Another daemon for managing control groups

Another daemon for managing control groups

The current init/service activation infrastructure (System V init, inetd, cron, …) does not have anything worth calling »a design«. It is cobbled together out of random pieces from different sources and the amazing thing is that it works at all. The pieces don't talk to one another and are all configured differently. If it had in fact been »designed« you would expect at least a minimum of consistency and cooperation between the pieces.

If somebody proposed this setup today as a new system they would be laughed out of the lecture theatre. The only reason this is still in actual use at all is that for the longest time nobody has dared come up with an alternative. Most of the other Unix-like systems have replaced it long ago.

People always cite »the Unix philosophy« as »do one thing and do it well«, and point to System V init as a prime example of this approach. This disregards the obvious fact that while SysV init is surely doing something, there is no way that one could claim it is doing it well.