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Longtime Debian Developer Tollef Fog Heen Resigns From Systemd Maintainer Team
An anonymous reader writes Debian developer Tollef Fog Heen submitted his resignation to the Debian Systemd package maintainers team mailing list today (Sun. Nov. 16th, 2014). In his brief post, he praises the team, but claims that he cannot continue to contribute due to the "load of continued attacks...becoming just too much." Presumably, he is referring to the heated and, at times, even vitriolic criticism of Debian's adoption of Systemd as the default init system for its upcoming Jessie release from commenters inside and outside of the Debian community. Currently, it is not known if Tollef will cease contributing to Debian altogether. A message from his twitter feed indicates that he may blog about his departure in the near future.
I am not resigning from Debian, just from the systemd maintainer team.
the trolls win, and by that everyone else loses :P
I understand both the pros and cons of Systemd and that is what is wonderful about FOSS... if you don't like it then fork it. I am sick and tired of this dogmatic vitriol about Systemd, unity, etc. No one is forcing you to use it!
If the Debian team never shove that unneeded thing down the throats to the users none of the heated exchange would have happened in the first place
And to call others "immature twats" you are showcasing yourself to the world how "mature" you really are!
1) Grab the bootonly iso. /etc/rc.config /etc/rc.config
2) Install it as described in the Installer.
3) pkg install vim
4) pkg install mc
5) pkg install xorg
6) pkg install xfce
7) echo "hald_enable=\"YES\"" >>
8) echo "dbus_enable=\"YES\"" >>
9) reboot
10) login and enter "startxfce4"
It's a pretty long story. If you want to read all of it, you probably need to read the entire debian-devel and debian-ctte archives from approximately a year and a half ago until February/March this year.
A shorter summary is something like (from my memory, coloured by my views, etc, but I believe it's largely correct). User names are generally @debian.org, finger $user@db.debian.org for full names and such. It's a bit rambling and written in one go, but it's what you get this time:
- I upload systemd to Debian about a month after its initial release, get it into a ok-ish shape for wheezy, but not anywhere near suitable for being the default.
- Other distros start switching to systemd as default, various people in Debian start discussing if we should switch to systemd. Some people say yes, some no, some want to switch to upstart. Bickering and discussions in equal measure spread out across all media (IRC, blogs/planet, mailing lists, in-person discussions). Most of it reasonably civil.
- At some point, paultag files https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bi... (_massive_ bug report, you don't want to read it all) , asking the Debian technical committee to default on what the default should be.
- Lots of discussions happen, we use a bit of liw's and rra's Essay Debate System (https://wiki.debian.org/Debate, https://wiki.debian.org/Debate...) to structure the debate. It's Debian, it has to be A System.
- vorlon (Steve Langasek) sets up VMs using the various init systems for the Technical Committee members to play with. They do so and write up their findings and arguments. rra's writeup is at https://lists.debian.org/debia... and is possibly the best comparison I've ever read of init systems. Lots more discussions happen. I contribute a fair bit with my systemd maintainer hat on (though we're at this point a team maintaining systemd in Debian) and is very happy this happens while I'm holidaying in Spain so I don't have to deal with a day job at the same time.
- A lot of arguing internally to the CTTE whether to couple the question of what the default init system should be with whether it's ok for packages to require a given init system. bdale resolves the knot by calling for votes on a proposal very quickly after proposing a ballot. iwj sees this as backstabbing and is still very, very angry about this to this day.
The vote ends with systemd being the winner, after bdale's casting vote as the CTTE chair.
After this, there is an attempted General Resolution in March, which fails to get enough seconds, this is restarted by iwj on late October this year. The goal of this GR appears to be to forbid packages to depend on a specific init system.
I dont see an issue with systemd, since it allows for sys V style init to be used. Why not ship a set of script type initialization scripts and let people who do not want systemd simply configure their system either so that systemd will start regular sys v init or bsd type scripts, or let them change /bin/init to point to the alternatifve init system of their choice. Most people complaining about systemd are system administrators who have the skills needed to change the configuration of the init system to whatever they need. So why dont they just change their own systems to use whatever init system they think should be used? The answer to this is not that this elite crowd doesnt have a choice, its that this elite crowd insists on trying to force on EVERYONE ELSE what they think is the right way. That ties into what the mentality of this elite crowd is. For years this elite crowd has fought at every turn any attempt to make Linux easier to use for common, everyday users as a Windows alternative. Why do they do this? its because the reason that they use Linux is to prove to them selves that they are elites because they can use an operating system that is nearly impossible to use and thus they have proven their eliteness. Therefore, Linux must be nearly impossible to use except for a very small elite few and must be made as difficult, convoloted to configure and use as it possibly can be. This explains their behaviour.
November 16, 2014 is what it is.
Debian have many good sides. It also suffers from fractions; the problem isn't so much that people disagree about some time petty technical things, but that they abuse the Debian bug tracker and governmental system in order to feud their petty wars on usually innocent package maintainers. By filling "political" bugs together with a lot of whining and twisted representation of facts, and then run and complain to higher ups in the hierarchy, they can force the package maintainer into endless, repeated explanations why things are like they. You can basically force the package maintainers to always be in defensive position. Not fun at all.
In this case it is the "anti-systemd" faction that is abusing the system and the developers, but there have been several other, perhaps smaller cases before this.
The "anti-systemd" faction probably just think they are fighting with their backs against the wall, trying to claw out a place in Debian with any means necessary before it is "too late".
But if they keep on attacking Debian developers like they do now, I think their strategy will backfire. Before the bitter systemd debacles started, most Debian developers where probably quite keen to support non-systemd inits too. But this rather poisonous war just never seems to end, so some Debian developers are starting to think, that the only way forward is an outright banishment of official SysVinit support after Jessie is released.
.. Said the Anonymous Coward.
It is neat that both sides still refer to the other as the trolls and bullies. Always a sure sign that both sides are just as guilty.
If the Debian team never shove that unneeded thing down the throats to the users
Serious question here: how avoidable is systemd currently?
It seems the number of holdouts among the distributions is shrinking ever more quickly.
systemd seems to be incorporating ever more functionality in itself. That in itself should be a problem, but it seems that the equivalent functionality outside of systemd is being lost at the same time.
Not sure what the status is with the other stuff systemd is preparing to replace.
Add to that the increasing hard dependencies, like with window managers that expect systemd to offload session management and login onto and I'm not sure how feasable holding out on systemd is anymore.
Sure, if a sufficiently large group of developers were bothered enough with the presence of systemd they could set out to provide the functionality the traditonal way and form a whole bunch of projects, including some sort of desktop environment.
But it seems systemd managed to assimilate responsibilities more quickly than resistance could form and forking of projects to non-systemd dependent versions could occur.
He probably wrote the article himself, and thought that by posting it as AC, that we wouldn't see through the attention-whoring. Honestly, I don't care what some random linux dev does with himself. Nobody cared when I was a linux dev (or when I quit), so why should I care about him. It's not like he's Linus Torvalds or something. Honestly...
Buck Feta. You know what to do.
Mail a bomb, presume the bombing will succeed without error, don't monitor if the bomb actually had gone off and don't send another bomb if the first bomb fails. Any other deviation from this terrorism process is not the proper UNIX way!
Generically, it's not systemd.
It's your distro, which decided for systemd and you can do nothing. Except... switch distros.
I'm sticking with one which uses systemd, because I don't have a little horse in that race (at least, yet). But I'm starting to take notice which distros still offer SysV Init, just in case.
Debian, as I've read, is offering both init systems. Is that wrong or perhaps I misread something? If so, what's the point of attacking anyone from Debian??? Just don't use SystemD. It's like Gnome: it sucks, but it's the default again... if you really want to get rid of it, install e.g. Xfce. Not a Debian user myself, but if one is, such complexities come for free.
It really would help if Distrowatch had a criterion for distro selection based on init system. I don't know if that is feasible.
There's a lot of stupid things on Linux, like striking a deal with M$, which led me never again to consider SuSE (the deal was actually made by Novell, back then). If you have any problem, don't use the dam_n thing! Use the other option you like and stop bothering the ones doing what you don't want.
I don't like Mono, but I'm not writing hate letters to Miguel. He likes it, props to him! I hope he gets successful and don't come back crying a river and saying "I was wrong". That would suck for both of us.
If you really are upset at Debian, there's Arch -- or fork Debian, just like the Trinity Desktop guys did with KDE. If all the effort wasted in personal attacks is used to code, a better response arises. Why not make Sys V init better than systemd?
... Said the Anonymous Coward.
... Said the Anonymous Coward.
Just posted on my blog with a bit more background: http://err.no/personal/blog/te...
Whatever they wanna say, they are more than welcome to share with the world. It's a free country, and with free software, you get Double Free! They can choose another distro, or they can uninstall systemd (see instructions here: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=112364 ).
But using verbal violence against a developer is unacceptable, and immature. So I stand behind my prognosis.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain... time... to... die...
Like I said, they can voice their opinions, switch distros, or make contributions to non-systemd projects. Nothing is an excuse to use verbal violence against a developer who has contributed thousands of hours to the Debian community.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain... time... to... die...
I haven't been involved in this particular instance, but in open and closed source projects I have held contempt for my fellow developers who decry people filing 'bugs' to complain about the design decision.
Te the end user who submits the bug, it is a bug. A bug can be a relative term. 'Works as designed' can be massively infuriating if the designer failed to grasp the user experience of their target audience. A bug tracker is frequently the most accessible yet significant enough way in for a non-developer. Usually if a developer is frustrated that something is in the bug tracker, he would otherwise flat out ignore the messaging as it doesn't fit with his 'vision'.
I welcome such bugs for components I own. I may ultimately have to close it without satisfying the submitter, but it helps me have a dialog with my target audience to figure out when I've let my own or some very vocal minority dictate a behavior that would actually be wildly unpopular. More often than not, I recognize I was an asshat and rework the design of something to not only work, but work the way that my users expect. Quite frequently it ends in a discussion where the submitter comes to prefer the change they objected to. Only in very rare circumstances does it come to a stalemate when it's clear the userbase is divided and a hard choice has to be made.
To the extent I have complaints about systemd, is that the proponents don't seem to be working towards addressing the downsides, only re-iterating the current 'pros' and swearing up and down that the upsides are flat out impossible without the alleged downsides. The most compelling upsides seem like they would be possible without certain hard requirements. Of course I don't see a lot of constructive effort to offer up patches to redo those controversial issues from the anti-systemd camp either (though the general concern about monolithic approach to design is not something that is 'patchable', there are other criticisms that could be patched.)
One down, four to go!
Remaining team:0
Michael Bieble
Marco d'Itri
Michael Stapelberg
Sjoerd Simons
Tollef's smart to get out before Jessie is released. The looming spectre of broken systems that are going to haunt sysadmins everywhere when they update their Debian systems to Jessie is going to phenomenal. Who's gonna wanna stick around for that grief?
Sure, they'll all cry about "muh feels!" as the reason for leaving, but when you abandon a project (systemd packaging) this late in the schedule, everyone knows it going to be because you're trying to distance yourself from the inevitable shitstorm that going to happen.
> what they think is the right way. That ties into what the mentality of this elite crowd is. For years this elite crowd has fought at every turn any attempt to make Linux easier to use for common, everyday users as a Windows alternative.
For decades, not just years. The Unix way predates the Windows philosophy by a rather significant margin. Those who appreciate the Unix philosophy have been protecting it from turning into something else for decades.
Imagine you joined the Ford F-250 design team. Would you insist that the F-250 should be redesigned as a Corvette alternative? Would you be surprised when the veteran members of the team pointed out that the F-250 is a work truck, not a sports car?
The Windows way works well for grandma to look at pictures of her grandkids. Mac may be even better for that use case. That's not suprising, as those systems were designed specifically to be "easier to use ... for the common everyday user." The Unix / Linux approach is designed for a different role or two; client/server first and portability also. Linux is designed to work in your router, your phone, and your web server. It's no surprise that Linux makes a better server than Windows, a much better phone, and works well on a router where Windows can't run at all. It was designed to have that flexibility.
If you want something that is just like a Windows desktop, your best bet is to get a Windows desktop. Linux isn't Windows, and of it tries to be like Windows it'll stop being Linux and being good at what Linux is good at.
It is monolithic. It has many components, but no alternatives to any of them.
It encrypts (writes binary) logs and offers only itself as a way to read them.
It encourages non-kernel systems to rely on it.
NSA?
How long can (Open)BSD and Slackware hold out against this perversity?
Are you paranoid if they really are out to get you?
--
It was a dark and drunken night. Four shots called out -- drink me.
Thank you for the oppertunity to bash systemd!
The facts don't matter. Both sides of the debate don't care about them any way.
So all you extremists go ahead start bashing!
Will do!
And the criticism from those who are against systemd is extremely important to consider. The complaints are very sound, from a technological perspective. They're also based on decades of real world experience, which just cannot be ignored.
Systemd is inherently contrary to many of the core philosophies that underlie the Debian project, and that underlie UNIX and UNIX-like systems in general. Many of the criticisms of it just cannot be refuted. Bad ideas will be bad ideas, and systemd is objectively full of them.
In hindsight, it's obvious now that systemd should never have been integrated into Debian the way it has been. Debian should have indeed been forked, but with systemd going into this fork, rather than traditional Debian. Only after it had been proven as a suitable replacement should it have ever been considered for integration into mainline Debian.
Personally, I don't think the Debian project will survive. It may survive in name, but it will become weakened and irrelevant, like the XFree86 and GNOME projects have become. This truly is one of the most disturbing events to have hit such a major open source project. The worst part is that it's all so unnecessary. Debian didn't have to die as a project, and it especially did not have to die thanks to systemd of all things.
Nothing is an excuse to use verbal violence against a developer who has contributed thousands of hours to the Debian community.
Verbal violence can be seen as inappropriate, but what you wrote is stupid :
If I spend hundreds of thouthands of hours to write a new shell that also makes a thouthand things that are made by other tools, but is not compatible with existing scripts and has a new command line syntax, and then come to your distribution and say : "Hey guys, this is new new default shell for the system, I even ported all the existing script in this and that set of packages. Now shut up and use it.
What would you do ?
Spend thousands of thousands of hours on the current working shell to make it appear more usefull and better than my new solution ?
Or tell me to go fuck myself (I'm deliberatly violent here) with my new tool, because the working existing one IS working, and you want to spend your time on other usefull stuff ?
The time spent by the developpers of systemd on the Debian community is NO excuse for ANYTHING but allowing them to make systemd available IN ADITION to existing init systems. They should be the ones to make the aditionnal job for many init systems being selectable by the user. Not the people who already spent hundred and thouthands of hours (and more) in creating a working system, and now working on other parts of the system without which systemd would be useless.
If you do not see it, what can the other users do save "use verbal violence" to make you understand ?
If you have a solution, please tell me. Tell us.
But Do NOT tell old users to "go avway and leave the place for you and your new shiny solution". They are not the ones who should be forced into making a fork or a derivative.
Ho, by the way, I'm Nathael Pajani; for those anoyed by "Anonymous Coward"s and nicknames.
Have fun using free softwares, and please continue contributing to free softwares (all of them, and all of you).
I've read all of the comments in this thread (at -1), and I think you're the only one to have truly nailed what's going on here.
Systemd has been a total disaster for many Debian users already. The animosity toward it doesn't come out of nowhere. It comes out of a situation like this, described as a "horrible experience". People are having their Debian systems utterly trashed thanks to systemd being forced upon them during routine updates.
I, too, fear that these early disastrous results will just be amplified many times over once Jessie starts to become more widely used. There will likely be problems, and they won't be pretty. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Debian's reputation is completely ruined. That's a real shame, given how many decades of effort have gone into making it such a respected and trusted distro.
This is also where FreeBSD could make a triumphant comeback. If the FreeBSD project play their cards right, and end up on the right side of this (which is obviously taking a strong stand against systemd, and standing in favor of stability and reliability), they could win over many refugees who are fleeing Debian.
It would be a shame. A lot of people worked hard for POSIX, and I think POSIX does have a purpose.
If you're threatening devs and making death threats over some FREE software, then yeah, you're a fucking immature twat. Not only that, but you have serious psychological problems that really need some attention as well.
Seems like it would solve a lot of problems.
It would give Debian users years of use while the systemd thing got sorted out.
Downstream dependencies should NOT be an issue. The problem is when the downstream software depends on a function that systemd provides which you can't achieve without the rest of systemd. I personally am a fan of what systemd is trying to do but I fully agree with all the dependency complaints. It's not healthy when large projects depend on the functionality systemd provides, it should be optional.
All this makes me wonder why someone can't build some other piece of software which would perform the required session management in this particular case? It's not dependency for nefarious means, it's dependency which provides a specific feature that a programmer would like to use. Why can't that be coded separately from systemd by someone other than the systemd maintainers?
I cannot find the option any more to filter out AC posts. It is very clear that there is a concerted attempt to deliberate inflame on here and all the inflame posts are done by ACs. How to ignore?
Archlinux loves systemd.
If said developer is going against a core design philosophy which makes systems stronger / more easily maintained, and making it weaker while undoing hundreds of thousands of hours of work others have contributed, things are going to get heated. He absolutely did NOT do the right thing in forcing it into the main system, and Debian now does not belong so far up the parent distro chain. Let the forking commence.
There was a coup. Just like there was a coup when feminists took over debian some years ago. The men against the coup get sidlined and kicked out.
Bullshit. Systemd was forced on a lot of us.
I had a system that had been running Debian unstable for years. It had worked almost perfectly fine, up until I did a simple "sudo apt-get update" followed by a simple "sudo apt-get dist-upgrade". I had executed those commands many hundreds, if not thousands of times, on that system, without anything but only the slightest of problems that I could easily resolve. But the last time I tried it, systemd was one of the dependencies that had to be installed.
I didn't have a choice. I had to install it in order to install some other critical security updates. On one hand, I could leave my system vulnerable. On the other, I could risk installing systemd. There is no choice there. There's never a choice when security flaws are involved. The only option is to fix the security flaw. In my case, this unfortunately meant that systemd was going to be forced on me, too.
Well, to keep what turned out to be a very long story short, my system would no longer boot properly after this update. This was the first time in years that a Debian update prevented my system from booting.
I googled for a solution. I tried a few fixes. Nothing worked. But I also came to the realization that Debian is on its way out. This is the kind of incident that should never have happened, even when using Debian unstable. The fact that it happened set off alarm bells for me. Something is seriously wrong with Debian, as a project, now.
The system no longer runs Debian. I backed up my data using a live CD, and installed FreeBSD 10.0, which I've since painlessly updated to 10.1. This is the best thing I've done in ages. I wish I had switched to FreeBSD years ago! It feels like what Debian used to feel like before this systemd crap came up: a rugged, reliable and capable operating system put together by professionals and experts. I can now trust my system to work for me, not against me. And I can be quite confident in believing that I will never encounter systemd as long as I remain a FreeBSD user. I couldn't be happier!
Oh look, another resignation. This time its Russ Allbery from the Debian Technical Committee:
https://lists.debian.org/debian-ctte/2014/11/msg00071.html
My largest concern in stepping down from the technical committee is that
I'm just avoiding working on something difficult, and thereby making the
problem worse. I believe that some governance method is necessary, and
given that I have strong feelings about this and keep thinking about it, I
should stay and make it better.
So why don't you, Russ? Don't be a quitter just because the job is getting tough. Are all Debian developers such hothouse flowers?
Of course, this paves the way for another Systemd fanboi to get appointed to the CTTE, so eventually they'll have the votes to ramrod any pro systemd decisions through the process. Bet you won't hear any bitching about "governance" then from the usual suspects.
Hicksville Long Island?
Yo, Bro!
Would be nice if there was a non-social-progressive-run fork of debian. :( and men KICKED out.
Debian used to be known for the need for asbestos suit, and didn't take too kindly to a number of things. Then it was cleaned up
It's immature twats all the way down...
What complete and utter horseshit. Ted Walther has a martyr complex a mile wide, and uses his Jewishness/maleness in the most passive-aggressive fashion imaginable.
You don't see us kowtowing to their bullshit, do you?
Well, we are sorta. RHEL is the OS of choice for the NSA. Go browse a lot of the powerpoint slides released with the Snowden files. Many (maybe all, I can't remember) of the projects reference RHEL systems that their platforms are built on. If you check the job classifieds for security contractors that the NSA outsources too, you'll find a lot requiring experience working with RHEL. In fact, military contracts make up a significant part of Red Hat's revenue, IIRC. Systemd presents such a large attack surface with its complexity, sparse documentation and nebulous API's, that it seems a given that backdoors and exploits will be introduced into the code that will be very hard to detect.
Debian sinking under weight of systemd:
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FnE...
You realise the whole reason he is leaving the Debian systemd team is precisely because of attitudes you've just displayed in your post. Deciding to heave a _volunteer_ position is his right, and it's rather impressive that you can get so angry about it.
Still, I had a good laugh. An Anonymous Coward heatedly taunting someone else as a Coward. Hypocrisy is humorous.
If you don't want people upset with you, then realize when the majority of the community says they don't want your systemd, no means no. Quit shoving it down peoples throats.
I don't care what features you've made, it's the binary logging. If I can't awk, sed, cut, sort, and whatever else to see what I want in my logs, then what the hell good is it? If I liked binary logs, I'd use Windows.
But I guess you've finally learned. You've decided to stop pissing people off. Thank you.
For what it's worth, I managed to purge everything systemd-related from my debian testing system the other day. I had to replace NetworkManager with WICD, which is a pretty good straightforward replacement (although you need to re-create your configuration). Also, I run KDE, so that made things easier.
As I understand it (if I correctly noted the packages which got removed), you can't run a gnome system without systemd; however, you can still run debian jessie with kde without systemd.
The only packages which are coming from the systemd source package on my system any more are udev and libsystemd0 - however, given that systemd-sysv and systemd-logind are no longer installed, I consider that basically a win.
libsystemd0 is only still there because cups-daemon and kde-runtime require it; but given that it only defines the interfaces, it seems benign.
udev and libudev1, despite being packaged as part of the systemd source, do not depend on it according to the package info...
"Go to CNN [for a] spell-checked, fact-checked summary" -- CmdrTaco
Are you proud now, sick haters?
:wq
All this makes me wonder why someone can't build some other piece of software which would perform the required session management in this particular case? It's not dependency for nefarious means, it's dependency which provides a specific feature that a programmer would like to use. Why can't that be coded separately from systemd by someone other than the systemd maintainers?
Systemd is also somewhat know for having no stable interfaces between its parts; combined with the increasing large number of parts it has, one would need to implement quite a lot to handle the required functionality. Systemd does have a chart of its API stability promises, but it looks to be last updated a year ago.
FWIW, I ran Debian Jessie with sysv for a while - and for about a month it was impossible to login via gdm (workaround was to switch to kdm or lightdm), so there's already been (testing-)user visible impact.
This is all very frustrating, especially since I really like the init/process-management parts of systemd, but not the glomp-up-all-the-projects and explicitly not working with others parts...
I have not yet read any valid example where systems actually goes against Unix philosophy (which is a pretty cloudy term in the first place). I read lots of claims that it was, but nobody was able to point to any specific point where systemd was clearly violating that.
How was systemd forced on anybody? It convinced a lot of distributors and developers that it provides value, so it was picked up widely as the best solution at hand.
That in turn led other developers to build on systemd and push their code there -- where it will be widely used and where a certain set of services are available. I fully see why you would push e.g. the console code you just pulled out of the kernel into systemd.
That is how free software has always been developed and the network effect at work.
If you want to change that, then you need to provide a more compelling solutions to the problems upstream developers face.
This aggressive namecalling will just get people to quit working on free software, damaging *the whole ecosystem*, including the software still left -- which have weaker shoulders to stand on.
There is no systemd-cron. There is just a converter that reads crontab files and spits out systems files. Those are started by the unit process, just like all the other services and with all the features of normal service.
Your request is just not possible to implement.
IIRC there is a patch for Firefox to get the "am I connected" question answered by systemd instead of going round and asking the same question to the half a dozen network daemons out there.
Providing widely used interfaces to other applications is where the value of systemd is. The init system itself is just providing the base for those services.
As long as those interfaces are systemd-only (and most are hard to implement without the services provided by systemd-PID1), as long systems is a defacto requirement to run any reasonably new Linux application in the mid-term.
" Let the forking commence." - i presume you've started the ball rolling with some code, how about pointing us to it?
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
I think it takes a much braver person, mid-flow, knowing they are going to attract vitriol, to stand up and say "Sorry, I don't think I can do this". Only cowards are subject to peer pressure like yours.
How many large projects would be saved (maybe we couldn't say they weren't delayed or hindered, but still saved) by someone stopping in the middle saying "It's too much, I can't do it". Rather than the management-ese of "Let's push on through anyway", I'd much rather someone said.
It's also an indication of the state of the project. Say you have poured your heart into a project. And then realised that it's not going to work, it's not what you thought it was, it's too much work for such an outcome. Are you saying that you shouldn't say "stop"? Or at the very least "Sorry, I'm out". If things aren't heading where you thought they would be, and you can't steer the ship back to the right course, it's better to abandon it than help it crash into the rocks.
Sure, it sucks to be the guy that takes over, but that's not his concern because he WAS the guy that was doing all that stuff already - and they are all volunteers, anyway. I believe it says in the various Debian stuff about how nobody should feel obliged to continue in their post if they don't want to.
A coward would keep their heads down, run the ship into the rocks, then quietly slip away. Or even just say nothing and not do any more work. It takes a person of character to announce "I'm abandoning" and jumping into the ocean first, alone. At least then, everyone knows where they stand.
Well, this is developers voting with their feet, isn't it?
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
Not yet.
Nope everything op said is true
It's no surprise that Linux makes a better server than Windows
debatable
, a much better phone,
debatable
and works well on a router where Windows can't run at all.
debatable and factually wrong.
You see your problem is you say one thing is super flexible but shouldn't include one thing you don't like. Well that's just it, Linux IS super flexible, and despite the bizarre rhetoric of the "get your crappy desktop init system off my server" crowd, it actually IS still flexible. So far every argument against systemd I've heard from the server based crowd are from people who should just spend 5 minutes to RTFM and just setup systemd the way they want. In each case it already had the features people were asking for (not auto restarting processes, dumping logs to rsyslogd, ignoring system events.
syslogd can be very small and run on your router, or it can be massive and manage your entire desktop. The choice is yours, but first everyone should actually read the manual.
In fact, the NT kernel is modular and could be made to run on any of the devices listed, but that's not the target for Windows. It's target is laptop and desktop computers. I and a majority of users prefer an OS that, as the Amiga OS did, takes a GUI first approach. I want to code, create, and play. I don't want to dig through log files and try 25 different commands to switch my sound card to digital output. I prefer click, click, done.
An Anonymous Coward heatedly taunting someone else as a Coward. Hypocrisy is humorous.
Different AC here. To assume you are somehow less cowardly posting behind a Slashdot username that doesn't list an email address is foolish at best.
In fact, the NT kernel is modular and could be made to run on any of the devices listed,
And some of us have had experience of embedded NT, albeit at the user end, not code development. It's telling that the device running it that I encountered had been 'shunted' to the 'room where bad devices go to die' and was slowly cannibalised for usable parts over a 17 month period.
I'll spare the blushes of that particular manufacturer by refusing to name them overtly..
Well if you still want the UNIX philosophy it is time to switch to the *BSDs as soon as Systemd as was adopted by the mainstream Linux distros I switched to FreeBSD and OpenBSD.
systemd is not the kernel, and is not required to run the system. If a Debian user can't do an apt-get purge systemd, then Debian is fundamentally broken. Debian used to be about choice, but has morphed into a step-child of Red Hat. It is sad to see a once-great distribution go down the tubes.
It'd be one thing to quit because of family, health, or job issues that consume too much of your time and energy that you have to work on Debian, and everyone would understand and sympathize with that. But that's not why he is leaving the systemd team. He's leaving because his feelings are hurt. He's shouldering his so-called "awesome" team with the added burden of his workload, because his feelings are hurt.
I believe if you commit to a thing, you stay with it until its completed, especially if its a volunteer effort where your contribution is vital to its success. It just matter of character.
If they ever do report it as a bug.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
This is completely ridiculous. Those attacks need to stop. This bullying needs to stop. This isn't like those anti-#GamerGate people who bully people into silence and do other nasty stuff like spread lies in mainstream media about #GamerGate in order to avoid talking their corruption. I agree that Systemd is on a road to become a feature creep and I don't like that but it's still a very good init system. I personally like Systemd for several reasons. It makes use of cgroups for example. I was very happy to see Debian do, what I considered to be the right action, and switched to Systemd. I understand that there are people who would like to turn clocks back to 70s and do "The UNIX way" but that so called "UNIX way" is broken philosophy that shouldn't be blindly followed. It's a good and noble princible but it stops working when solution needs to be scaled up. It's not delivering "correct and complete" software. Instead it often results in complex and incomplete mess. If you don't like Systemd then fork it and make a better solution or contribute to the project by taking part of it. Or make your own distributions without it. Just don't attack the devs for what they believe is worth doing. Jesus. Rant over.
He's quitting because his feeling are hurt. You can spin that a 100 ways and dress it up in whatever bullshit flowery language you want, but it doesn't change the fact that Tollef is putting his butthurt ahead of the project and ahead of his fellow team members. It reflects poorly upon his character.
I cannot find the option any more to filter out AC posts. It is very clear that there is a concerted attempt to deliberate inflame on here and all the inflame posts are done by ACs. How to ignore?
Yes, the AC's are out in force. The systemd haters do like that because that way they can post hate posts and moderate at the same time. The systemd haters are good at online bullying and trolling, but of course suck when it comes to make a positive contribution.
Am I connected should be really easy. Does default route exist?
" Let the forking commence." - i presume you've started the ball rolling with some code, how about pointing us to it?
Despite your attempt at superiority by expert-ism, perhaps non experts might have valuable input when the experts are behaving like children.
Under what circumstances do you think this is not going to be forked eventually?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
It's immature twats all the way down...
Somehow I don't think this is what getting women involved in STEM careers was looking for.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
If the Debian team never shove that unneeded thing down the throats to the users none of the heated exchange would have happened in the first place
[...]
"Shoving down" implies some external force. But last I checked, everyone is completely free to choose between Linux distributions. I think, the license even allows it, to start your own distribution, without having to pay anyone anything. Possibly, you can even start your own distribution without asking anyone for allowance. So talking about "shoving down" seems to be a little bit exaggerated.
The people doing the hard work behind Debian are completely free to change the project any way they like. Under no circumstance they should get any harassment for how they decide to change their project (because I think it only belongs to the people putting effort into it). If they decided to remove the init system at all and let the user manage all services by hand, it would be their (should I say: "god given"?) right. They are free people and they can change their project as they choose. If they decided to switch to the NT kernel and toss Linux completely, it would be their choice and everyone else would have to accept it.
Sorry to see you going. Online harassment has always been a big problem but it seems to be getting epic lately. I think it is time to start applying stalking laws and other such measures to these campaigns. There is a difference between disagreeing and virtual violence.
and works well on a router where Windows can't run at all.
debatable and factually wrong.
Windows runs on routers, like the 54G, just as Linux distributions like OpenWRT, dd-wrt, etc?
I'm guessing what you mean is that a Windows desktop could kinda do some routing. It could. That's Windows running a desktop, doing some routing (poorly). That's not running on a router.
On the other hand, Windows runs really well on a desktop in the third grade classroom. That's not surprising since that's what Windows is for. It turns out, screwdrivers do a good job of turning screws. Hammers do a better job of hammering nails. Yeah, you CAN sort of pound a nail with a screwdriver and it might kind of work some of the time, but it's very definitely the wrong tool for the job. If you want to pound nails, use a hammer. Don't add an 18-ounce head to my screwdriver so you can pound nails with it.
Alas, some daemons will need auto-restart-if-crashes, indeed must be configured that way to avoid completely burning out the support team after legacy_unsupported_daemon_x crashes for the umpteenth time and pages someone who must manually restart the thus crashed daemon. Fix it? Oh well there's no money for that, developers cost money, see, and the service was really never meant to grow that large, or you know selinux leaks memory on threads in RHEL5 so you either gotta kill selinux dead or poke the software when it does run out of memory. Decisions, decisions.
Yes, in an ideal world, the (non-existent, because the formal model excluded them) bugs would be captured and fixed and software would be supported and non-shoddy and hey hey FREE PONIES!!! but no, there will be automated software restarts, or, two week notices.
Is there a pattern developing of people resigning from their roles as Debian maintainers? Recently Joey Hess submitted his resignation from the entire project: https://lists.debian.org/debia...
I think this whole "systemd" fiasco is nothing more than a black operation intended to hurt Debian. There are a lot of reasons why Debian would become a target for such an operation. Debian is a strong, powerful project to support true freedom and its not hard to think of why certain players would want to harm it in these sick times we live in.
If people don't think that black operations are real and that they happen they have not been paying attention for the past decades.
There are players in the world with vast resources at their disposal to use to engage in these sorts of activities. Sometimes they get caught red-handed but not always.
Surely the fact that all these posts filled with invective are coming from AC's should be a serious red flag.
I hate to say this, but the Debian team need to realize that they are targets for some potentially very dark actions because that increasingly is the type of world we live in. They can no longer afford to be naive of such things.
And who is one of Red Hat's most lucrative customers?
The National Security Administration
It's no surprise that Linux makes a better server than Windows
debatable
, a much better phone,
debatable
and works well on a router where Windows can't run at all.
Debatable? See how many supercomputers in Top500 run Linux and how many of them run Windows. I will answer that for you - only 1 supercomputer in Top500 list run on Windows... There is a reason why almost any performance-centric system prefers Linux-based distros.
God. OK. While I agree with you in many things, there are a few things that you seem to have missed:
1. Debian (or general-purpose Linux generally) isn't simple anymore. These days are over and there's no way to get them back. Really. This is true for EVERYTHING in Debian/Linux and in every other OS. General-purpose systems tend to become more complex to be more easy on the outside. And there's no way around that.
2. The "community". I don't even know where to start. The "community" has turned into a mob that knows everything and gets nothing done. I'm sick of that. Strong opinions about things with no alternative implementations are worth exactly nothing.
3. Sit down and develop something better and defend it.
4. There is no step 4.
Meanwhile I really fear that several community-based projects will happily fail just because there are legions of people who know perfectly what they hate and have no precise idea what they want to have or even would sit down and DO IT. Do I like SystemD? No, it sucks, just like every other comparable system. Do you know what I hate even more? Not having ANYTHING to work with and to rely on it staying around.
Debian (and Wikipedia by the way too) is becoming a bit like a failed state: Factions that love fighting more than building something and kill each other while there's hardly anything left than smoking ruins around them. If there's someone doing something that you don't like and won't listen to you than either just sit down and do something better or shut the fuck up.
Debian is becoming a lesson in applied entropy.
I use XFCE. Would I be able to purge systemd? Like many, I was drawn to Debian because of its 'when it's ready - and stable' philosophy. So to see what's happening now is saddening. I've recently started looking at BSD.
libsystemd0 is only still there because cups-daemon and kde-runtime require it; but given that it only defines the interfaces, it seems benign.
I must disagree with this. By having the code on the system this means you have to keep an eye out for security udates. While this is only one package, this presents a large surface area for attack and will need many updates. Updates may not effect library code, but the fact that the package version number increments means you need to newer package in order to get the system not to complain.
I think you are paranoid in suspecting SysVinit supporters being a front end for Putin/NSA etc. Sure their relentless hate attacks against Linux developers and Linux porjects may look like a concerted effort to split the Linux community, but at least some of them are sincere Linux users, perhaps lacking modern technical insight, but well-meaning never the less.
From where I sit, the opposition is from people who don't like, approve or trust how systemd is incorporating more and more into itself. It smacks some people of bad design, bloated design and insecure design. Plus, it's the kind of behavior most often seen and witnessed by the historical enemies of Linux; it's the method of feature creep that reminds people of Microsoft and others, designed to make it difficult, if not impossible, to use anything else... ("lock-in" by another name). I'm sure that much of the "small elite" in opposition are opposed because Linux was supposed to be the revolution that got us *away* from that sort of monolithic control that they see systemd as.
As for me? meh.
"The best analogy in the Windows world for systemd is the Win95 registry..."
The Windows registry was designed to make it very, very difficult for people to make copies of software to use on another computer. The Windows registry was intentional obfuscation, and very much against the needs of users, because of the huge amounts of time it takes to understand and fix problems with the registry.
A comment below says, "SystemD is RedHat's version of embrace and extend." That seems a better explanation. The way it is being done is certainly deliberate. Starting a big hassle that damages the reputation of Linux is certainly against the needs of the users.
It seems that the entire U.S. culture is becoming more adversarial. For example, there are health care insurance policies that are written in such a way that the insured will not understand that they aren't being fully covered.
Companies are deliberately over-billing. Many people cannot afford the time to find all the ways they are being treated badly.
abandon it before too much ground is scorched.
what about xfce, could that work?
Bizarre reply. There is cowardice, and then there is foolishness. Listing your email address on a public forum would be the latter.
Are you trying to imply that the original AC was _not_ a coward for heatedly attacking a volunteer behind the veil of anonymity?
I would be happy if that were the case but your reservation "at least some people" deeply concerns me.
I can't understand why any rational person would go on a tirade against the best OS on the planet because of something like an init system. Either they are concealing deliberately malevolent intentions or else are really, really stupid.
Fortunately I think that Debian is more than strong enough to easily withstand any black ops directed against it. But I have no doubt that there are entities in our world who would like to destroy the Debian project because it threatens many things and confounds their plans to enslave everyone.
Actually resistence did form a few years back with both OpenRC and Upstart. The problem is those two projects failed to keep up. So the Linux community is confronted with the weird situation where they don't have choice. Normally there is chaos for years with competing standards this time there is 1 option. Sort of like if either Gnome or KDE had failed in the late 1990s.
What do you mean? Systemd does process management. That's what's introducing the dependencies it is a process manager. Why would you fork process management away from the process manager?
Of course it is going to be forked. There will most likely be child distributions of Debian that don't use systemd. There certainly will be embedded distributions that don't use systemd and those can be built up with current software.
We each have our breaking point. Anyone will break when subject to a verbal tirade of appropriate intensity. Yes, even you, Mr/Miss AC. It's just as valid a reason as family, health, or job issues.
You are not in a position to call out his character, unless you've experienced what he did. Unless you've volunteered yourself, given up your precious time and effort, for no recompense, and then been insulted, threatened, cursed, and have had every hateful expression thrown at you for your work. You cannot judge, because you just don't _know_.
The fact that there is such a toxic environment is the cause of my worry. That environment is not just in Debian developer circles. Every Slashdot poster, AC or otherwise, that has cheered this decision is a contributor to that poison. Every hater that has posted in any forum is a contributor to that poison. If you have done so, think long and hard about where you want open source software to go. Because if it continues down this path, there will be little future for it, and that's quite sad to me.
The positive thing to do, rather than rant and rave, is to go out and create a better alternative! Create, rather than destroy. I believe that forking is a positive thing to do. At least you're creating something new, which may even have a future, instead of cursing those who are actually trying to do something.
Would be a good theory except: Suse, CoreOS, Ubuntu, Oracle.... are also going systemd. If that were RedHat's plan you don't think they would have an interest in stopping it. And for that matter let's not forget things like IBM and Linux on Azure.
I guess you never heard of Windows CE which ran everything from embedded PBX systems to my satnav in the car. It has full network support and runs in a remarkably tiny space. It most definitely CAN run on a tiny embedded chip in a router. Just because there's no OpenWRT equivalent doesn't make your statement any less wrong.
Or you could look at the licencing agreements for Windows Datacentre edition on a per processor basis and you'll see the reason is no one can AFFORD to run Windows on a super computer.
Man I must be turning into a Slashdot junkie because I swore I wouldn't say this but .... correlation != causation.
Don't know. I don't run xfce, so I don't know what it depends on. Here's how I did it, if you're comfortable with aptitude's interactive resolver:
then review the list of conflicts and suggestions in simulate mode. (I started without explicitly marking libsystemd0 for install, but after I realised its list of reverse-dependencies, I relented.)
I proceeded by looking at the 800ish packages it suggested removing, picking two or three packages I use and marking them as rejected (in my case, initially kmail, kdm, xserver-xorg-video-all), cycling to the next suggested resolution. then repeat. Whenever it suggested installing a systemd package, I rejected that suggestion too.
Eventually I settled on removing about 20 packages I didn't need (networkmanager, gnome-shell, some evolution packages, etc). Then I re-ran it without the simulate option.
Afterwards, I realised that I really wanted something to manage the network for me, so I had to manually bring the wifi network up, and
"Go to CNN [for a] spell-checked, fact-checked summary" -- CmdrTaco
You do realize that CE is a completely separate operating system from Windows, right? A completely different kernel, different APIs, the whole thing.
Microsoft sold OS/2 as well, that doesn't make it Windows.
You wouldn't. Gnome's dependency is not on systemd and as far as I know none of the so called dependencies of down stream apps are on a process manager (GIMP depends on gudev, which depends on udev and on many systems this involves systemd). From what I can tell Gnome depends on logind to do login and session management, and logind depends on systemd for reasons that didn't exist until a little while ago (Gnome's dependency on logind actually goes back a while).
There are things like pam, policy management as well for Gnome. Logind btw needs process management because of power of/on and sleep conditions (wakup) requiring relogin.
Leaving the team before Jessie is released is just so fucking cowardly, I don't see how the guy can look at himself in the mirror. Weird that none of the other maintainers on the systemd team have even criticized him a little for increasing their ever demanding workload. Tollef is either trying to separate himself from the impending clusterfuck release, or his resignation is a political hack to put pressure on the Debian Technical Committee members to reverse their latest decision and force Ian's GR to be dropped, or maybe he's just a crybaby that didn't get what he wanted and is packing up his marbles and going home. Either way, he's a coward.
He's a coward all right.
He's a coward for letting the "haters" get to him. He's a coward for leaving his team mates to take up his share of an already burdensome workload. He's a coward for leaving the project in a state that will probably ensure its failure. He's a coward for setting a poor example to his children. He's telling them that's it ok to turn your back on your commitments and the people you work with that depend on you just because you got your feelings hurt, or you didn't get your way. He's a coward, period, and it doesn't matter who says it, it's all for the world to see. It's so fucking typical of the white male privilege nowdays to only think of your own feelings, your own emotions with little consideration to the people that depend on you.
BTW, you say that I have no standing to criticize him, yet who the fuck are you to mansplain to me Tollef's supposed emotional state that led to his cowardly act of quitting? Yo, Tollef! If you're reading this maybe you can answer. At least show that you have the balls to defend yourself directly instead of letting your beta buddies cry about "toxic" environments.
ps. those fucking SJW tropes are trite and tiresome.
The user should have the option to pick either sysvinit or systemd or any other init. I am not against systemd but I would like to have the possibility of making a choice. That is also the sentiment I came away with after reading countless posts on this issue all over the net. I am afraid systemd will become a "huger".
Maybe I'm misinformed, but I'm quite wary of systemd myself.
I use Gnome3, Mate or XFCE alternatively, but never tried KDE.
From what you say, it seems to be a good alternative when Jessie will become stable.
What to look for when transitioning from Gnome to KDE?
Is purging systemd like you did tricky for a newbie like me?
Sorry, your words have little weight because you're posting them as an Anonymous Coward. More hypocrisy at show, as far as I'm concerned.
SJW? Hmmm, never heard of that term before. After looking it up, I don't think you've used it correctly.
So you are a newbie and wanna drop your whole current preferred desktop experience because you don't like what's written about system component that you most probably aren't interacting directly in everyday use, despite developers of the desktop you like, decided it will be good to depend on it for your benefit (or their laziness ;) )? My advice is, stop eating FUD, really. If you are using Linux for philosophical reasons, both inits are a free software, you may read their sources and play with them. For technical — it's dekstop for heaven's sake! It won't limit you. And even if SystemD would be so buggy as some people want you to believe, it won't blow up every other day. But it isn't – it just works, otherwise most of rants wouldn't be on philosophical or design principles nature, but implementation quality one. And no self respecting distribution would switch to it. There are edge cases when it may cause trouble. You you've got one? Report a bug, switch to the other init or both. If not, why do you care?
And regarding KDE – it's nifty, try it. Maybe you'll like it. I do!
Oh, if as a newbie you want to learn on inits. I'm afraid you need to learn both, as probably none of them will completely disappear anytime soon.
You're as SJW as they come deeky boy. And you still haven't answered who the fuck you are to defend Tollef. BTW, what was the name of the child who pointed out the Emperor had no clothes? Just some anonymous brat, I assume. Tollef's reason for quitting is cowardly.