The plumbing layer as the new kernel

Although I am mostly an outsider to the systemd vs. the rest discussion I did also feel a pro-systemd stance in the whole article. But maybe that is just because I don't see everybody standardizing on systemd as a next step to Linux world domination.

What I don't understand is the 'do what I say' mentality in the open source world, e.g. we are developing here the next big thing and everybody has to start using it.

To me open source is all about producing code and other people using it because of it's technical merits; not because some people on a mailing list or in some comity decide what other people should use.
Having a few parallel solutions is IMO inherent to the way open source works and I think people who try to force their solution on the rest are wasting their time and probably keeping a few programmers from their important job: writing and improving code.
Sure, converging several solution in one is IMO a good thing (tm) but I think it can only happen if all people involved agree that it is the best solution for them and not some majority deciding for everyone this is the way to go. I just don't think this works for open source.

But other people that commented so far seem to also disagree with my judgement, so maybe it might just be me.

"consume", like in the Red Hat glibc: "We don't care, go away!"? Red hat is not so open (contrary to the kernel) to good things outside RedHat business.

> Unlike the MS takeover of server roles from Novell/Artisoft/Banyan etc. by leveraging desktop dominance,

Actually a lot of people ran screaming and yelling from mid-size server systems because they were expensive to manage, purchase and use. Seems like most people that are into Linux are completely unaware of the IBM culture and the mentality it created in the minds of many people. Programmers of those were seen as huge assholes that did the things they wanted and used their specialized knowledge to hold the businesses that they served in effective bondage. That is if you fired your IT guy then you'd realize that nobody else could possibly manage the systems because he designed it so that only he could know how it worked. Then you had to hire him back as a consultant at twice the cost.

This made businesses very gun shy and distrust a lot of developers and their mentalities. Microsoft offered a escape from that. IBM was expensive. Novel was expensive. Unix was expensive. NT was cheap. Guess what people flocked to?

It's really not as clean cut as 'Leveraged the desktop'.

There are very good reasons besides that as to why Microsoft NT is now #1 server OS as well as the #1 desktop OS. Also it's helpful to erase all ideas of 'monopoly' when considering things.

> the linux surge began from the server, supplanting unix application, database, web, compute, and file/print roles.

Linux started as a desktop OS and was adopted by many people because it could run on cheap hardware and was compatible with applications coded for Unix. IBM, SGI, and friends put a huge amount of work into it and that is how we ended with Linux 2.6, which made it a very respectable replacement for Unix servers.

> Linux (via samba) currently competes with MS for file and print.

Not really. It's like saying that Linux competes with Microsoft for text editing. File and print for desktops is extremely mundane stuff and has been wrapped up as just a piece of much larger systems involving things like Active Directory, against which Linux is not competitive.

I like FreeIPA a lot, but doesn't deal with Windows which means it's a no-go in any desktop support situation, unless you are a running a extremely pro-Linux shop. Samba4 is still seems beta-ish, unfortunately.

> Linux is starting to take over in virtual hosting.

Linux _IS_ virtual hosting. Linux effectively _IS_ the cloud system. Linux is not utterly dominate in web hosting and web applications, but it's the most popular platform by far. Even Microsoft is using Linux virtual systems for their Skype infrastructure.

> Linux has a lead on thin client desktops (fat, thin, vdi, multi head)

It has no such thing. Windows is massively more popular in thin client setups now. Linux is popular host OS for VDI installations on top of Xen and other things, but the guest desktops and protocols people use on their thin clients are largely Windows.

X Windows and Linux can be made to work in certain situations, but they are not competitive. Citrix has a huge lead.

I have seen how people setup combination of VDI-based applications and thick client desktops to manage applications and handle security issues for large corporations. I have seen how people run VDI halfway around the world for call centers and other things. It simply couldn't be made to work using Linux and X. Maybe could pull a lot of it off with NX, but unless their proprietary of NomachineNX is very impressive it would be very difficult and expensive.

> and leads in the embedded space (may as well include android here).

I haven't paid attention to the situation for a while, but embedded systems are extremely diverse. Linux is more popular, generally, but Windows is still more popular depending on what type of system you are looking at.

Hopefully Andriod is making a big difference. Working with Sun in the past with Java (which is extremely popular for embedded systems) was very unpleasant and Oracle is shooting themselves in the foot with this lawsuit business, which is just ridiculous. Being 'java' with out technically being 'java' was a brilliant approach by Android.

I happen to agree with Shuttleworth's comment that upstart knows what it wants to be while systemd seems to want to be everything, but the real issue is the conflect between people who seem to think that there should be multiple options vs the people who think there should only be one way.