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Shuttleworth: Quality has a new nameShuttleworth: Quality has a new namePosted Apr 27, 2012 0:46 UTC (Fri) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646)In reply to: Shuttleworth: Quality has a new name by drag Parent article: Shuttleworth: Quality has a new name
Please read on this weeks LWN.net's feature page the article »The return of the Unix wars?« and notice that it doesn't cover the big elephant in the room, concerning fragmentation: Not fragmentation within Linux, but fragmentation within the Open Source Un*x variants. Yes, the Unix wars are back and LP is their war lord. LP's work strives to go ahead in a bold fashion and he thinks we are sufficiently strong to ignore other Unix systems, that we may go bold forward to our own island of functionality.
Well, how's your Linux market share today? Do you think it's sufficient to be so self confident, or do you think you should play nice with the other folks from your family? Some of us seems to think that we can eventually shun our stinking brethren *BSD users (and other Unix users), and that we'll be doing good for it. Will that be the case?
And this comes from the community that hails Linus for his insistence on backward compatibility on kernel ABIs. If it comes to user land, they ignore his insights.
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Shuttleworth: Quality has a new name Posted Apr 27, 2012 6:58 UTC (Fri) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] And this comes from the community that hails Linus for his insistence on backward compatibility on kernel ABIs. If it comes to user land, they ignore his insights. System V init doesn't really have much of an ABI to be compatible with. AFAICT systemd does make an effort to support SysV init's init scripts, which from a practical point of view probably makes most sense because it allows third-party system services to be run under systemd even if they don't come with a systemd unit definition file. Or do you mean we shouldn't use something like systemd on Linux because BSD and Solaris don't support advanced Linux features that systemd exploits, such as cgroups, and because there is no systemd (or workalike) for these systems? IMHO that would be silly. It's not as if those platforms are bending over backwards to ensure all their newfangled features don't break compatibility to Linux.
Shuttleworth: Quality has a new name Posted Apr 30, 2012 1:15 UTC (Mon) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link]
> System V init doesn't really have much of an ABI to be compatible with.
Ahem. Please read http://lwn.net/Articles/490177/, by an author named, well, anselm. Perhaps he'll understand what's about; I can fully subscribe to his views expressed in that post. :-)
In fact, the System V init ABI is simple: If /etc/init.d/start/$service {start,stop,status,restart,reloac} worked with init.d, it should work with systemd as well.
Since the systemd proponents dismiss init.d scripts as ineffective and not-working, and strive for substitution by systemd definition files in all cases, I won't accept the existance of »deprecated« init.d scripts as »systemd supports it«. Discussions on mailing lists of Fedora, opensuse-factory, et.al. clearly shows that this is not what is supposed to be »real systemd support«.
But then I notice that there are intrinsic assumptions of systemd that are not always fulfilled. E.g., on opensuse-factory I followed quite some flamewars where developers asked how previous features should be realized now. The most prominent examples were (a) how to shut down all running virtual machines when no watchdog process is there (systemd ties a service to a running process it can supervize), and (b) how to state the status of a system like AppArmor when there's no daemon to ask for the status. HylaFax service description wasn't convertible either; I don't remember the reason any more, though. All the time, the answer the developers got was: Thou Shall Not Want To Do That. I.e., the answer they got was: That's not a service as defined by systemd and thus it's not a valid request. We Define What's Right And You Are Wrong(tm).
As another example from the openSUSE community: When systemd was introduced in 12.1, they broke packages like Postfix. Well, shit happens when you introduce new things, no biggie -- one should think. But: systemd introduced the breakage and what was the reaction of those who caused the problem? It was: it's Postfix's problem, it should adapt to the New And Only Way; it's not systemd's fault and Postfix should fix it. Sit back and contrast this to the Linux kernel way: If somebody introduces a change in a fundamental service, it's his or her responsibility to fix all problems that's caused by the change; he can't tell the others »that's the New Way(tm), You Have To Do The Work to change«. Such patches would be flamed to hell by Linus, and rightly so. And that's the behaviour I would like to see in user land, too.
We're thoroughly missing a Linus for Linux plumber's land. Last year, it was all ConsoleKit etc, that was en vogue. Now it's obsolete, decided by the very same developer that introduced camel case *Kit daemones to Unix. Witness the change of udev's role and HAL's demise over the last few years -- this ain't a stable environment any more to develop for. Oh yes -- will standalone udev still exist next year, or will it be abandoned? The developers actions, blog posts, and comments on their blogs don't necessarily inspire trust.
And btw,
> do you mean we shouldn't use something like systemd on Linux because BSD
I don't think we should not use cgroups. But if patches come along to make cgroups optional, upstream should go forward and accept them. Instead they ridicule non-Linux developers -- or even Linux developers, as shown by Lennart's last blog post about Ubuntu. systemd upstream is as bad as OpenSSH upstream -- and that's something to write, I wouldn't have thought I would compare someone to Theo de Raadt without meaning an insult. (I don't know if you ever met Theo in person. It's not a nice affair.)
For me, the most sad point is: I actually agree with Kay and Lennart et.al. that SysV init is not done well and should be replaced. The architecture of systemd is sound and much better. init.d dependencies is one of the first things one has to patch in most installations. systemd unit descriptions are really better and can be adapted more easily. But: The developer's attitude does not inspire trust. That's like running software from Dan Bernstein, which I would never do in a professional environment. And trust is all that's about, isn't it? (I'm referring to Dennis' Turing Award article, in case that ain't clear.)
I hope this clarifies some of my thoughts.
Joachim
PS: Are you Anselm from Darmstadt? If yes, I met with Metin last week. Cheerio. :-)
Shuttleworth: Quality has a new name Posted Apr 30, 2012 15:53 UTC (Mon) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] For me, the most sad point is: I actually agree with Kay and Lennart et.al. that SysV init is not done well and should be replaced. The architecture of systemd is sound and much better. I think we're all on the same side here … But: The developer's attitude does not inspire trust. That's like running software from Dan Bernstein, which I would never do in a professional environment. And trust is all that's about, isn't it? True. It would certainly be good if Lennart Poettering was less like Dan Bernstein and more like Wietse Venema ;^) PS: Are you Anselm from Darmstadt? Yep, that's me ;^)
Shuttleworth: Quality has a new name Posted May 2, 2012 14:08 UTC (Wed) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link] And trust is all that's about, isn't it? (I'm referring to Dennis' Turing Award article, in case that ain't clear.)I think you mean Ken Thomson's article.
Shuttleworth: Quality has a new name Posted May 2, 2012 15:09 UTC (Wed) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link]
You are right, of course.
Dennis' and Ken's work have been so intertwined for me, that this lapsus may happen... ;-) They got the award together in 1983, and I always considered that article the real Turing lecture for Unix, not the other one about Bell Labs' research politics. Even ACM lists that article on Dennis' short annotated bibliography: http://amturing.acm.org/bib/ritchie_1506389.cfm
(I had the pleasure to have a dinner with them, many years ago. It was a great evening that I still remember well.)
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