Rainer Weikusat via Dng said on Sun, 05 Mar 2023 19:31:09 +0000

>Steve Litt <slitt@???> writes:

>> There's no such thing as "init". There are many "init systems", but
>> no such thing as "init".
>
>There's absolutely such a thing: init is a UNIX program which has
>existed since at least 6th edition UNIX

I'm snipping your historical and technical post, which is factually
correct except you should have said "init system" or PID1 or the name
of a specific init system, depending on what you were trying to express.
Using the word "init" as a name of a program is misleading and ambiguous
because what you're really referring to is either sysvinit, in which
case that should be stated, or the entire set of init systems, which
should be stated.

Now let me tell you why I care...

The systemd cabal (poeterpuke's word, not mine) continually used the
word "init" instead of sysvinit in order to misleadingly imply that the
only choices were sysvinit or systemd. Sometimes they threw Upstart
into their propaganda to satisfy those with an IQ over 80.

Calling PID1 plus necessary instantiation and daemon management "init"
enabled them to compare their massively entangled monolith only to
sysvinit, which is a much easier job than comparing it to runit, s6,
OpenRC, Busybox Init, and sysvinit PID1 plus [runit | s6 | OpenRC].

Applying the word "init" to either PID1 or PID1 plus instantiation and
daemon management aids the systemd aficionados' propaganda effort.

Contrastingly, when you use the phrase "init system" to stand for the
generic concept of PID1 plus instantiation plus daemon management, your
meaning is unambigous and does not aid potterpunk's (now microsoft's)
propaganda efforts.

SteveT

Steve Litt
Autumn 2022 featured book: Thriving in Tough Times
http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/thrive.htm