The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate [LWN.net]

The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate

Posted Nov 14, 2014 18:21 UTC (Fri) by anselm (subscriber, #2796)
In reply to: The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate by mgb
Parent article: The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate

Please explain how “post-systemd Linux” is less conducive to innovation than “pre-systemd Linux”.

The vast majority of Linux programs doesn't actually know or care what init system is being used. Therefore there is no plausible way for systemd to influence the degree of innovation there.
Much of the innovation in Linux takes place inside the kernel, where it does not matter in any way whether the system is running systemd or not. Systemd cannot hurt kernel-side innovation.
With systemd, writing background service processes is much easier because they require a lot less boilerplate code for daemonising themselves, logging, service management, etc. This should actually lead to increased innovation in that space because the bar to entry is lower.
With systemd, much of the “basic plumbing” that distributions used to have to provide, in a non-standardised fashion, has been unified. This means that the distribution developers no longer have to spend their time reinventing that particular set of wheels, and can instead work on improvements elsewhere (including in the shared set of tools that systemd provides for the benefit of all systemd-based distributions). Again, this should lead to increased, not reduced, innovation.
Even in the embedded space, many developers actually seem to be quite happy with systemd and the things it provides. Many other embedded-system developers are used to doing their own thing and will be able to continue doing so in the future. Again, innovation is not impaired.

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The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate

Posted Nov 14, 2014 18:53 UTC (Fri) by mgb (guest, #3226) [Link] (25 responses)

> Please explain how “post-systemd Linux” is less conducive to innovation than “pre-systemd Linux”.

Systemd is not portable to other OSs so it loses synergy. Systemd is so tied to RedHat's business goals that they explicitly reject portability patches.

Systemd uses marshalled internal communications. We learned the advantages of text streams for all but the lowest levels (e.g. TCP) in the 1980's. Look at the successful protocols - HTTP, SMTP, POP3, IMAP, FTP,, NNTP, .... Look at HTML, CSS, and JSON. D-Bus is like a 1970's mainframe come back from the dead.

But the most serious problem is the monolithic entanglement. This drastically raises the barrier to innovation in every area systemd absorbs. Making it harder for you and me to innovate is very bad. Making it harder for the next generation to innovate is totally unacceptable.

In short, systemd is the sort of monolithically entangled software I might have designed in the 1970's before we all learned better.

The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate

Posted Nov 14, 2014 20:37 UTC (Fri) by johannbg (guest, #65743) [Link] (6 responses)

"Systemd is so tied to RedHat's business goals"

By all means elaborate what you mean by this.

The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate

Posted Nov 14, 2014 20:45 UTC (Fri) by mgb (guest, #3226) [Link] (3 responses)

> By all means elaborate what you mean by this.

Why is RedHat trying so hard to force adoption of 1970's systemd technology?

"If we adopt new technology and incorporate it into our products, and competing technology becomes more widely used, the market appeal of our products may be reduced, which could harm our reputation, diminish the Red Hat brand and result in decreased revenue." [Redhat Prospectus]

The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate

Posted Nov 15, 2014 1:32 UTC (Sat) by johannbg (guest, #65743) [Link] (2 responses)

By calculation the share arrogance of some of Red Hat's employees will have the corporate eat the Mahatma Gandhi quote it decided to commercialize in the long run but I dont give shit about some fancy notion shitty corporation like Red Hat force adoption ( which by the way it forces that adoption through Fedora, think products here or "recommendation" if you want to go further into the past ) What I asked you was to elaborate was why do you think "Systemd is so tied to RedHat's business goals".

I did not ask you for ignant 1970's metaphor so under the assumption you dont have shit for brains clarify how you came to that assumption or conclusion that systemd is being somehow run by or tied to RedHat's business goals.

Somehow you came to that conclusion and I ask how.

The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate

Posted Nov 15, 2014 15:54 UTC (Sat) by flussence (guest, #85566) [Link] (1 responses)

I knew you were a crank before, but this tactless rage-spew confirms it beyond a shadow of a doubt. *plonk*

The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate

Posted Nov 15, 2014 17:10 UTC (Sat) by johannbg (guest, #65743) [Link]

And?

If you required some confirmation about my mood then you simply could have asked and I would have answered that it's like the Icelandic weather if you dont like it just wait a minute...

The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate

Posted Nov 17, 2014 23:51 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (1 responses)

Clearly that it serves RH's business goals to ship a working init system that's better than any other out there.

I'm not really sure why this is objectionable, mind.

The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate

Posted Nov 18, 2014 1:10 UTC (Tue) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link]

Especially if said init system is freely available for all other Linux distributions to use, and is governed by a diverse developer community that includes representatives from practically all distributions.

The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate

Posted Nov 14, 2014 21:29 UTC (Fri) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] (12 responses)

Systemd is not portable to other OSs so it loses synergy.

In the realm of init systems there seems to be little demand for synergy. Every single Unix derivative is doing its own thing these days. It would be nice – from an abstract POV – to have something that is usable on several platforms but the interest doesn't really seem to be there among the people who are really doing the work and making the decisions. This is not a systemd-only phenomenon.

Making it harder for you and me to innovate is very bad.

You're still at liberty to innovate all you want. Feel free to come up with something that is notably better than systemd. People will love you for that kind of innovation.

Your problem, though, mgb, is that you don't actually innovate like the systemd people do. You don't have it in you. There is no way in hell that you could make something that ends up only half as good or as popular as systemd, even if your life depended on it. So instead you spend your time dissing the actual innovations of people whose discarded printouts you're not worthy to carry to the wastepaper bin. Disagree? Prove me wrong. Write something new that other people will want to use, and that two years from now will be part of all mainstream Linux distributions. Then you get to moan about how terrible systemd is for innovation, and maybe somebody will take you seriously.

The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate

Posted Nov 14, 2014 21:54 UTC (Fri) by mgb (guest, #3226) [Link] (7 responses)

If RedHat and FreeDesktop had wanted to support innovation they would have employed a modern component architecture rather than a throwback to the 1970's.

Given the advances in software engineering in the last forty years, one would have to try really hard to design a plumbing layer as harmful as systemd.

The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate

Posted Nov 14, 2014 23:12 UTC (Fri) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (6 responses)

> If RedHat and FreeDesktop had wanted to support innovation they would have employed a modern component architecture rather than a throwback to the 1970's.

Please enlighten us with an example of "a modern component architecture".

Heck, while you're at it, I'd love to see an example of an actual "component architecture" *designed in the 70s*.

The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate

Posted Nov 14, 2014 23:26 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (5 responses)

At the risk of feeding a troll

a modern component architecture would be web services or RESTful interfaces where you define the API but the implementations are independent of each other.

a "throwback to the 70's" would be window's all-in-one where you have lots of separate components, but they all have to be exactly the same version and there are no alternatives to any of the components.

Now, I think the 70's is probably a bit early, but the 80's or early 90's seems very appropriate.

As a somewhat relevant side note, there's a reason that the respected standards bodies require multiple independent implementations of something before they consider it for a standard

The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate

Posted Nov 15, 2014 5:46 UTC (Sat) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (4 responses)

> a modern component architecture would be web services or RESTful interfaces where you define the API but the implementations are independent of each other.
And that perfectly describes DBUS.

> As a somewhat relevant side note, there's a reason that the respected standards bodies require multiple independent implementations of something before they consider it for a standard
And DBUS has multiple independent implementations. I have my own small version in pure Rust, for example.

The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate

Posted Nov 15, 2014 5:52 UTC (Sat) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link] (3 responses)

> I have my own small version in pure Rust, for example.

Ooh, nice. Linky please? :)

The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate

Posted Nov 15, 2014 5:54 UTC (Sat) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (2 responses)

I'll send a link to http://discuss.rust-lang.org in a week or so, once it clears our IP lawyers.

The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate

Posted Nov 15, 2014 6:06 UTC (Sat) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

Woo, thanks. I'd love to use Rust as the language for my "no-DE" DBus service endpoints (logind, polkit, udisk, etc.). Both to get them done and to use Rust without it being a "eh, I'll reimplement this" project. *waits impatiently*

The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate

Posted Dec 11, 2014 3:03 UTC (Thu) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

Is this[1] it?

[1]https://github.com/diwic/dbus-rs

The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate

Posted Nov 28, 2014 6:39 UTC (Fri) by blujay (guest, #39961) [Link] (3 responses)

I have yet to see such a hateful comment as this from systemd dissenters.

The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate

Posted Nov 28, 2014 13:29 UTC (Fri) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link] (2 responses)

Have you missed the screeds by Gregory Smith (or whatever his pseudonym is today) on the Debian lists?

The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate

Posted Nov 28, 2014 13:48 UTC (Fri) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link] (1 responses)

MikeeUSA is a notorious and blatant troll, and I wouldn't take any of his positions except the whole "fulminating misogynistic racism" bit as being sincerely held.

The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate

Posted Nov 28, 2014 19:11 UTC (Fri) by viro (subscriber, #7872) [Link]

I wouldn't bet even on that. Or on any specific gender, for that matter. About the only thing obvious about that wankstain is that it's really, really desperate for attention. Of any kind. Proof positive that the well-meaning drivel along the lines of "nobody is worthless" is just that...

The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate

Posted Nov 20, 2014 20:04 UTC (Thu) by horsethief (guest, #99889) [Link] (4 responses)

Thank you for this, you've really hit the nail on the head. I don't understand why the pro-systemd people are willing to regress to this design pattern/mentality/architecture.

For anyone that doesn't understand, I've put my art skills to work and made a simplified diagram: http://i.imgur.com/kowKXoc.png

The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate

Posted Nov 20, 2014 21:13 UTC (Thu) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

It's feasible to replace individual portions by reimplementing the same interfaces. Take a look at what systembsd for an example.

The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate

Posted Nov 21, 2014 9:25 UTC (Fri) by zlynx (guest, #2285) [Link] (2 responses)

Your diagram is wrong though. You have a solid block for systemd, which isn't how it works. Please go study it and look at its interfaces between components. Then you can update your drawing.

The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate

Posted Nov 21, 2014 17:26 UTC (Fri) by mgb (guest, #3226) [Link] (1 responses)

Every systemd component that interfaces with any other systemd component via any interface that is not public and guaranteed stable is part of the systemd entangled monolith.

The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate

Posted Nov 21, 2014 20:29 UTC (Fri) by peter-b (subscriber, #66996) [Link]

Okay, cool. That's measurable. So by your definition, the "systemd entangled monolith" is:

* systemd
* systemd-journald
* systemd-logind

Seems reasonable.