On Sat, 2015-03-28 at 12:33 +0100, Didier Kryn wrote:

>      BTW, I, like many others, find convenient to use e.g. Skype, and I 
> would prefer to run it inside a container.
> >    Over there, Linux installers are
> > Shareware.  All of them.  I'm not a priest of St. Ignucius but the idea
> > of the return of Shareware gives me the willies and is a future I do.
> > not. want.

> >

>      I don't understand your point. Are sharewares the present as you 
> first say or are they a future you don't want to see? I don't see also 
> why you call shareware the Debian installer.

Go look at the Play Store. You can install Linux, including Debian,
inside Android via fairly turnkey installers. All of them are
Shareware. Not just most of them. Yes there is F-Droid, with all of a
few hundred packages, everything else is nagware, spyware, adware or
outright paid. F-Droid has Linux a Linux installer too.... and yup it
too was Shareware last time I looked. They had to start admitting
Shareware to F-Droid or it apparently would be an empty repo. Build a
platform around the idea of untrusted apps and apparently they will
come, add in seamless ads and micropayments and Free Software vanishes,
Virtualization, containers and jails all have their place, untrustworthy
(all closed source) software like Skype being a good use. But when we
reach the point we routinely take the performance hit and run everything
in one it will probably be because we have surrendered control of the
repos to the untrustworthy... or soon will.

>      At the end, John, I don't find what you are proposing, nor even if 
> you do propose anything to avoid what happened with systemd and might 
> well happen again.

Simple. Systemd is only the tip of the spear in what appears planned as
a total reinvention of the OS. They aren't done yet. What happens when
the next major component of that plan appears upstream is something that
should be anticipated and planned for this time. We should not be
caught unawares again.