dear Michael,

On Tue, 19 Dec 2017, Michael Siegel wrote:

> 1.
> The intro paragraph says:
> "Erklärtes Ziel ist es, nicht den umstrittenen systemd-Dienst als
> 'init'-Prozess fest vorzugeben, sondern die Wahl des init-Prozesses dem
> Anwender zu überlassen und ein möglichst breites Spektrum an
> init-Systemen zu unterstützen wie es auch in Debian möglich ist.[2]"
>
> That translates to: "The stated aim is not to prescribe the
> controversial systemd service as the 'init' system, but leave the choice
> of the init system to the user and to support a preferably wide range of
> init systems like it is also possible in Debian.[2]"
>
> Question: How does Debian support a wide range of init systems? Even the
> claim that supporting a variety of init systems is possible with Debian
> is at least a half-truth if you take into account what it takes to not
> use systemd.
>
> The source cited in the footnote is https://devuan.org/os/init-freedom.
> That web page, however, doesn't state it as Devuan's aim to support a
> preferably wide range of init systems, but rather to "restor[e] a sane
> approach to PID1". And, of course, it doesn't claim Debian was able to
> support a variety of init systems. It actually states the opposite, stating:
> "While Debian claims that 'Systemd is becoming the de facto standard
> init system for Linux', a number of GNU/Linux distributions, some new,
> beg to differ. While Debian claims that 'It is better than existing
> alternatives for all of Debian's current use cases', these rebel
> GNU/Linux distributions refuse this one-size-fits-all vision of the *nix
> world that breaks portability, ignores backwards compatibility, and
> replaces existing services, forcing systemd into adoption."
>
> The sentence that follows the one quoted above makes things even worse:
> "Im Gegensatz zu Debian entfernt Devuan allerdings die Unterstützung für
> systemd."
>
> Translated: "But contrary to Debian, Devuan removes support for systemd."
>
> To sum up: Devuan doesn't want to enforece systemd onto its users but
> leave them a choice and support a variety of init systems. But that is
> also possible with Debian. Only Devuan removes support for systemd.
>
> That's not exactly right, is it?

I believe this is correct and in line with our proposition. As a
matter of fact we are fixing init packages that do not work in Debian,
for instance OpenRC, nothwithstanding sysvinit stays the default, also
in ASCII.

> 2.
> A few paragraphs later, the article claims that Devuan was also aiming
> to "make it possible" to use systemd, provided its integration won't
> collide with other init systems or create incompatibilities: "Auch
> systemd soll ermöglicht werden, sofern die Integration ohne Kollision
> mit anderen init-Systemen oder Inkompatibilitäten möglich ist.[2]"
>
> What did that footnote point to again? Right,
> https://devuan.org/os/init-freedom .
>
> Now, that is an obvious mismatch.

No, this is correct too. If systemd would be only an init we'd be fine
with it. Also please note our problem is specifically with Debian
where a weak and manipulated majority has unresponsibly taken over and
decided to impose systemd to everyone, disregarding what the users
were asking and in fact violating its social contract.

I explain this in the video linked from that page.

> 3.
> "Das in systemd integrierte udev wird durch gudev ersetzt."
>
> "Udev, which has been integrated into systemd, is being replaced by gudev."
>
> That was actually claimed by someone on pro-linux.de in December 2016
> (http://www.pro-linux.de/news/1/24234/devuan-ver%C3%83%C2%B6ffentlicht-beta-2.html)
> – for no discernable reason.

this is not correct. It is being replaced by eudev and there are
experiments also to support vdev as an option.

> 4.
> "Die mit Langzeitunterstützung ausgestattete Distribution richtet sich
> besonders an gewerbliche Anwender."
>
> Roughly: "The long-term support release [jessie] is especially targeted
> at commerical users."
>
> I doubt that is true.

yes, this is no true as you say. Devuan is a universal
distribution. Also we may consider ourselves to be all 'participants'
in it, rather than differentiate between 'users' and 'developers',
since many of those of use who can be considered developers are
actually using Devuan. This is OT, but AFAIK many Debian developers
simply use OSX, so... the main difference I believe should be between
people who rely on our OS and those who don't.

> 5.
> Maybe someone should provide a screen shot of a Devuan Jessie desktop
> with Xfce in place.

Golinux is the best one to do that.

Many thanks for your attention to details!

ciao