On Sun, Jun 18, 2017 at 05:16:34AM -0700, Bruce Perens wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 18, 2017 at 3:19 AM, Joachim Fahrner <jf@???> wrote:
> >
> > systemd is not not only an init system, it is expanding to a whole eco
> > system around the linux kernel, creating apis for everything you can think
> > of.
>
>
> Systemd started with the desire to communicate the desktop hardware state
> to user-mode applications and to make up for the lack of login sessions in
> the Unix API. There is no reason not to have APIs for everything you can
> think of, as long as they don't depend on systemd. The bad decisions were
> to tie these things into init system, to thus require a single software
> package for all of these APIs, and to subsume a great many system tasks
> into one software project.
>

Dear Bruce,

the main problem with this is that if you want to provide a consistent
interface to the upper-level userland and to include support for fancy
concepts like "session" and "seat", as systemd aspires to, you must
have control on all the low-level userland. There is no other
way. Your interface cannot remain consistent if a random developer can
change a functionality in consolekit without letting you know. This
is why systemd "had" to incorporate the functionalities of a few
dozens different daemons and projects down there, including logging,
hardware detection, authentication, network connection, and a myriad
more.

Like it or not (and I pretty much dislike it), the way systemd went
down incorporating almost everything is a "natural" way to try to
tackle complexity, i.e., by centralising things in the hands of a
minimal number of actors and creating a whole lot of
interdependencies. I personally think this does not work in the long
run, and I find it clashing with the most basic KISS principle. This
is enough for me to firmly refuse similar attempts.

My2Cents

KatolaZ

-- 
[ ~.,_  Enzo Nicosia aka KatolaZ - GLUGCT -- Freaknet Medialab  ]  
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