Debian TC vote on init system coupling

Posted Feb 24, 2014 18:28 UTC (Mon) by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
In reply to: Debian TC vote on init system coupling by ovitters
Parent article: Debian TC vote on init system coupling

It would be nice, however, if you actually acknowledged his point. Because he is spot on!

Your post makes you seem an espouser of the philosophy "the tyranny of the majority".

Whether intentional or not, it is an unfortunate fact that the actions of the majority feel oppressive to a minority. If you can't see that, then you are an oppressor. It's that simple. (Fixing it is a lot more complicated, I agree. That can be NP-hard ... :-(

And yes, he did use emotive language. Unfortunately, usually that is the only language that manages to open eyes :-(

Cheers,
Wol

Debian TC vote on init system coupling

Posted Feb 24, 2014 22:52 UTC (Mon) by ovitters (guest, #27950) [Link] (17 responses)

> Unfortunately, usually that is the only language that manages to open eyes :-(

I think you should go away from this site and move over to Slashdot. How's that opening eyes? I think you're trolling, and the other person as well. Being purposely emotional is not acceptable. I already said to go to Slashdot.

See how we're not talking about anything other than the emotional language? How's this helping?!?

Debian TC vote on init system coupling

Posted Feb 25, 2014 0:43 UTC (Tue) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (16 responses)

As someone who has *never* seen what's fascinating about slashdot, I really don't think I want to go there. If I've visited it once a year over its entire life I would be surprised.

And as someone who's been a registered reader of lwn for a lot longer than you, I would have thought the odds were stacked far more in favour of you being a troll than me.

At the end of the day, this IS an emotive issue. Let me ask a provocative question - are you human? Because if you refuse to accept that people have emotions, you're not! Actually, it's pretty clear you are, because the OP used emotion-inducing words, and you responded.

More to the point, imho he was simply describing the natural condition. If you don't like his choice of words, you are simply wearing a veneer of civilisation. How does the old saw go? "Civilisation is only three square meals away from barbarism"? Has humanity really got away from the reality he described? Or have we just swept it under the carpet?

People have emotions. We like to *pretend* we are civilised. If you're not prepared to accept that other people are human, you are de-humanising yourself, and I'm sorry to say but that's where I think you are going... On the other hand, if you accept the reality of the human condition, then it becomes a lot easier to do something about it.

Cheers,
Wol

Debian TC vote on init system coupling

Posted Feb 25, 2014 10:01 UTC (Tue) by ovitters (guest, #27950) [Link] (15 responses)

Turning things around when someone is emotional and saying I should just accept that civilization is like this, or that seemingly your user number counts/matters (slashdot.org thing btw), and so on is IMO strange at best.

I responded exactly because it is emotional and useless. You're pretending it is a good thing. Again: this discussion is going nowhere.

He's talking about racism. You're arguing it is a good thing. I don't accept that at all. You're putting in a lot of words, but equating some technical thing with racism? Yeah, get lost. It is not acceptable behaviour. I won't tolerate it. It is not going to be something you can turn around and claim it is my problem. I find you asserting that it is part of civilization? That's based on social rules.

If you cannot win on an argument itself, then yeah, this emotional discussion style is I guess something you'd appreciate. I think: get lost.

Debian TC vote on init system coupling

Posted Feb 25, 2014 11:16 UTC (Tue) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (14 responses)

Ovitters - I get the impression that you're a Gnome dev - I don't use Gnome, so I neither know nor care. Would *you* like to see Gnome swept away by KDE? I doubt it.

PLEASE go back and read dakas original post. He was saying that if the majority are allowed to trample over the minority then we are all the poorer - and more importantly that if we DO NOT LOOK OUT FOR THE MINORITY then we will let that happen.

"First they came for sysvinit and ovitters didn't speak out. Then they came for the BSDs and ovitters didn't speak out. Then they came for the HURD. And when they came for Gnome, there was no-one left to speak out for ovitters".

And that is what neither dakas nor myself would like to see happen!

Okay, I'm not bothering to speak out because I think most of the arguments are false, anyway, but seriously, if you make yourself deliberately blind to what is going on, you are complicit. Sorry if you don't like dakas' lanmguage, but he is simply accepting the reality that is the human condition. Groupthink and the herd mentality are real, they affect US just as much as anyone else, and if you think they don't apply to you then you are opening yourself up to brainwashing and mindless oppression (as in, you will perpetrate it, not be the victim).

Look out for the weaker people - you never know when you will join their ranks.

Cheers,
Wol

Debian TC vote on init system coupling

Posted Feb 25, 2014 13:05 UTC (Tue) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link]

I think you just Godwinned.

Debian TC vote on init system coupling

Posted Feb 25, 2014 13:24 UTC (Tue) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] (11 responses)

"First they came for sysvinit and ovitters didn't speak out. Then they came for the BSDs and ovitters didn't speak out. Then they came for the HURD. And when they came for Gnome, there was no-one left to speak out for ovitters".

This is a terrible kind of analogy. You know where that quote originally comes from, right? I'll let you in on a secret: Nobody is »coming for« sysvinit, the BSDs, the HURD, or GNOME to cart them off to a concentration camp, never to be seen again. These pieces of technology are going to stick around for exactly as long as there are people who are actively interested in them to a point where they spend the effort to keep them going. If the projects disappear it is precisely because nobody can be bothered to work on them any longer, and there are usually reasons for that sort of thing – obsolescence, uselessness or simply the arrival of a better, faster, or otherwise superior solution. Of course projects such as these hardly ever go away completely – there are probably people somewhere out there running TOPS-10 on a PDP-10 emulator, and more power to them – but they need to be interesting to however thin a slice of the community in order to stay around.

Free-software projects don't have human rights, and there is no moral obligation on the part of the community to look out for them if they can't fend for themselves by attracting enough developers to be viable. In particular, if you're not prepared to roll up your sleeves and pitch in on behalf of your favourite free-software project, don't whine if nobody else wants to do for you. You don't get to decide how other people spend their time (unless you sign their paycheck, anyway).

Debian TC vote on init system coupling

Posted Feb 25, 2014 13:28 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

>Nobody is »coming for« sysvinit, the BSDs, the HURD, or GNOME to cart them off to a concentration camp, never to be seen again.
That's what THEY want you to think.

/me looks around fearfully.

Debian TC vote on init system coupling

Posted Feb 25, 2014 14:03 UTC (Tue) by Zack (guest, #37335) [Link] (9 responses)

Well, there have been sounds of how some kernels and configurations are considered undesirables or irrelevant in the greater scheme of things.

Not to speak of the promises of the great resurgence of the mainstream "Linux" push because now we have "One Kernel, One Init, One System."

And then, as icing on the cake, when asking questions about how decisions are taken and implemented on the mailing list, you often gets reminded that you simply might not understand the Teutonic/German way of interacting as is prevalent on the mailing lists.

None of that has anything to do with systemd or its quality of course, but I can't help but find these tidbits unintentionally humourous, in a Charlie Chaplin satire kind of way.

Debian TC vote on init system coupling

Posted Feb 25, 2014 14:11 UTC (Tue) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129) [Link] (7 responses)

I really don't understand what the problem with Lennart is supposed to be. Linus behaves like an arrogant dickhead all the time, yet people don't seem to think he's a problem. I can't help but think that there's some racism going on.

Debian TC vote on init system coupling

Posted Feb 25, 2014 18:48 UTC (Tue) by rodgerd (guest, #58896) [Link]

If one is only going to use software written by nice people, one will quickly run out of software to run and platforms to run it on.

I can only assume people who refuse to use software written by people with abrasive personalities have not only abandoned systemd, but Linux, glibc, and openssh as well.

Debian TC vote on init system coupling

Posted Feb 26, 2014 8:01 UTC (Wed) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]

From this comment I get to the conclusion that you ignore what "arrogant" and "racism" actually mean.

Debian TC vote on init system coupling

Posted Feb 26, 2014 23:25 UTC (Wed) by malor (guest, #2973) [Link] (1 responses)

I've actually seen Linus speak, and in many ways, he *plays at* being a jerk, rather than actually being one. There's a core of fundamental good humor underneath the surface rudeness.

I get no such sense from Lennart.

Debian TC vote on init system coupling

Posted Feb 26, 2014 23:31 UTC (Wed) by jake (editor, #205) [Link]

> I get no such sense from Lennart.

Have you spoken to Lennart or seen him speak? I think there is a "core of fundamental good humor" there too, personally. We don't always see eye to eye, but Lennart is not just a "jerk" by any means.

just another perspective ...

jake

Debian TC vote on init system coupling

Posted Feb 27, 2014 5:32 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (2 responses)

Linus fights for the ability of the user to choose, including the ability for the user to choose to move away from Linux, and the ability for kernel devs to decide that Linus has gone off his rocker and they don't trust him any more.

Lennart fights for the one true way, and anyone who don't like it needs to shut up and get with the program.

this basic attitude is very different.

Debian TC vote on init system coupling

Posted Feb 27, 2014 14:21 UTC (Thu) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] (1 responses)

I think this is a conspiracy theory. Linus is trying to make Linux the best operating system it can be. Linus does not "fight for the ability of the user to choose to move away from Linux". Linus does not work on BSD, Solaris, OS X, or Windows, simply so Linux users can have alternatives to Linux. These exist because other people actively prefer them to Linux, to the point where it is worthwhile for them to go to the trouble of keeping them around. If Microsoft suddenly decided to base future versions of Windows on the Linux kernel, Linus would for sure not try to convince them otherwise just to keep Linux users' options open.

And exactly how does Lennart, by doing for systemd exactly what Linus does for Linux, namely trying to make it the best init system for Linux it can be, take away your option to stick with System V init, inetd, cron, syslogd, etc. for as long as you like, if you actively prefer them? How are distribution makers coerced to jump onto the systemd bandwagon against their better judgment? How are developers of background services forcibly brainwashed into believing that systemd's features may make their software simpler, more secure, and more efficient? Isn't systemd just as much of an open-source program as the Linux kernel, such that people can decide at some point that Lennart has gone off his rocker and they don't trust him any more, and take further development into their own hands?

It's not the fault of Lennart and his colleagues (other than by doing good work on systemd) if systemd is so convincing that most mainstream Linux distributions have decided they want to make it their default init system. If anything it is SysV init etc.'s fault for sucking so much in comparison that many people (and especially people in charge of distributions, who are the ones who matter most in this game) believe systemd is the better long-term option. Lennart does not have magical powers to make everybody bend to his will; if systemd is becoming the new standard it is on its technical merits and not through conspiracy. The Debian TC vote only emphasises this.

Debian TC vote on init system coupling

Posted Mar 3, 2014 6:38 UTC (Mon) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]

Linus talked about this sort of thing a lot in the early git days. He sees it as a high priority that he can be replaced by people just pointing at some other master git tree. Along similar lines, he has said that he expects that someday there will be a replacement for Linux that's created by someone making a stripped down, more efficient replacement.

Linus also rants about the need for new features to default to "off", that no new feature is worth hurting existing users over, and that the users (i.e. admins) need to have the options available to them to not do something that the developers think is neat and important.

Systemd development seems just the opposite, they know better than the users what's important, don't use systemd in any way other than the one they intend you to, etc.

Debian TC vote on init system coupling

Posted Feb 25, 2014 14:28 UTC (Tue) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link]

Well, there have been sounds of how some kernels and configurations are considered undesirables or irrelevant in the greater scheme of things.

Linus Torvalds, Lennart Poettering, et al. do not get to dictate to you which kernels or configurations you are allowed to find desirable or relevant. If you want to use FreeBSD or the HURD, great, nobody is telling you no. On the other hand you don't get to dictate to them what they ought to consider desirable or relevant – which is fair enough – so if you want systemd on FreeBSD and they don't, they're not going to be the ones who do the work. Again, that is fair enough.

The nice thing is that all the code is freely available so you can scratch your own itch without having to talk Lennart or Linus into scratching it for you. And as we said, no software package or configuration is »irrelevant« as long as there are people interested in supporting it. The problem is really some people's sense of entitlement which apparently suggests to them it is OK to demand that others work on their behalf for free.

Debian TC vote on init system coupling

Posted Feb 25, 2014 18:50 UTC (Tue) by rodgerd (guest, #58896) [Link]

Comparing yourself to victims of the Haolocaust is one of the most cretinous things I've seen.