The Debian init system general resolution returns

Posted Oct 17, 2014 8:19 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
Parent article: The Debian init system general resolution returns

I'm really glad that I've switched our main platform to RHEL/CentOS 7 after this year's earlier flamefest about systemd in Debian. Now I don't have to worry about the next release being delayed or about Debian politics. Yay!

The Debian init system general resolution returns

Posted Oct 17, 2014 8:28 UTC (Fri) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link] (13 responses)

If you're not interested in people with different opinions and (gasp!) politics, I would suggest you would be better served by Linux From Scratch or a proprietary OS. Either roll your own (always 100% quorum!), or insulate yourself from decision making behind thick corporate walls.

The Debian init system general resolution returns

Posted Oct 17, 2014 8:30 UTC (Fri) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link] (4 responses)

Of course you could always stop worrying about Debian politics and just use it.

The Debian init system general resolution returns

Posted Oct 18, 2014 2:09 UTC (Sat) by misc (subscriber, #73730) [Link] (1 responses)

Use it when it is released, of course, which would be the main problem of rehashing again the same discussion endlessly. I am all for discussion, but I fear that this will also start to make people be a bit more burned out day after day, and therefor, it is not like discussion is "free" in term of resources, and I am not sure that's the optimum way to produce software (ie, there is a threshold where there is no more anything to win to discuss the same topic )

The Debian init system general resolution returns

Posted Oct 18, 2014 16:22 UTC (Sat) by weue (guest, #96562) [Link]

You can just run testing or Ubuntu.

The Debian init system general resolution returns

Posted Oct 18, 2014 15:56 UTC (Sat) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (1 responses)

> Of course you could always stop worrying about Debian politics and just use it.

That's really the problem isn't it?

If Debian politics result in terrible design choices that over-complicate the OS while reducing it's effectiveness and make life harder for users and app developers; it doesn't matter if you care about Debian politics or not.

The Debian init system general resolution returns

Posted Oct 20, 2014 7:28 UTC (Mon) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]

> terrible design choices that over-complicate the OS while reducing it's effectiveness and make life harder for users and app developers.

Can you point to some example?

The Debian init system general resolution returns

Posted Oct 17, 2014 8:32 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (7 responses)

It's perhaps kinda like eating sausage - you don't really want to know how it's made.

The Debian init system general resolution returns

Posted Oct 17, 2014 10:37 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] (6 responses)

And just like sausage, it is in your best interests to know what it's made of.

The Debian init system general resolution returns

Posted Oct 17, 2014 11:50 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (5 responses)

Not really. I don't care much about the individual components, I simply want my food to be safe, tasty and appropriately balanced.

Of course, some people really care about food being prepared without certain components and in a certain way. And usually that's dictated by religion (kosher/halal food).

PS: ok, ok. I won't try to stretch the analogy further.

Sorry for stretching the analogy a bit more

Posted Oct 17, 2014 21:34 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] (4 responses)

In food, as in operating systems and everything else, there is no "simply safe, tasty and appropriately balanced". You can either delegate the task of verifying if it's good for you to someone else, which does not usually go well; or verify it yourself, whenever possible.

In the second case you need to mess up with "meat processing", "politics" and other disgusting but necessary business. That is not always possible, especially with operating systems. In Debian we have the unique opportunity of having the factory guts completely exposed, and that's how we like it -- mostly because we can look inside and ask questions. And even get involved.

Sorry for stretching the analogy a bit more

Posted Oct 17, 2014 23:00 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (3 responses)

I don't verify my food for bacterial contamination. I trust USDA to do it for me. The same with RHEL and Debian - I trust RedHat and I'd trusted Debian in the past to do it.

I certainly don't want to run PCR on my lettuce to verify that it doesn't contain dangerous strains of bacteria. The same with RedHat - I don't want to look at every bit of code in the init scripts.

> In the second case you need to mess up with "meat processing", "politics" and other disgusting but necessary business.
Yes, and I've lost trust in it.

With RedHat at least I clearly understand their goal: making a reliable Linux system for its customers.

Sorry for stretching the analogy a bit more

Posted Oct 18, 2014 16:20 UTC (Sat) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (2 responses)

> I trust USDA to do it for me.

That's kinda like claiming you don't have to worry about computer security because you trust the NSA to take care of it for you. The USDA allows and supports all manner of unhealthy things to go on.

It's probably accurate to think of must of us here as 'chefs' or 'connaisseurs' since this is a highly technical oriented forum and we are professionally involved in software. Those sorts of professional food people, if they are any good, really do heavily care about who grows the food and how it's prepared and all sorts of details. Those are the people that have to care because it's their job to make sure their customers get healthy, tasty food.

> Yes, and I've lost trust in it.

This GR is very disappointing to say the least. I am not going to put that much emphasis on it, however. The reason for this is because, I suppose, anybody (with enough rights in the Debian org) can propose anything... even if it's silly. However if it gets squashed as silly pretty quickly then there is no harm done and there is no negative impact to the quality of Debian.

And, I guess, Debian's gears run slow. So it would probably be a good idea to avoid getting caught up in the drama and just ignore it for the time being. If in a few weeks it ends up being a disaster like the last time the systemd subject came up then I would consider that to be a big failure for Debian.

Sorry for stretching the analogy a bit more

Posted Oct 18, 2014 17:26 UTC (Sat) by misc (subscriber, #73730) [Link]

I kinda have a doubt that any kitchen chef is gonna discuss to death about the brand of the fork they use, or get in lengthy discussion about people using brocoli in a recipes or anything.

I also have yet to hear about case of harassment of famous cooks by people who eat their food ( or even worst, by people who would receive a menu with their food ), so maybe the analogy between their community and our community is tenous.

Sorry for stretching the analogy a bit more

Posted Oct 18, 2014 18:24 UTC (Sat) by jwarnica (subscriber, #27492) [Link]

If you are employed by the US Government, it would be reasonable to "trust" the NSA to take care of your data security. Or at least vet products, process, and configuration for you. Because that is half their mandate.

They have no mandate to help non-US Government entities, but perhaps coincidentally do so. Entities producing products, processes or configuration that are not selling to the US Government have no requirement to involve the NSA (conspiracy theories aside).

The USDA is involved in all commercial meat production in the USA. It is illegal(??) to sell meat not USDA inspected. Now, it might not do a great job on ethics or health, but it does a job.

Not at all a comparable situation.