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 21:29 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

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.

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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...