ad infested, in app
>     purchase enabled security nightmares vended from App Stores that will
>     need the extensive sandboxing planned for them.

>     Seen this way, what we want is clear.  We want what we wanted from the
>     beginning, option #1.  Simple, easy to articulate and pretty easy to
>     decide to include/exclude features based on the criteria. And when it
>     gets time to organize beyond some folks in an IRC channel, some
>     thought
>     into codifying exactly what the project is and is not trying to
>     accomplish would be a good idea.

>     The worry is that if #4 is really where Debian is being driven toward,
>     sharing much of anything with them is strictly a short term
>     solution as
>     they are going to quickly become unrecognizable.

>     >      These rules would obviously put systemd out of the
>     free-software
>     > category, let's call it anti-freedom, which is worse than
>     non-free. This
>     > does not mean there needs to be an anti-freedom repository,
>     after all :-)

>     No, not anti-freedom.  Systemd is Free Software. What it ain't is
>     UNIX.
>     I hope their new OS makes its creators happy and they all live happily
>     ever after in fact.  Because if they don't they will more likely than
>     not come once again for our successful time tested UNIX base and try
>     again.  And they will always outnumber us.  Because remember, UNIX is
>     User Friendly, it is just particular about who it's friends are.

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