Hello:

On 28 Jun 2026 at 11:29, Peter Duffy wrote:

> ... if the age verification thing ...
That is nothing but trojan horse (so to speak) to make everyone
ID-able when/while on-line.

> ... would almost certainly be implemented in systemd.
Of course.
That is what systemd *is* about.

No more "do one thing and do it well", just a monolithic dump of crap
that *takes care* of everything.

Once it becomes a universal *thing*, you will see it replace the
BIOS/UEFI and all PCs will be marketed with it.

Think *Intel Management Engine* on steroids.

> ... might possibly induce a lot more people ...
Allow me: =8^D !!!

> ... might make running a non-systemd distro illegal ...
Maybe not precisely illegal.

But forget about using it to do all that you rely on it for these
days. eg: banking, paying bills, medical appointments, etc.

That said, a great many corporations are pushing to get everyone to
use a cell phone for all of that, effectively shifting operating
costs to their clients while at the same time generating billions in
revenue for the telcos, data brokers and phone manufacturers.

No Googled-up cell phone?
Then you have become invisible and thus ceased to exist.
A civil death of sorts.

> > This is a public forum ...
> ... he's undoubtedly very intelligent ...
Yes.
A very intelligent asshole with absolutely no scruples.
History is full of such examples.

> ... baffling that he apparently can't see the consequences ...
Of course he sees them.
He *is* intelligent, is he not?.

> ... at the start, his intentions were simply to ...
What I have seen with respect to systemd is that it has been through
a long and drawn out process, one fraught with all sorts of
contentions, mainly among people who will always be light years
further on with respect to my scant knowledge of Linux and systemd
itself.

Within all that ensued at the time, I have also read that at one
point there was some sort of vote with which a great many were not at
all happy with. ie: mainly with *how* the process was carried out.

Hence the emergence of Devuan Linux.

Like I said in a previous post, I understood what systemd was about
by comparing it to the MS registry and although quite a few people
energically disagreed with me and the comparison I was making, none
were not able to convince me that systemd was a *plus* (in any way)
for the Linux environment.

At the end it was just a discussion on tomato <=> tomato.

> Maybe I'm just too naive.
I don't think so.
You just expect the best from people, more so if you consider them to
be intelligent. I do too, but have acquired quite a few scars on my
back as a result.

> > ... not enough people give a fuck.
> They ought to. There's a lot at stake.
I have written a few times (here and elsewhere) about how it has not
been possible to harness the manpower and intelligence of the
countless thousands of coders/maintainers/programmers with knowledge
of LInux so that *all* of them work towards the same goal.

I won't repeat it all here but a good TL;DR is this:

"Look, Ma !!!!
I rolled my own [fill in here] !!!"
ie: *Everyone* wants to be a prima donna.

> ... systemd represents a single point of failure ...
systemd *is* a single application with (most probably) multiple
points of failure while at the same a single point of control for any
Linux distribution infected by it.

> ... could result in unimaginable disaster.
Not for the chap with the key to that control in their hand.

Just think of the possibilities.

> > ... both been brought more or less to the same conclusion ...
> ... reassuring ...
To me, given my background and relatively scant experience in the IT
field, quite reassuring, very much so.

> > ... an amazing lot of moolah behind systemd (basically EEE) ...
> ... which was there first - systemd ...
> ... or the corporate sponsorship.
If I rememeber correctly, the concept of 'Embrace, Extend, and
Extinguish' as a way to establish market dominance was first named
(?) in an antitrust lawsuit filed aganst Microsoft in the late 90's.

Had to look it up, see:

[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish#Ema
il_protocols[/url]

---
The strategy and phrase "embrace and extend" were first described
outside Microsoft in a 1996 article in The New York Times titled
"Tomorrow, the World Wide Web! Microsoft, the PC King, Wants to Reign
Over the Internet", in which writer John Markoff said, "Rather than
merely embrace and extend the Internet, the company's critics now
fear, Microsoft intends to engulf it." The phrase "embrace and
extend" also appears in a facetious motivational song by an anonymous
Microsoft employee, and in an interview of Steve Ballmer by The New
York Times.
---

These links may prove interesting.

[url]https://www.nytimes.com/1996/07/16/business/tomorrow-world-wide-w
eb-microsoft-pc-king-wants-reign-over-internet.html?pagewanted=all[url
]

[url]https://web.archive.org/web/19961019181801/http://www.businesswee
k.com/1996/29/b34841.htm[/url]

[url]https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/business/yourmoney/28ballmer.h
tml[/url]

systemd is just more of the same but this time it is *not* just MS.

Best,

A.