:: [devuan-dev] Suggest fork of apt
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Author: Andreas Messer
Date:  
To: devuan-dev
Subject: [devuan-dev] Suggest fork of apt
Hi out there,

after I was stumbling across apt/apt-get/aptitude been linked with
libsystemd yesterday, I couldn't resist in opening a bug for apt:

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=941937

As you see without much success. It really disrupts me to see
the concept of an all-mighty multi-function binary creeping into more
and more applications, even system level tools. Making all them
dependent and becoming un-substitutable.

I know that we have libelogind, which now can substitute a part
of libsystemd's functions. However the more tools make use of
libsystemd, the more of the different functions of libsystemd
might be needed to be substituted with real meat instead of
just stubs in libelogind. apt is just one example: it uses
the dbus api of libsystemd. (Remind libeleogind originally intended
to be session management not dbus interface)

I'm afraid, over the time libelogind will become a second
libsystemd suffering from the same all-mighty single
binary problem.

I personally can not and will not accept the ongoing inclusion of
libsystemd concept into system level tools. (lvm package also
affected from this). I know that there is still a lot to do for
beowulf and I'm really not willing to open up another bunch of
tasks, since I'm also short in spare time. However:

My suggestion is to fork apt for Devuan in order to be able to
get rid of libsystemd dependance. Even if the common consensus
will be negative on this, I will do this anyways for my machines and
systems. My offer is just to share this work with people willing to
use it as well. Thus I have another question: I think appropriate
place for the forked apt might be the Devuan git repos, but I assume
there are constraints on available server space. I don't want to clutter the
server with stuff no-one except me uses, but I also would like to share
my work. Would it be possible to place my apt-fork sources there or
should I go for gitlab.com?

Cheers,
Andreas

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