Debian votes on init systems

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In November, the topic of init systems and, in particular, support for systems other than systemd reappeared on the Debian mailing lists. After one month of sometimes fraught discussion, this issue has been brought to the project's developers to decide in the form of a general resolution (GR) — the first such since the project voted on the status of debian-private discussions in 2016. The issues under discussion are complex, so the result is one of the most complex ballots seen for some time in Debian, with seven options to choose from.

Debian being what it is, the actual voting period for a contentious issue can be rather anticlimactic; the real debate happens during the framing of the ballot to be voted on. This time around was no exception, with extensive discussions on how to best represent various proposed policies, and even a debate over the use of the word "diversity" to describe the issue at hand (it was eventually taken out). Debian practice dictates that ballots work best if each option is written by its proponents, so there are many hands involved in creating the final product.

That process also takes some time. Debian project leader Sam Hartman has seemed somewhat impatient throughout, trying to keep the discussion period to the minimum required by the Debian constitution. By his count, the minimum period ended on November 30; he issued his call for votes three days later.

That, however, was too soon for Ian Jackson, who posted a proposal to override Hartman's call for votes so that further work could be done on the framing of the issues on the ballot. While some participants agreed with this idea, the project as a whole appears to be somewhat tired of this discussion and ready to make a decision. As Russ Allbery put it:

I'm also rather dubious that anything is going to fundamentally change in the next few days. Ian already has an excellent, well-thought-out proposal on the ballot that reflects his position. The available solution space seems well-covered by the options available. It's getting harder to keep the discussion productive.

It is also not clear that overriding Hartman in this way is something allowed by the Debian constitution. Overriding the Debian project leader can be done, but Hartman made it clear that he is proposing the GR posting the call for votes as a Debian developer, not as the leader. So the delay in the vote seems unlikely to happen; project secretary Kurt Roeckx has duly posted a draft ballot that sets the beginning of the voting for December 7.

Many developers are undoubtedly glad to get on with this issue and put it behind them. One should realize, though, that the last big decision made regarding systemd (by the technical committee) involved a ballot pushed over Jackson's objections. That whole process left scars that took a long time to heal — if, indeed, they have fully healed.

Be that as it may, the ballot to be voted has seven options:

Focus on systemd. This option makes the project's policy read that systemd is "the only officially supported init system", and allows packages to make use of systemd-only features. Some lip service is given to supporting other systems, though; they are still welcome in Debian but would not be allowed to hold up distribution releases.
Systemd but we support exploring alternatives. This is a weaker option, calling systemd the preferred alternative, but encouraging developers to work on alternatives as long as they take on all of the effort involved. Use of systemd-specific features would be allowed.
Support for multiple init systems is Important. Under this option, every Debian package would be required to work on systems where the init system is something other than systemd. A failure to work on non-systemd installations would be considered an "important" bug, and non-maintainer uploads to fix such bugs would be allowed.
Support non-systemd systems, without blocking progress. Packages are expected to work on non-systemd installations, but a failure to work is not considered a release-critical bug — unless the necessary support exists but has not been enabled by the package maintainer. Use of systemd-specific features is only allowed if those features are documented and alternative implementations are feasible to implement.
Support for multiple init systems is Required. This short option states that: "Every package MUST work with pid1 != systemd, unless it was designed by upstream to work exclusively with systemd and no support for running without systemd is available".
Support portability and multiple implementations. This is the vaguest and most hand-wavy of the proposals, stating that hardware and software portability are important, but giving nothing in the way of specific guidance about what that would mean for project policy. Making this proposal more concrete is one of the things Jackson wanted to do before the ballot went to a vote.
Further discussion. At the moment, it would appear that the project has little appetite for any further talk on this issue, but one never knows.

That may seem like a lot of choices, but the final ballot will contain one more. Jackson has been pushing an option called "Support portability, without blocking progress". It is a lengthy and detailed proposal that is essentially a combination of options 4 and 6 above; it's an attempt to fill in some of the details that option 6 currently lacks. It was not clear whether this late-arriving option could be added to the ballot without resetting the discussion clock, but there was no real opposition to doing so. Hartman remains firm that he wants the vote to proceed, but has declared himself "neutral" on whether that vote should have one more choice to consider. So Roeckx has indicated that he will be adding this choice to the ballot.

The available options would thus appear to fall in numerous places along a spectrum of opinions on how central systemd should be to the Debian distribution. In many voting systems, a ballot like this would be certain to split the votes of like-minded people across many options, leading to an outcome that is not supported by the majority. Debian's Condorcet voting system, though, requires developers to rank the options according to their preferences; a complex algorithm then tries to determine which option has the most support overall.

The hope is that this resolution will succeed in determining which policy is the most acceptable to the largest subset of Debian developers. If it works, the project should not have to argue about init systems for a long time. The voting period goes for three weeks so, if the schedule remains unchanged, we'll have to wait until December 27 to get the answer.

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Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 5, 2019 19:10 UTC (Thu) by pebolle (subscriber, #35204) [Link]

Debian and systemd has turned into the gift that keeps on giving. My guess is that option four ("Support non-systemd systems, without blocking progress") is the most likely to cause a few years worth of heated discussions. So I'm hoping the Condorcet voting system - Debian, so complex - will end up spitting out option four as the winner.

Fingers crossed!

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 5, 2019 19:40 UTC (Thu) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

Come on, there's a "further discussion" option! It's going to be fun!

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 5, 2019 20:33 UTC (Thu) by Sesse (subscriber, #53779) [Link]

There's always “Further discussion”; in the voting system, it has a special place as “like/dislike marker”. Essentially, you rank every acceptable option above it and every unacceptable option below it, and it is used or majority and supermajority decisions. In particular, if FD ranks above every candidate, it (formally) is as if the GR was never proposed.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 5, 2019 20:43 UTC (Thu) by pebolle (subscriber, #35204) [Link]

So "Further discussion" is really rooting for my team too. Lucky me!

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 5, 2019 21:46 UTC (Thu) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link]

> So I'm hoping the Condorcet voting system - Debian, so complex - will end up spitting out option four as the winner.

To be perfectly clear, there is no such thing as "the Condorcet voting system." Condorcet is a property of voting systems, not a voting system in its own right. Wikipedia calls Debian's particular system the "Schulze method" - Google that if you want all the gory details.

In short, any Condorcet system guarantees that, if a single option is preferred to every alternative in pairwise matchups, that option must win. For example, in a three-option race, if a majority of ballots rank A above B, and a separate majority rank A above C, then A must win. If no single option wins all pairwise matchups (because of intransitive preferences), then you still have to pick a winner, which is why there are multiple Condorcet systems (the Condorcet criterion does not say what should happen in this case). Most Condorcet systems (including the Schulze method) will also try to avoid picking a "Condorcet loser," which is any option that loses all pairwise matchups. There are a menagerie of other criteria that may or may not be satisfied by different systems.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 5, 2019 21:51 UTC (Thu) by atai (subscriber, #10977) [Link]

Did Debian adapt the current complex voting system without a project vote?

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 6, 2019 0:19 UTC (Fri) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link]

According to this page, it was a straight yes-no vote (with a minimum quorum). For two-option votes, you don't need a complicated voting system since there will always be a simple majority in favor of one option or the other. You just count the votes and see who has more (or, alternatively, see whether "yes" has the required supermajority, if any).

I also found some additional background in this mailing list post. They already had a Condorcet voting system in place at the time, but it was insufficiently specified and poorly worded. Among other problems, it was unclear how to conduct a supermajority-required vote. Adding the "further discussion" option fixed that by providing an explicit signal for voters to support or oppose individual outcomes (by respectively ranking them above or below "further discussion"). You can then count how many voters ranked the winning option above "further discussion" to see if a supermajority was achieved.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 5, 2019 21:57 UTC (Thu) by pebolle (subscriber, #35204) [Link]

> Wikipedia calls Debian's particular system the "Schulze method" - Google that if you want all the gory details.

Thanks, but I don't want all the gory details, I just want Debian's systemd drama to continue for a few more years.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 5, 2019 22:08 UTC (Thu) by JohnVonNeumann (guest, #131609) [Link]

Why do you want it to continue?

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 5, 2019 22:17 UTC (Thu) by pebolle (subscriber, #35204) [Link]

Because by now it's become farcical. So we might as well enjoy the drama while it lasts. So, dear Debian voters, do choose a result that guarantees further discussions. Please?

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 5, 2019 23:25 UTC (Thu) by warrax (subscriber, #103205) [Link]

If you like progressive rock music, I can recommend Vicarious, by Tool.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 5, 2019 22:36 UTC (Thu) by josh (subscriber, #17465) [Link]

> My guess is that option four ("Support non-systemd systems, without blocking progress") is the most likely to cause a few years worth of heated discussions. So I'm hoping the Condorcet voting system - Debian, so complex - will end up spitting out option four as the winner.

So you're explicitly saying that you want more heated discussions in the future?

How is this anything other than trolling?

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 5, 2019 22:57 UTC (Thu) by pebolle (subscriber, #35204) [Link]

> How is this anything other than trolling?

Is there a Poe's Law equivalent for trolling?

I think my point is that Debian has crossed the point - perhaps quite some time ago - where it was still reasonable to discuss the issues around their init system. And so I think it's fair to mention the farcical nature of Debian's drama.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 5, 2019 23:32 UTC (Thu) by warrax (subscriber, #103205) [Link]

> Is there a Poe's Law equivalent for trolling?

Trolling has become indistinguishable from earnest interest. Still, please do go into great detail about what *exactly* what the trolling was. Otherwise, I think I'll dismiss you as a troll. (Turnabout and all that. I actually don't think that way, but generally, I find it best to just dismiss people who don't have an interesting approach.)

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 6, 2019 4:17 UTC (Fri) by josh (subscriber, #17465) [Link]

> I think my point is that Debian has crossed the point - perhaps quite some time ago - where it was still reasonable to discuss the issues around their init system.

The point of this vote is precisely to attempt to curtail those discussions in favor of getting work done. Most people in Debian are also tired of talking about this.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 6, 2019 8:49 UTC (Fri) by smurf (subscriber, #17840) [Link]

The question remains which of these options will actually achieve that goal. Or put differently, I wonder whether the ordering of the options WRT systemd primacy differs from the ordering WRT avoidance of further discussion.

In any case, I'm not holding my breath.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 6, 2019 16:52 UTC (Fri) by martin.langhoff (subscriber, #61417) [Link]

Are we ironically trying to mimic debian-devel here? :-) /meta

I agree Debian init arguments are well past reasonable.

Can development-driven projects declare some kind of "topic foo has reached a level of argumentativity that any further proposal or counterproposal must come with some proof-of-code/work" flag?

That might be a patch for a proposed implementation (if appropriate) or just adjacent work (ie: "I just improved the systemd units of 5 packages, here's a link to the patches") to prove you're willing to put your efforts where you mouth is.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 10, 2019 20:39 UTC (Tue) by zigo (subscriber, #96142) [Link]

What you guys are probably missing, is that it's not all of us that wanted this vote/discussion. This is primarily initiated by Sam, and we had no choice but to have this debate (since he has the constitutional right to start a General Resolution vote, as he's the DPL).

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 10, 2019 20:48 UTC (Tue) by josh (subscriber, #17465) [Link]

The discussion was already happening, and has been happening for years, interminably and acrimoniously. That wasn't going away.

I very much hope that this GR will allow us to stop talking about the topic.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 11, 2019 0:43 UTC (Wed) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link]

I wonder how many folks are protesting this vote by voting for Further Discussion over the mostly prescriptivist options that make up the ballot.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 13, 2019 6:58 UTC (Fri) by angdraug (subscriber, #7487) [Link]

As the article reminds, any DD can start a GR, Sam wouldn't need to be a DPL to start this one.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 18, 2019 6:29 UTC (Wed) by yoe (subscriber, #25743) [Link]

Not exactly true.

All DDs can *propose* a GR, but they then need a number of seconds for the GR process to be started.

The DPL doesn't need the seconds. This is one of the very few powers the DPL has.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 6, 2019 9:38 UTC (Fri) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]

> So I'm hoping the Condorcet voting system - Debian, so complex - ...

Meanwhile, in the real world, people write complex... software to very effectively game "so simple" voting systems. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REDMAP

This makes sure the "winner takes all" and that he can totally stop caring about what others think. Oh and don't even think about having more than two parties.

The other, opposite, "oh so simple" voting system is the fully proportional one. It makes sure every vote counts so "no party has ever won a majority" and "coalitions often prove highly unstable"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Israel#Elector...

Some middle ground maybe?

The choice of a voting system is absolutely critical. However it's maths so no one cares.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 6, 2019 10:30 UTC (Fri) by smurf (subscriber, #17840) [Link]

> The other, opposite, "oh so simple" voting system is the fully proportional one.

A 5%-or-whatever minimum still allows for a 19-party parliament (in theory) and is no guarantee of stability.

Voting systems for multi-seat organizations like parliaments are fundamentally different from single-winner elections (Presidents, Debian policies) … well, you'd need to look no farther than the last US presidential fiasco (the popular vote would have gone to Hillary Clinton) to find an example of the latter.

In any case, I definitely agree with your last paragraph. :-/

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 6, 2019 16:30 UTC (Fri) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]

> Voting systems for multi-seat organizations like parliaments are fundamentally different from single-winner elections

Much less than you think because:
- the local election of each member of parliament can and often does work at the local level exactly like the global election of a global president
- the election of a president can and often does start with electing a parliament or something similar to it.

So they have many bugs in common.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_system

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 6, 2019 18:30 UTC (Fri) by smurf (subscriber, #17840) [Link]

> - the local election of each member of parliament can and often does work at the local level exactly like the global election of a global president

That's a bug, not a feature, because it invites gerrymandering and/or does not guarantee that my vote has the same weight as yours.

- the election of a president can and often does start with electing a parliament or something similar to it.

Also a bug because all too often the politics of party X are fine but party Y's presidential candidate is a more reasonable choice, not to mention that requiring president and parliament to actually find a compromise ultimately makes for better politics. IMHO and assuming that both sides aren't composed of hardliners, of course.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 6, 2019 21:36 UTC (Fri) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]

> > - the local election of each member of parliament can and often does work at the local level exactly like the global election of a global president

> That's a bug, not a feature, because it invites gerrymandering

I said nothing about any particular voting system there, so it's not clear what invites gerrymandering. I guess you're suggesting parliament elections should always be global, no local representative? That's extremely rare because people generally want a local representative, someone they vaguely identify with and who lives not too far (at least part time) so he or she understands them better. Local representatives spend (surprise) an inordinate amount of their time interacting with their voters, at least in the countries I know about.

> and/or does not guarantee that my vote has the same weight as yours.

Democracy doesn't imply all votes have the same weight, that's a frequent misconception. There's at least one specific, extremely common and well documented reason for that: avoid dilution of smaller territories. Again the real question is "how much?" (more weight than others) but you seem in need of a binary answer ("bug or feature").

By the way you can easily make sure circonscriptions are all about the same size and there are also "middle ground" systems where you vote for a whole list of people in an region. Anything's possible when you leave the world of binary answers.

> > the election of a president can and often does start with electing a parliament or something similar to it.

> Also a bug because [handwaving]

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 6, 2019 22:50 UTC (Fri) by pebolle (subscriber, #35204) [Link]

Why should Debian's voting system be an example of the most democratic system yet implemented? Or even try to come close to that? For the few hundreds or thousands of people eligible to vote any system that yields a quick decision should do.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 10, 2019 10:14 UTC (Tue) by yoe (subscriber, #25743) [Link]

What you want is a system that implements the *correct* answer, quickly, where you should see "correct" as "whatever option would receive the most support amongst all Debian developers".

The current system has that property.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 6, 2019 13:29 UTC (Fri) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link]

> The other, opposite, "oh so simple" voting system is the fully proportional one. It makes sure every vote counts so "no party has ever won a majority" and "coalitions often prove highly unstable"

I consider this a bug, not a feature. In very large organisations if there isn't an obvious consensus then "do nothing"/"further discussion" can legitimately be the best option. NL for example has never had a single party majority since the rise of parties (~1850) and it leads to a culture of robust debate about everything at basically every level.

Returning to Debian, having robust debates is a good thing and if "further discussion" wins then that's not a bad thing. Organisations like Debian can only survive if people keep talking to each other. Sometimes people feel that things would work better if there was a single dictator that simply decided everything but that makes it much harder to keep everyone happy (people love dictators as long as they agree with them).

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 6, 2019 17:43 UTC (Fri) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]

> I consider this a bug, not a feature.

You want proportionality to bring more nuances, great intention. But you missed my entire point: a voting system should not be "Proportional or not?". Those are two extremes too.

From the other answer:
> A 5%-or-whatever minimum still allows for a 19-party parliament (in theory) and is no guarantee of stability.

"or-whatever"... ouch.

----

Quantitative is dead. People today don't want numbers, game over. They want simple, partisan, yes/no answers. "How much" doesn't make a fierce TV news or fakebook debate.

Sample ridiculous yes/no debates: - Fossil fuel or not? - Obamacare or not? - Tariffs or not? - Diversity or not? Reform or not? systemd or not? Just browse any news and see how the world is actively avoiding numbers.

Not knowing anything about it I was curious about "busing". I made the mistake to listen to this: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/18/podcasts/the-daily/bus...
A very promising title: "The myth that busing failed" - this one has to be full of various metrics! Not a single number in 30 minutes, amazing. If only news were just "biased", but no, it's much worse: they're content free.

You may think there's at least one specific type of numbers people still care about: money, and to some extend you'd be right. Yet I was yesterday listening to some radio show on a (non-English) station that tends to pride itself on having an audience more educated than the average. They had invited some world class economist and were discussing some progressive tax. At some point the journalist complained, literally: "oooh you lost me, that's a lot of numbers". The economist had just enumerated the tax rates of... _three_ bands! That journalist is very smart, from her acting tone I suspect she was just trying to please her audience.

Many shrewd politicians exploit this and use "erosion": very gradual, bit by bit reforms easily and successfully avoiding any attention. To be on the safe side just say something vaguely outrageous while doing it.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 5, 2019 22:39 UTC (Thu) by josh (subscriber, #17465) [Link]

> 4. Support non-systemd systems, without blocking progress. Packages are expected to work on non-systemd installations, but a failure to work is not considered a release-critical bug — unless the necessary support exists but has not been enabled by the package maintainer. Use of systemd-specific features is only allowed if those features are documented and alternative implementations are feasible to implement.

One key detail this summary doesn't mention: "The non-systemd community should be given at least 6 months, preferably at least 12 months, to develop their implementation."

So, despite the title of this option, this *does* block progress for 6-12 months (which in practice will mean 12 months) for every new feature people want to use.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 5, 2019 23:07 UTC (Thu) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> So, despite the title of this option, this *does* block progress for 6-12 months (which in practice will mean 12 months) for every new feature people want to use.

Actually, it's worse than that -- "Use of systemd-specific features is only allowed if those features are documented and alternative implementations are feasible to implement."

This means that random upstreams (eg GNOME) that use systemd-specific functionality could end up being held up indefinitely if there's no realistic path to an alternative implementation.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 6, 2019 12:18 UTC (Fri) by jem (subscriber, #24231) [Link]

Maybe the time is ripe for a new fork of Debian? This time "nothing but systemd" instead of "everything but systemd". It could be called Depuan, where PUA stands for "Pragmatic Unix Admins".

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 7, 2019 3:44 UTC (Sat) by atnot (subscriber, #124910) [Link]

That's be unfortunate, considering it's a common abbreviation for "Pick Up Artist", which are probably not people you want to associate yourself with.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 9, 2019 18:55 UTC (Mon) by bpearlmutter (subscriber, #14693) [Link]

Well, it would give the Debian format packaging of https://weboob.org/ a natural home.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 6, 2019 3:48 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]

I think Debian should just drop people into a shell (should be configurable, of course - no bash bias please) and then everyone can start stuff the way they really want it. :-)

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 6, 2019 4:04 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

How about dselect for the initial shell?

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 6, 2019 4:13 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]

Absolutely. And people that would like to be dropped into a "container" OS, maybe Emacs? :-)

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 6, 2019 13:34 UTC (Fri) by santiago (subscriber, #105758) [Link]

FTR, there is an updated draft ballot that includes the "Support portability, without blocking progress" option:

https://lwn.net/ml/debian-vote/20191205225559.GD267586%40...

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 6, 2019 22:39 UTC (Fri) by pebolle (subscriber, #35204) [Link]

Another option added to the ballot. This increases the odds that this drama will continue for a few years, doesn't it? Nice!

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 7, 2019 11:25 UTC (Sat) by smurf (subscriber, #17840) [Link]

Actually it does not. One of the nicer properties of Debian's voting scheme is that adding yet another option doesn't dilute the others.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 19, 2019 17:44 UTC (Thu) by oldtomas (guest, #72579) [Link]

Congrats. You're on your way for the highest comment/usefulness ratio around here.

Why don't you use another distribution and just leave Debian alone? There are so many nice ones to choose from...

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 19, 2019 19:36 UTC (Thu) by pebolle (subscriber, #35204) [Link]

> Congrats. You're on your way for the highest comment/usefulness ratio around here.

Thanks for your kind words. Appreciated!

> Why don't you use another distribution and just leave Debian alone? There are so many nice ones to choose from...

Lucky you! I actually use another distribution on the laptop I use daily. (No points are awarded for web searches that reveal what I'm using. Sorry.)

As I've now granted your wish, perhaps you could return the favour. If you're eligible to vote in this silly election could you please pick one of the many options that guarantee a few years of, let's say, lively disccussion?

Thanks in advance!

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 6, 2019 16:16 UTC (Fri) by rweikusat2 (subscriber, #117920) [Link]

JFTR: I've recently ported a bunch of proprietary software packages from Ubuntu 14.04 to Debian 9 using the still existing sysvinit support as systemd still doesn't provide any sort of useful feature which would warrant changing existing software solely to make it work with systemd. I was even considering updating my work system (running Debian 7 since 2016) as there still seemed to be an option to avoid using software which provides absolutely no additional value to me while requiring a fair lot of work to be able to support it in exchange for that.

Why am I not surprised by this "Hold a sec! Some people still don't run the software we all but ordered them to run! Maybe we gotta hurt them some more .." discussion?

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 6, 2019 16:44 UTC (Fri) by niner (subscriber, #26151) [Link]

Apparently you have never noticed that systemd does still support plain old sysvinit scripts just fine, including LSB headers:
https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd-...

Makes me wonder, what else you have never noticed about systemd. Maybe even something providing additional value.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 6, 2019 17:30 UTC (Fri) by ms-tg (subscriber, #89231) [Link]

Hmm...

> Apparently you have never noticed that systemd does still support plain old sysvinit scripts just fine, including LSB headers:
> https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd-...
>
> Makes me wonder, what else you have never noticed about systemd. Maybe even something providing additional value.

Having followed this discussion for these many years now, I wonder if there are non-ironic low-lift efforts that could be made to make acquiring this knowledge easier and friction-free.

Specifically, I'm inspired by the Rust community's websites:

- Are We Web Yet?
https://www.arewewebyet.org/

- Are We Async Yet?
https://areweasyncyet.rs/

This form of information I find super ergonomic, and it may not be obvious that there were contentious discussions at some point.

Imagine if there was a website:

- Can I Use SystemD Yet?

And it was super easy to go down the use-cases, for example "I support software that has SystemV init files. Can I use them with SystemD?"

Just a thought...

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 6, 2019 23:09 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]

You mean like this? https://wiki.debian.org/systemd

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 6, 2019 19:37 UTC (Fri) by HenrikH (subscriber, #31152) [Link]

You consider writing some unit files "changing existing software"?

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 6, 2019 20:12 UTC (Fri) by mgb (guest, #3226) [Link]

No serious applications depend on systemd. None at all.

To depend on systemd would be to throw away 98%+ of your potential user base.

Systemd is merely a EEE strategy by Redhat against other distros.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 6, 2019 20:58 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

I laughed hard.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 6, 2019 22:03 UTC (Fri) by sjj (subscriber, #2020) [Link]

Sigh, I can't tell if this is a joke or not. I hate 2019.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 7, 2019 0:25 UTC (Sat) by mgb (guest, #3226) [Link]

> Sigh, I can't tell if this is a joke or not. I hate 2019.

It's hard to imagine how anyone involved with FLOSS could not know this by now.

No serious applications - none whatsoever, FLOSS or otherwise - depend on systemd because no application developer wants to throw away 98%+ of her/his potential users just to help RedHat EEE the other distros.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 7, 2019 0:36 UTC (Sat) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

You should go into standup comedy! You'll be doing great!

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 7, 2019 0:43 UTC (Sat) by mebrown (guest, #7960) [Link]

"None whatsoever"... Ah, so it's a joke. Cool.

I have an app that requires systemd, thus proving the falsity of your statement.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 7, 2019 3:01 UTC (Sat) by mgb (guest, #3226) [Link]

Thank you authoring a serious FLOSS application.

Does your serious FLOSS application require systemd, or does it's packaging by some distro require systemd?

Why did you decide to lock out 98%+ of potential users from you serious FLOSS application?

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 7, 2019 3:42 UTC (Sat) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]

Where does this 98%+ figure come from?

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 7, 2019 4:13 UTC (Sat) by mgb (guest, #3226) [Link]

> Where does this 98%+ figure come from?

It's fairly well known among application developers. About a month back LWN posted a link to an article where you could have seen a bunch of similar numbers.:
https://valdyas.org/fading/hacking/krita-hacking/back-fro...

The key takeaway is "The Free Desktop has three percent of the installed base of Windows/macOS". Not all of that 3% is systemd. No serious application developer throws away 98%+ of their potential user base by depending on systemd.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 7, 2019 4:33 UTC (Sat) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

Newsflash: SysV init also doesn't run on 98% of computers.

Why would developers depend on it then?

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 7, 2019 4:49 UTC (Sat) by mgb (guest, #3226) [Link]

Most users only care about applications, not distros.

Application developers either depend on no init system or else they attempt to target some kind of lowest common denominator.

Systemd provides no application functionality. It's a distro wars thing - RedHat's EEE move against competing distros.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 7, 2019 5:01 UTC (Sat) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

> Most users only care about applications, not distros.
I guess that's it for Unix, then. Goodbye. We hardly knew you.

> Systemd provides no application functionality.
It actually does.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 7, 2019 14:01 UTC (Sat) by pbonzini (subscriber, #60935) [Link]

There's plenty of applications supporting systemd socket activation, for example.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 7, 2019 18:31 UTC (Sat) by ibukanov (subscriber, #3942) [Link]

Systemd with its fd store allows for an application to update itself without loosing single connection with few lines of simple code. In theory the application can code it itself, but it is highly non-trivial to make it work reliably and is rarely done.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 7, 2019 18:44 UTC (Sat) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link]

Application developers either depend on no init system or else they attempt to target some kind of lowest common denominator.

Or they can take advantage of systemd features either when they detect that they're running on a systemd-based system, or if the user tells them they're running on systemd (e.g., via a command-line option).

It's a distro wars thing - RedHat's EEE move against competing distros.

How can it be a “distro wars thing” if most distributions now come with systemd as a default, and systemd itself is developed by a diverse community including contributors from various distribution projects? Also various systemd features are patterned on approaches from distributions other than Red Hat's, such as Debian GNU/Linux.

One major advantage of systemd is that it standardises much of the “basic plumbing” of a Linux system. This makes your life easier if you're building a distribution because you don't have to come up with that stuff yourself, and can spend the time you save on other aspects of your work. If you're an application developer, systemd itself isn't as immediately useful but you can still profit from the more homogeneous and predictable system environment on systemd-based distributions that share more of the “basic plumbing” than we were used to in pre-systemd times. This makes it easier for you to offer applications that support a wider variety of Linux distributions with fewer special cases that you need to take into account.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 7, 2019 4:45 UTC (Sat) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]

That argument is equivalent to saying no serious developer would throw away 98% of their potential user base by depending on glibc, and yet.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 7, 2019 4:52 UTC (Sat) by mgb (guest, #3226) [Link]

> That argument is equivalent to saying no serious developer would throw away 98% of their potential user base by depending on glibc, and yet.

And yet we code to various widely supported C and C++ standards, not glibc.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 7, 2019 5:36 UTC (Sat) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]

Try rebuilding everything against musl and see how many failures you get.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 7, 2019 6:24 UTC (Sat) by mgb (guest, #3226) [Link]

> Try rebuilding everything against musl and see how many failures you get.

We use various compilers and library implementations and operating systems to make sure our code is portable.

Nobody codes to systemd - it's a moving target that nobody but RedHat can ever hope to keep up with and to do so would be to throw away 98%+ of our potential user base.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 7, 2019 6:54 UTC (Sat) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]

Plenty of code uses glibc functionality that isn't present in other C libraries. It's clear that many people writing applications for Linux don't care about non-Linux operating systems, which (by your metric) means they're throwing away 98%+ of their potential user base.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 7, 2019 7:25 UTC (Sat) by mgb (guest, #3226) [Link]

What is this Linux-only non-portable non-system-software APPLICATION that your Mom, Brother, or Cat would hate to do without?

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 7, 2019 7:41 UTC (Sat) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

Amazon? Google? Facebook?

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 7, 2019 7:45 UTC (Sat) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]

All serious application authors are writing multi-platform applications that your Mom, Brother or Cat would hate to do without?

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 9, 2019 19:49 UTC (Mon) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]

Nice shift of goalposts there!

In any case, there's loads of very specific software that's critical. For any (most?) big companies (especially the ones that have been around for a while) it's often the same: Loads of systems, loads of interdependencies, etc. Enough stuff that is entirely Windows specific, plus various Linux specific, plus various systemd-specific, etc. You could go on forever basically. It's messy, everyone knows it should be better, but hey, big company..

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 9, 2019 19:53 UTC (Mon) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link]

In all the time I've been aware of their comments on the subject, mgb has never displayed the slightest interest in a fair and reasonable conversation about systemd.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 7, 2019 9:00 UTC (Sat) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link]

In case anyone wants to work on the Debian port to musl:

https://wiki.debian.org/HelmutGrohne/rebootstrap

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 18, 2019 0:07 UTC (Wed) by xnox (subscriber, #63320) [Link]

I'd even say glibc is a rapidly growing target, with all Windows 10 machines natively able to host and run glibc elf binaries thanks to Windows Subsystem for Linux.

Heck, one can even see systemd running there too soon.

Somehow I sense the argument will not fall, even if 98% of computers out there can and do run systemd.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 18, 2019 2:21 UTC (Wed) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link]

Considering that WSL2 already runs a Linux kernel in a VM, it should be easy to run systemd on Windows.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 7, 2019 21:22 UTC (Sat) by jkingweb (subscriber, #113039) [Link]

This is one of the most outlandish arguments I've read in a while. There's tons of software that depends on something not-systemd (e.g. features of POSIX, or Linux, or X11) which, in turn, does not interoperate with Windows or macOS (or Android, or iOS, or whatever else). Even if we take as a given that this means automatically failing to reach "97%" of users (or is it computers?), this is clearly something which is often perfectly acceptable to the authors of applications. Why should systemd be any different?

Frankly, if we're talking about whether or not to have a hard dependence on systemd, we're probably already talking about software specifically for Linux, making this whole 98% business a giant red herring.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 8, 2019 22:19 UTC (Sun) by jwarnica (subscriber, #27492) [Link]

So, to be clear, your argument is that because Windows doesn't support systemd, then Debian shouldn't, either?

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 8, 2019 22:56 UTC (Sun) by rodgerd (guest, #58896) [Link]

Of course, Windows' Service Controller is vastly more sophisticated than classic SysV init, including as it does the ability to handle start-once, restart on failure, etc etc, and provides a standard, non-scripted way of launching and managing services.

So if you wanted a common approach, advanced Unix/Linux service managers such as launchd, SMF, and systemd are much closer to Windows than BSD or SysV init.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 10, 2019 6:02 UTC (Tue) by mebrown (guest, #7960) [Link]

You said serious application. Mine is a serious application. It's fully and deeply integrated into systemd, and at this point couldn't exist without systemd. No, it's not FLOSS. I have a deep understanding of the alternatives, with decades of supporting sysv and alternatives. Nothing compares to systemd, and I would never go back to the old methods.

I don't know why you keep mentioning this mythical 98% number, it's completely irrelevant to what I do. You seem to be misguided about some things. This anti-systemd crusade is a little tired.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 8, 2019 18:41 UTC (Sun) by BenHutchings (subscriber, #37955) [Link]

Is "no serious applications" like "no true Scotsman"?

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 9, 2019 5:35 UTC (Mon) by flussence (subscriber, #85566) [Link]

> Systemd is merely a EEE strategy by Redhat against other distros.

You're like... 15 years too late to tilt at that windmill.

Imagine if there was a real threat to copyleft software like Google, Apple or cloud lock-in. If the world depended on the Angry Dunning-Kruger Slashdot Mob to get anything done we'd all be banging rocks and sticks together by now.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 10, 2019 1:41 UTC (Tue) by KaiRo (subscriber, #1987) [Link]

True, as about 88%+ of serious software runs only on Windows and about 10% also on Mac. Of the rest, most don't even care about an init system but those few that do usually support systemd or are unmaintained.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 7, 2019 19:04 UTC (Sat) by MortenSickel (subscriber, #3238) [Link]

I do not see the problem. Why would you need to change the software? When I have set up processes to run under systemd, I have written a 10 to 20 lines service file and three commands later I have it up and running with automatic restart if it should crash.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 7, 2019 15:58 UTC (Sat) by jg71 (guest, #67102) [Link]

I'm voting V.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 7, 2019 20:29 UTC (Sat) by scientes (subscriber, #83068) [Link]

How about another option: People that "learned" Debian and then realized they didn't learn anything when systemd changed things under their feet are asked to take a class in data structures and algorithms instead of having 5-year-long nostalgia wars.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 10, 2019 23:13 UTC (Tue) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]

How would that be a option to vote for? Plus, what do you mean?

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 11, 2019 8:35 UTC (Wed) by smurf (subscriber, #17840) [Link]

The way I read @scientes' post: the stuff before systemd is not a unified body of tools/knowledge/whatever that can be learned, but a hodgepodge of disparate concepts that can only be memorized.

I'm not too sure I agree with that, but only because the underlying system is not a conceptually-unified OS but a hodgepodge of system calls and practices which all made sense at one time or another. Any attempt to build a coherent whole from this is doomed from the start. That being said, within these constraints systemd is a whole lot more coherent than the tools it replaces.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 17, 2019 17:43 UTC (Tue) by scientes (subscriber, #83068) [Link]

Also, the detractors don't seem to have much interest in learning the concepts behind systemd, or the problems it was created to solve.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 17, 2019 18:45 UTC (Tue) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

> or the problems it was created to solve

I feel like they also tend to see it as "the problems it created to solve" because they think that because they never had those problems, no one could possibly have had those problems.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 19, 2019 0:03 UTC (Thu) by qtplatypus (guest, #132339) [Link]

I think it would be fairer to say “Their use cases meant that these where not problems for them”. Which argues for init diversity, if you have a use case where systemd just doesn’t anything for you, you should be able to use an alternative init with minimal friction.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 19, 2019 0:32 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]

So, if you have a use case that doesn't require glibc, you should be able to use an alternative libc with minimal friction?

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 19, 2019 12:08 UTC (Thu) by qtplatypus (guest, #132339) [Link]

I think I’m a broad sense if it is practical to do so it is desirable. Though I personally don’t think that the init system and the standard C library are equivalent.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 19, 2019 14:19 UTC (Thu) by smurf (subscriber, #17840) [Link]

Actually, yes. For example, people have been mostly-porting Debian to musl libc. I'd expect the patches required for this to be accepted by Debian maintainers just like patches for non-systemd init systems, or like patches for compiling with clang instead of gcc. That's not the problem.

The problem is, just like in the non-systemd case, what should happen if Upstream doesn't accept these patches. Should the Debian maintainer be expected to carry them? Indefinitely? What if the patch doesn't apply to a new version of the code in question – is the maintainer required to forward-port the patch? If they can't or won't do that and the package no longer works, is that an RC bug? and so on and so forth.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 19, 2019 14:32 UTC (Thu) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

Another option is what I did when a similar thing that happened when upstreams for packages I maintained in Fedora refused to port to Python3: drop them from the distro. If they're important enough that those packages cause worry with that kind of response, then I guess you'll have to find a new upstream (in one way or another). This GR is about whether those patches to support alternate init systems is an RC bug or not (not supporting Python3 obviously is, init systems…well, that's what this vote is about, libc? even lower priority I would think).

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 19, 2019 15:19 UTC (Thu) by Zolko (guest, #99166) [Link]

"drop them from the distro"

I think this is the correct approach: Debian making the biggest part of the Linux ecosystem (if you include Ubuntu, Mint...) then a package that is rejected from Debian because of lack of init diversity would rapidly sink into irrelevance, and be replaced by a fork that does support init diversity.

I think that the Debian maintainers don't realize the power they hold over package maintainers. And I think that Red-Hat (IBM now !) realize this also, and systemd is the Trojan horse to take control of the Linux world. Put this in perspective with the Richard Stallman eviction of the FSF: we're witnessing a power-grab of the open-source movement against the free-software brigade.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 19, 2019 15:28 UTC (Thu) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> I think this is the correct approach: Debian making the biggest part of the Linux ecosystem (if you include Ubuntu, Mint...) then a package that is rejected from Debian because of lack of init diversity would rapidly sink into irrelevance, and be replaced by a fork that does support init diversity.

You vastly, vastly overstate the importance of Debian packages, especially with respect to the likes of Ubuntu.

(At this point, the number of users running "Debian-derived" distros without systemd as pid1 are a rounding error on the overall userbase)

At the end of the day, a distro that doesn't meet its users needs will fade into irrelevance; and advocating for a policy that excludes software that meets every definition of the DFSG only does a disservice to its users.

> Put this in perspective with the Richard Stallman eviction of the FSF: we're witnessing a power-grab of the open-source movement against the free-software brigade.

Huh? systemd is GPLv2-licensed Free Software.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 20, 2019 1:11 UTC (Fri) by flussence (subscriber, #85566) [Link]

> I think that the Debian maintainers don't realize the power they hold over package maintainers. And I think that Red-Hat (IBM now !) realize this also, and systemd is the Trojan horse to take control of the Linux world. Put this in perspective with the Richard Stallman eviction of the FSF: we're witnessing a power-grab of the open-source movement against the free-software brigade.

I think you need a reality check. FOSS is functionally a “meritocracy”; I'm sure you've heard that word plenty of times, as do-nothing hecklers on imageboards seem to love bandying it around as if it somehow elevates them to the status of royalty. What it actually means is those who *do the work* get to make the rules. And they (the people actually doing the work, funding the work, writing the code) have ruled that you as a guest on their property will use systemd, as it means less work for them. Don't like it? Patches welcome.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 19, 2019 18:21 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]

If including the musl patch imposes any additional maintenance burden on the packager, then while musl isn't an official Debian port there's no absolute expectation that the maintainer would accept it - policy certainly doesn't require that they do. I'd expect many to be happy to carry small patches to make this easier, but it's not an obligation. For packages that actually rely on functionality that's in glibc but not elsewhere, things become more complicated. And, outside the current policy obligations, it's the same for non-systemd init support - in most cases there's a relatively small overhead caused by looking after it, but in other cases it's much more significant. Creating an expectation that core system components should be entirely replaceable is creating an expectation that package maintainers will take on additional work without benefiting the overwhelming majority of users.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 19, 2019 19:30 UTC (Thu) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link]

I would not, in the general case, expect Debian package maintainers to accept and carry patches for musl support, any more than I would expect the upstream developers to do so.

This is because in the general case, the level of change required for musl support can range from "trivial one-line change" to "vendoring random chunks of glibc because critical non-optional functionality depends on glibc features that musl doesn't provide and have displayed unfriendliness towards the notion of being asked to provide".

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 19, 2019 15:11 UTC (Thu) by Zolko (guest, #99166) [Link]

"they think that because they never had those problems, no one could possibly have had those problems."

This is a fair point, but I'll take it in reverse: if some people have "those" problems — that systemd is supposed to solve — why should I implement their solutions if I don't have their problems ? Or in other words: I don't have any problems that systemd solves, so why should I waist my time learning the new shiny toy in town du-jour in order that other people can solve their problems with a default install ?

This is a basic scientific mistake: it's the new proposal that needs to bring the proof that it's superior to the existing model, and not the traditional model that needs to prove that the new trend is worse than the existing solutions.

What would you think if I came and said that since I only use KDE and Plasma, all new Debian installs should come with Qt and KDE per default ? You'd probably laugh at me, and rightly so. It's the same with systemd and the problems it pretends to solve: if you indeed have those problems, install systemd as you see fit, but don't infest MY install with the crap that YOU need. And don't even begin with lecturing me of what is crap on my system and what is not, as I don't tell you how incompetent you are if you don't understand bash init scripts.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 19, 2019 15:18 UTC (Thu) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> Don't infest MY install with the crap that YOU need. And don't even begin with lecturing me of what is crap on my system and what is not, as I don't tell you how incompetent you are if you don't understand bash init scripts.

....then feel free to roll your own distro, to meet YOUR needs, instead of demanding that someone else do it for you, at the expense of what they care about.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 19, 2019 15:22 UTC (Thu) by Zolko (guest, #99166) [Link]

"then feel free to roll your own distro"

what are you talking about ? It's YOUR lot that wants a change in MY distro, which was happily init-agnostic until some corporate know-better wanted to change all that worked very well for 1/2 century. So if YOU have a NEW need, please roll out YOUR NEW distro instead of hijacking MY traditional one.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 19, 2019 15:38 UTC (Thu) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> What are you talking about ? It's YOUR lot that wants a change in MY distro

So are you seriously saying that you single-handedly created and maintain Debian? Or perhaps you are saying that it was created solely for you?

> which was happily init-agnostic until some corporate know-better wanted to change all that worked very well for 1/2 century.

FYI, Linux is only 28 years old, and UNIX System V that all of this crap was derived is itself on ly 36 years old.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 19, 2019 19:19 UTC (Thu) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link]

Debian is closer to init-agnostic now than it was before systemd was adopted as the default system initialization and service supervision system.

Back in wheezy (and presumably before), you had to deliberately break the invariants of the packaging system if you wanted to remove sysvinit, because sysvinit was Essential: yes.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 20, 2019 8:35 UTC (Fri) by seyman (subscriber, #1172) [Link]

> [...] MY distro, which was happily init-agnostic [...]

Pre-systemd Debian was init-agnostic in the same way Henry Ford allowed buyers of the Model T Ford to choose the color of their car.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 20, 2019 17:01 UTC (Fri) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link]

I'm sorry to inform you that customers could indeed choose the colour of their Model T:

But when the Model T first came on the market, customers could get almost any common color… except for black! Blue, gray, green, and red were all available, but not black. The first black Model T didn’t roll off the assembly line until five years later. Towards the end of the Model T’s life, six new colors were introduced, from Royal Maroon to Phoenix Brown to Highland Green.

The Debunker: Did the Model T Ford Only Come in Black?

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 20, 2019 18:33 UTC (Fri) by seyman (subscriber, #1172) [Link]

> I'm sorry to inform you that customers could indeed choose the colour of their Model T

The "any color provided it's black" period lasted from 1915 to 1925.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 20, 2019 19:17 UTC (Fri) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

....and that was because the black paint cured/dried much faster than the other colors, allowing the production line to run much faster.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 22, 2019 11:54 UTC (Sun) by smurf (subscriber, #17840) [Link]

Nowadays we'd think it'd be obvious to simply make the line longer and/or split the paint job into multiple queues, but that was far from easy to accomplish, or even think of, in 1915.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 21, 2019 20:20 UTC (Sat) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link]

It's YOUR lot that wants a change in MY distro

Note that the decision to make systemd the default init system in Debian GNU/Linux was arrived at through the official decision-making mechanism (by a TC majority vote), and this decision was upheld by the Debian developers as a whole. The Debian project doesn't owe you anything, and for sure you don't get to set the direction for the Debian project. If you don't like what the project does, go find (or make) another distribution.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 22, 2019 0:39 UTC (Sun) by tao (subscriber, #17563) [Link]

Hi Ian (or possibly Debra)! I didn't know you had an anonymous user named Zolko on LWN.

Or maybe you didn't mean that Debian is literally your brainchild? Maybe you just mean that you're a long-time user? Well, guess what, a lot of people are. You're not alone.

Debian isn't your distribution any more than it's anyone else's. If you're a long-time Debian Developer you might possibly lay a bit more claim to it than others, but even so, it's not yours. The people who do the work gets to decide what direction Debian heads in. We have, and we picked systemd; both for pragmatical reasons (it's good to standardise) but also for technical reasons (it's simply the best option available).

Just because sysvinit is enough for your particular use-cases doesn't mean that it's sufficient for everyone.

This is free software. You're free to fork. Of course there's already been one attempt at a fork of Debian for the sole purpose of removing systemd. You could give it a try.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 19, 2019 15:29 UTC (Thu) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

> all new Debian installs should come with Qt and KDE per default ? You'd probably laugh at me, and rightly so.

No. There's a key difference here. systemd lies on a spectrum of "critical infrastructure" much closer to the kernel and libc end of things. KDE and Qt are at the further end. You don't see me complaining that Fedora ships any DE by default, do you? FWIW, I run XMonad and basically a hodge-podge'd environment. Have since 2010 or so. Granted, I am worried that X -> Wayland is being forced at some point, but that has mostly been me being unhappy with the Wayland compositors out there not supporting what I do with XMonad. I imagine I'll survive with sway or the like until I find one that works for me, but I'm not griping that X is going away; I know the future is Wayland and not X.

> It's the same with systemd and the problems it pretends to solve:

Your use of "pretend" here belies that you don't think these problems exist at all. Why would I expect a discussion with such lines to be productive?

> I don't tell you how incompetent you are if you don't understand bash init scripts.

You're assuming here. I've been waist-deep in those scripts before. Fedora's and FreeBSD's. Systemd has a much better solution for this stuff.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 8, 2019 0:29 UTC (Sun) by ras (subscriber, #33059) [Link]

I just voted in this election. Thank god for LWN and Jonathan's writing skills.

The vote email had some 4K words explaining the options - or 4 times the number of words in this article. If you just count the number of words Jonathan used to summarise the options, it's 10 times the number of words. This is partially because the authors of the voting options padded their explanations of their position with paragraphs exalting us on "BEING EXCELLENT TO EACH OTHER".

Not surprisingly it's been followed by emails from DD's asking for help with distinguishing between the options. I don't recall seeing that in previous votes. Personally I read the 4K words, then realised I was going to have to re-read it taking notes to distil the morsels of wheat in the chaff. Fortunately I came across a reply in the "please help thread" with a link to this article before I did that.

Thank you again LWN and Jonathan.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 14, 2019 17:12 UTC (Sat) by [email protected] (guest, #136104) [Link]

I was so terrified of systemd that some time ago I migrated from Stretch to Devuan Beowulf (testing). What a relief! No regrets.