That's the whole point of all of this mess: {,k}dbus
Neither an init system nor vertical integration are the goal. The one consistent thing in all of the "systemd mess" is to leave the actual implementation officially a moving target where the trditional.so based library APIs are either hidden and undocumented or they are left out entirely. This forces you to use an IPC mechanism (dbus/kdbus) instead of simply linking to the functions you need and calling them directly. Forcing data to be serialized/unserialized so it can be sent over IPC is not nearly as efficient as calling a dynamically loaded local function. The systemd people love fast thing ("boot time!", etc), so why would they require this slow IPC everywhere?
*** if you never need to link to a library to use it, you can "link" to and distribute GPL code without being bound by the GPL. Poettering's cabal and systemd is an attempt to enable a new form of "tivoization" ***
If you are technically only "using" a library (no linking, no modifications to the library), you have not "infected" your proprietary code with the GPL. It's slower, but computers got fast enough that it doesn't really matter.
The nasty part is that by forcing arbitrary incompatable interface with systemd, to run stuff like GNOME you have to provide the key dbus features even if you don't use systemd. The end-run around the GPL still works with uselessd or any other "systemd replacement".
Unfortunatley, Lennart's cabal has everybody discussing technical features so this obvious goal isn't even addressed.
Flamebait? I thought this is the new standard for discourse with the systemd cabal. *sigh*
Applogies if it seems harsh; consider this Linus style "strong opinions". When you've used linux all the way back to kernel 1.2.13, watching coup to turn linux into windows hits hard.
(paraphrasing a previous post of mine, becuase more people should see this)
It breaks existing promises, and makes few new promises in return.
There has been a lot of talk about the various technical problems with systemd and its developers inexperience-betraying design decisions. As bad as those are, they miss the larger point. There has also been a lot of very important talk about philosophy of design ("the unix way") that again shows how little experience the developers have and their disregard for the work people have already done and will have to do to fix the systemd mess.
These topics are valid, but miss the larger problem that systemd represents and the threat it is to Free Software in the Linux ecosystem.
As an excuse for all the vertical integration Poettering's cabal have been busy aglutenating into what they still sometimes claim is "justs an init system" has been the laughable claim that systemd is in any way "modular". They claim that "modular" is a *compile time* feature, or some property related to the fact that they build several ELF binaries. This is not modular, because it does not represent some form of stable, well-defined API.
What is an API (Application Programming Interface)? It's not a technical feature. It is not documentation that describes how to use some set of features. It is not a calling convention. So what is it?
An API is a PROMISE.
It is a social feature, not a technical one.
The functions and documentation are just a particular implementation of that promise. The key attribute that makes an API an API is that it is a promise by the developer: "If you want to interact with some feature, this is the way to do so, because while other internal stuff may change at any time, I promise this set of functions will be stable and reliable".
Binding previously-separate features into one project is bad design, by itself, the problem with systemd. The problem came when Poettering stripped down the barriers betwen features with the specific goal of removing established APIs (and breaking existing promises that developers relied on). His stuff may compile into various separate programs, but Pottering is very careful to keep various key interfaces "unstable" (despite being good enough for RHEL), specifically to not make any promise about how those interfaces will work in the future. He likes to call this hididng of interfaces "efficency" or "removing complexity". What he never mentions is that many of us used those promises, and by removing them he has at best forced others to do a lot of work to fix the breakage, or at worse made various features impossible.
A good example is logind, which was absorbed into systemd just so promises about its behaviuor in the future ("stable APIs") could be removed.
The reason many of us that have been watching Poettering's cabal for many years now suggest these changes are intentional and malicious are based on this. Occasionally removing features because of a technical need or bug or security requirement is understandable. Purposfully stripping out entire sets of features - that is, the features that allow other groups to develop with confidence that some feature they won't simply vanish - is something entirely different.
If MS acted like Poettering's cabal and removed a formerly-public API that competetors used - while promoting their own product that happens to use internal, not-publicly-promised APIs, the world would be screaming "monopoly". This happened, and resulted in several high-profile court cases.
## systemd threatens the GPL ##
It goes without saying that many people would like to distribute various GPL licenced software and not be bound by the terms it requires. The fact that some of these same people use the courts to threaten people who do the same to their software is noted, but off topic for now. The problem is t
The anonymous letter above has some good ideas about respecting the Constitution. You swore an oath to defend that social contract, and that oath is one of the most respectible American values I know. i know nothing about you and your history, so I respectfully - and hopefully - give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that has an American Admiral, you understand words such as "oath", "honor" and "duty" better than most.
The duty to defend the Constitution is not an easy one at times, but it is something your fellow citizens will respect. The would even come to aid you if you should need them; you only have to ask. Open up the whole problem, without the usual spy-talk filled with obfuscation and dissembling, and ask the many intelligent men and women - your friends and neighbors. The internet seems help us solve even complex problem when we work together. Yes, this might require retreating from some current investigations; the investment you would gain by having support by working with your fellow citizens will more than make up for any short-term losses. Call if a "strategic retreat", if you want.
The previous anonymous letter mentioned a key point:
if You've already hinted at part of the solution -- differentiate between a cheeto-stained guy in a Guy Fawkes mask, versus a PLA, FSB, or NSA operative who's actually trying to do economic harm to America...
This is a key idea, and the NSA - or, possibly, this country - cannot last if the intelligence community is undermining the rest of the country. We have already seen billions of dollars in damage over this, and cannot take much more. As a suggestion on how to address the problem targeting your collections, you may want to consider re-hiring William Binney and Thomas Drake. Their original program known as THINTHREAD may not be the ultimate solution to this situation, but the ideas it had about encrypting all captured until an individual warrant is provided seems like a good place to start.
This country, more than ever, needs people to defend the Constitution. It's a simple document, with good ideas. Now, more than any time in the last two hundred years, has our founding document and highest law needed defending. It has threats that are foreign, and even larger threats that are domestic.
Admiral, I do not envy your position and the hard challenges ahead of you. Fortunately, your oath makes the path ahead clear. Good luck and godspeed.
/not posting anonymously, because I stand behind my words
//just like I stand behind the right to post anonymously by anybody who so desires
This would be hilarious if it didn't imply such a terrible future for Debian. In the infamous debian-ctte arguments, one of the big reasons the systemd advocates insisted it was so important to only use systemd was their claim that maintaining multiple options would be far too much work.
I think it was only Ian Jackson that truly recognized that this wasn't a complaint about workload - it was a threat that systemd would become a moving target should Debian fail to conform.
The thing the inexperienced systemd developers (but I repeat myself) do not understand is that "modular" isn't about some technical detail such as how you compile various features. For example, busybox intentionally compiles everything into one big binary. The features it provides, on the other hand, are still very modular in the UNIX sense. The key difference is that the tools busybox provides ("cat", "wc", "mkdir", "dd", and many others) all implement well defined APIs.
What is an Application Programming Interface (API)? It's not some function you can call, or the fact that a program understands some option ("--foo"). It is not even the documentation that may or may not be provided that describes how to use some feature. So what is it?
An API is a PROMISE.
It is a social feature, not a technical one. The functions, options, and documentation are just the technical implementation of that promise. The key part of an API is that it is a promise by the developer that if you want to interact with some feature, this is the way to do so, because while other internal stuff may change at any time, the promised API will be stable and reliable.
The problem with systemd is exactly this. Pulling a n00b move and agglutinating various features into one project is annoying and not recommended, but it is not, on its ownn, a reason to avoid systemd. The problem came when Poettering stripped down the barriers betwen features with the specific goal of removing established APIs. His stuff may compile into various separate programs, but Pottering is very careful to keep various key interfaces "unstable", specifically to not make any promise about how those interfaces will work in the future. He likes to call this hididng of interfaces "efficency" or "removing complexity". What he never mentions is that many of us used those promises, and by removing them he has at best forced others to do a lot of work to fix the breakage, or at worse made various features impossible.
A good example is logind, which was absorbed into systemd just so promises about its behaviuor in the future ("stable APIs") could be removed.
The reason many of us that have been watching Poettering's cabal for many years now suggest these changes are intentional and malicious are based on this. Occasionally removing features because of a technical need or bug or security requirement is understandable. Purposfully stripping out entire sets of features - that is, the features that allow other groups to develop with confidence that some feature they won't simply vanish - is something entirely different.
If MS acted like Poettering's cabal and removed a formerly-public API that competetors used - while promoting their own product that happens to use internal, not-publicly-promised APIs, the world would be screaming "monopoly". This happened, and resulted in several high-profile court cases.
So go ahead an prove that you don't know what you're talking about and assert that systemd is in any way "modular", when non-modularity was an explicit goal behind systemd. The rest of us are choosing to not go along with Poettering's attempt to embrace and extend Linux into a cheap, buggy, feature-free windows clone.
Ahh, and here comes the shill, with the usual personal attacks and strawmen. Yes, go ahead and praise Poettering's cult of personality and ignore the many people in this very thread who rebutted the nonsense that there was a need to replace "init scripts". By focusing on that point alone you get to pretend that systemd is "just an in init system", and hasn't embraced and extended a long list of other tools.
Evidence? LOL. More evidence that you are either lying to push propaganda, or shockingly ignorant of what Poettering himself has said about the state and future of systemd. Or do you not consider the creator and manager of systemd to be a reliable source? Do you want to still pretend this issue is about "just an init system"? Because that would essentially be calling Poettering a liar.
I'm sure you won't bother properly understanding this... at least in public. Obviously, the goal is to simply bully the people who disagree with you. Sorry, no, we aren't going to simply shut up, and stop pointing out how Linux worked just fine, despite your unsubstantiated assertions.
You want a suggestion on how to fix things? Stop breaking everybody else's code! Any minor problem that sysvinit had has been vastly overshadowed by the breakage systemd has caused.
While the obvious answer is that Poetternig/RedHat wants a windows alternative they can sell to "big" software developers, a more cynical (and mildly speculative) answer is that systemd is an outstanding way to shoehord into linux all the things that linux users would never normally allow. PID 0 is an important spot to control; if it wants to, it can control what programs are started and under what permissions. There are a few groups that really want this capability, or at least the capability to add something optional that can later be a forced dependency in GNOME or some other popular package.
The first group that comes to mind are the people who want DRM and a protected media path. A monoculture that forces features on users whever it wants to change things is the only way you'd get around the problem of having distributions simply compiling out or otherwise ignoring your DRM. Systemd has effectively raised the costs of not using whatever future "upgrade" is mandated, because the tight integration means you have to replace all the other software you now use as well.
Another group that would really like it if a buggy, alpha-quality, horribly overcomplicated, uncommented, unproven, monolithic black-box of software was a required to use Linux is... the NSA. Simplicity is important when it comes to key services like PID 0. I'm sure it's just a coincidence that the NSA is one of RedHat's larger customers, and that the NSA - while suberting NIST, Cisco, etc - submitted various pateches through redhat. I have no proof, of course, but you don't get security by assuming eveybody is being "nice". I strongly suggest listening to PHK's talk on this subject.
Finally, I'll link a post I just made over at HN. The reason systemd is causing emotions to run high is because it is trying to do to linux what has been done to many other tools: dumb it down and hide how it works. There are a lot of people trying to do that right now, because the idea of open computing that *cannot be limited* (see: "turing complete"). Welcome to the Civil-War On General Purpose Computing.
The fact that systemd is causing fragmentation - arguably worse fragmentation than any previous disagreement in the Linux community - is a valid (though not particualrly interesting) argument, because a primary design goal of systemd is conformity. Poettering has stated many times that his goal is to force distirbutions to use his one-true-way, and he often uses the supposed complexity of having to write portable code as an argument for why systemd and nobody else should be the software that manages the "core system".
This fragmentation means systemd is failing at it's own goals.
The SystemD developers are self-described unix-haters, who have very strong feeling against ever having to use a "shell script".
Aside from that, this is one of the big problems with the systemd evangelists: they assert that there was some set of missing features that "nobody was willing to implement" outside of Poettering's cabal. They never mention that they were the ones to make up most of those problems, and the few they didn't make up were already solved by existing tools.
(auto-restart was solved ages ago with DJB's daemontools)
I've used it and could list SystemD's various technical issues, but that isn't and never has been the point.
The complaints we have about SystemD - and the Poettering cabal in geneal - is not about any technical issues. Bugs can be fixed; bad design, antisocial not-invented-here attitudes, and disregard/blindness to any use case outside their experience are what we have been complaining about. After about 2 years of arguing the topic, we've had to add rudeness, blatant propaganda, and attempts to bully opposing views to the list of complaints.
Typically, SystemD defenders - such as yourself - spend a lot of time and effort disrupting forums and discussion threads by posting strawmen, non-sequiters, or simply praising SystemD as it applies to very narrow use-cases. Recently, the tactic has bene what you are doing right now: accuse the opposition of being "old" or "luddite" or "hating change". It is quite telling, actually: a big complaint against SystemD's development style (as mentioned in this article if you bothered to RTFA) is that they don't bother to understand how people outside their immediate group actually use their computers, or what their needs are. Comments like this are exactly what we're talking about.
Nobody has been saying systemd should be banned or that you wanting to use it is bad. Nobody has said OpenRC or sysvinit should be the only option. If some tool solves problems for you or make your life easier - or even if you just like the tool's style/asthetics - then use it. What we're complaining about, more than anything else, is the tight coupling that SystemD has been doing, as it prevents everbody else from having that same freedom of choice.
Once, a very long time ago (internet years) when an image of a certain borg-ified CEO was common, there was a phrase that was commonly used to describe Microsoft's monopolistic actions against competing technologies: embrace, extend and extinguish. Many discussions on slashdot warned about how Microsoft was trying to "embrace and extend" various standards such as Kerberos.
So instult us if you like - it makes our arguments against SystemD's attitude for us. You can even sit in ignorance, if you desire, while Poettering embraces and extends linux so he can remove all the useful parts form it. The rest of us that have watched this happen before will continue using Free Software that preserves freedoms such as the freedom to choose your init system. We have been marginalized and a social outcast in the past and are used to crap like this. Just remember that it was that same freedom of choice that provided a place for SystemD to be developed in the first place.
I'm not actually advocating an amendment; I'm suggesting that if powers were *actually needed* (then the public would likely be willing to work with the intelligence and law-enforcement communities. The fact that it's so obviously NOT an "actual need", that these unamerican cowards don't even TRY the lawful route and instead jump straight to dissembling and obfuscation betrays their guilty mind. A "proof-by-contradiction", more or less.
A law enforcement agency invented or discovered a new technique, that can help them in their job? Great! It's good to hear that they are exercising their creatived talents and advancing their field. As long as the new methods are legal and constitutional, there is no problem. If, on the other hand, it croses the constitutional limits in small ways, that's understandable - time change, and if the proposal is reaonable, the constitution can change with it.
So the simple solution is to see if an Amendment can be passed to allow it. Worries about criminals finding out aren't relevant - you can' t use it in a court anyway. As for worries about the NSA or CIA flying in to classify it, well, it's a LOT harder to put that geenie back in the bottle once amendment debates start happening. Even in the worse case where this particular case is ruined from the public disclosure, the investment towards free use of a new category of tools in the future could easly be worth the setback.
Now, I'm sure a lot of you are thinking I'm being sarcastic (or delusional). It's not like such an amendment would ever have a chance at passing, right? Well... that's hard to say. I would probably be against it as initially proposed, but that's not relevant - by making the proposal, and opening up the topic for public discussion and public input, instead of working in secret, maybe we - the citizens - can negotiatiate with our neighbors and figure out a way to allow this new law-enforcement technique. How can we know how such a debate would go? Yes, it's a risk, but so is working in secret, hoping nobody finds out about some new technique.
Maybe it just needs some ground rules about when/where it can be used. Maybe we could allow it if it had some sort of oversight/watchdog group. Maybe we can invent some new type of social compromise; after all, it's a new technique - maybe it needs a new way of fitting into our legal system.
Stop right there. Some random telecommunications engineer and a lobbyist ain't the same fucking thing.
Ain't no fukcing ballpark neither. Now, look, maybe your way of judging bias differes from mine, but, you know, having some personal biases and having a job that literally tries to biasing people for a 3rd party ain't the same fucking ballpark.
It ain't the same league. It ain't even the same fucking sport.
I think there's a slight misscommunication here (probably on my part).
The instability in NK isn't only from a change in attitude, though that HAS been significant in recent years. The instability comes from the fact that it's getting harder and harder to ignore the *starving population* and *rapidly failing "industry"*. Even the strongest True Believer in the Kim family regime has to be doing an increasinly absurd amount of justification. The fact that some (still VERY small, but growing) portion of the population has started to look outside that carefully controlled box is a byproduct of this decay. There are many parts of NK that are really only holding together by the thinest of threads, and that imbalance is harder to support when you run out of natural resources and productiivty to pillage.
Hence the problem for China: if NK went full rebellion, tthat would sugest there's a certain critical mass of people within NK that could handle stuff like rebuilding their infrastructure, at least in principle. After the dust settles, go in with some UN people to offer a bit of financial or industrial help while they bootstarp. As bad as revolutions are, that situation at least has a "reasonable" chance at a stable, not-horribly-expensive-for-China outcome.
Unfortunately, as you note, there ISN'T enough support for a traditional rebellion. It's a big change in attitude for NK, but you can't erase that much indoctroination overnight. They likely will need a nation's worht of "deprogrammers"/exit-councelers or somesuch, which is *not* something China (or anybody) really wants to be suck providing.
So many people here obviously haven't learned anything new about the NK situation in the last 10 yeears, or even the last 5.
Basically any real "stability" in the country died with Kim Jong-il. It probably collapsed much earlier, though that gets harder to pin down the further you go back. The key point, though, is what once was a more-or-less unified group of fanatics has slowly come to realize that there's another world out there, and the reality of what their leaders are has become harder and harder to ignore.
Doubt this? Think there's still some kind of politics or ideology at work here, making NK the same "annoyance" they were 10 - or even 5 - years ago? Then watch this brave NK womanpublicly confront a soldier, shame him, and chase him off.
A handful of years ago that would have been suicidal - or worse.
Oh, and China? The politics of the past doesn't matter. What they know now is that there are a VERY large number of people - mostly decent people, most likely - that have lived their whole lives in what was, more or less, a cult. And they know that there is a very real risk that those "[sometimes former] cult members" could become "starving refugees" almost overnight.
Even if they wanted to, that's a crisis on a scale not even China can sweep under a rug. They are facing the possiblity of being neighbors to a country with a small number of fanatics/old-guard that no longer have real power (enough to be a problem, though), a MASSIVE numbre of people who really need some sort of deprogramming/cult-exit-councelor, and some unknown mix of economic assistance, knowledge assistance/guidance, etc. If they end up with an incredible amount of luck, the people of NK might just be able to so they can bootstrap their country into something aproaching sustainable.
I suspect that China, more than anything, wishes they could simply get rid of this mess.
I have read the news, and while there are quite a few spots around the world - some of them islamic. None of them are particularly threatening. We have a military that drawfs the militaries of the rest of the world combined.
Or are you saying that the fine men and women in our various armed forces are so incompetent that they couldn't defend against an attack from a far smaller, far weaker enemy? (not to mention all those impressive tool and weaponss we've invented) Such a position would be rather insulting to those serving to defend this country.
To suggest that any small terrorist group is any kind of actual threat implies that either 1) you have no idea wthat you're talking about ("the fool"), 2) you are unable to tell the difference between political rhetoric and a an actual threat of attack ("the easily frightened"), or 3) you're trying to scare other people with bogeymen in an effort to push another agenda ("the shill").
Maybe you'll find something if you look.
You know what I see in the news/etc? Certain US agencies and elected officials breaking their oaths to the constitution, spreading panic to get what they want, and generally doing their best to ruing this country's reputation.
So ou're right - we should keep up with the news and learn from the real threat: the unamerican traitors that are trying to destroy the very things this country if founded upon.
You really, REALLY need to listen to the lessons in the talk. The the current "You'll get over it" attitude hurt fark a lot, and it will hurt you too. The talk covers the issue VERY well, though, and there is still time to reverse course by following the lesson the talk presents. They clearly show a way you CAN intoduce a new set of features like your beta in a way that doesn't scare existing users.
In all seriousness, this will be the most important hour of video you'll watch in years. Learn from those that made mistakes in the past... and were kind enough to *discuss* those mistakes in public so we can avoide repeating the failures!
As I said (late) in the previous thread, the people over at Fark gave an incredible talk on this very issue, after figuring out how to recover from their "You'll get over it" incident. It is literally the perfect discussion of the ways/. is failing hard right now.
As you say, it's about a fundamental miss-understanding of relationship, by thinking of your members as an "audience", and not peers. Even worse, they are peers that are only here because it's the current familiar ploace to "hang out" at. Piss them off - or even simply surprise them the wrong way and they will simply go hang out somewhere else.
(*sigh* - the/. staff doing the beta *REALLY* needs to watch this talk ASAP, because they are currently doing basically *every* single bad move discussed in the talk. Yes, you there, slashdot staff - drop what you're doing and watch this talk right now. There's a good chance you know the incident I'm refering to with the phrase "You'll get over it", and you need to listen to these lessons from those that walked the path your're currently on. You still have time to reverse course, if you change right now)
Yah, they could use an editor. Do note, though, that many of the authors have been at this for years now; the weary may be showing a bit. I certainly noticed a bit at this VERY interesting talk by two of the authors (Drake, Binney, with Jesselyn Radack also speaking) from a year ago at 29C3 . They're certainly not practiced public speakers, either.... but hearing theory stories told first-person more than makes up for any such deficency O.O
You'll note that the only link I provided that brought up "phone metadata" disagrees with that assessment, but that's not really important. As I'm sure you noticed, I'm talking about a larger problem than any one court case, about how we seem to have a status-quo where patent 4th Amendment violations are ignored. When writs of assistance are regularly used to justify mass collection[*] without specific warants, we're obviously not using the *Constitution* any more, and the SCOTUS isn't particularly relevant.
I'm sure you have some better response for THINTHREAD-vs-TRAILBLAZER and the NSA's role in 9/11, right? Instead of just projecting more onto Snowden? Or are your too busy masturbating over your assination fantasies like so many other NSA-apologists seem to be doing recently?
[*] Note: do NOT bother replying with the usual NSA doublespeak. If they get to redefine "collecting" to to mean "only if we choose to log that we looked at it, even though it's in our database", then I get to redefine "protest" into all kinds of fun things. Words have meanings, and you know it.
As interesting as Snowden is, this is a distraction from the more important (and probably more urgent) question of... when are the criminals at the NSA going to be brought to justice?
Also, when do we fire the people that sold out our actual spy talent - with their far more targeted, far more 4th Amendment compatible tools like THINTHREAD - instead of continuing to give a paycheck to the assholes that let 9/11 happen so they could keep funneling money to their contractor friends to develop the far more expensive TRAILBLAZER? The families of the victims that died do this willful neglegence will probably want to file civil lawsuits, too.
A cornerstone of the very idea of "justice" is equal protection before the law, and these people need to get their day in court. If they do, then maybe we can start to put this feckless imbroglio behind us and move on, with only the usual political drama to worry about.
On the other hand, if we fail to accomplish this task - if we fail to obtain some basic symbol that the Constitution is still respected as the highest law of the land - then we've really given up any last pretense that this is any kind of civilized nation with a social contract.
no, what Snowden did was to make the crimes of his superiors public, aka "whistleblowing". At no point does "civil disobedience" enter into this.
The only chaning of laws that have even been mentioned by him is to respect the constitution. Do you really want to claim that respecting the constitution - the highest law of the land - is civil disobedience?
It's a good thing, then, that Snowden - nor anybody actually following this saga - is claiming that Snowden is engaging in "civil disobedience".
Snowden is a whistleblower.
Furthermore, the espionage act (which he is currently charged under) would NOT allow him to defend himself in court, so these cries that he should have stayed and faced our legal system are only asking for a show trial similar to those found in the Star Chamber.
So which are you? "badly misinformed" or "NSA shill"?
We've been slowly moving in that direction for quite some time now. Often, when some of those small, individual steps have been noticed and discussed, the discussion tends to (understandably) focus on the declne itself and the problems it brings.
Unfortunately, this almost always ignores another slowly-amplifying aspect of the problem: the gradual conditioning (Pavlov-style) of the people responsible. Each time we - The People - allow abuse of power to go unpunished or a another roadblock placed in the way of our Rights, the politician responsible is trained to do it again. We are very slowly traiing our politicians to believe that nobody will actually stop them. Even worse, we reward some of it, such as when we give paid vacations instead of years-in-prison whenever the police beat somebody up.
So now we have a problem on our hands: we've taught some people that they are above the law. We've taught that the risk of being caught is so close to zero that such concepts don't apply to them. When you have people that no longer fear reprecussions, there is no incentive for them to change. An argument could be made that it would even be a rational decision, given how reliable the historical record has been.
I strongly suspect that we won't see real change until this feedback-loop has been disrupted. Once the usual human level of fear has been re-established, we could see improvments quite quickly, but it has to be real - they have to truly fear that they could be held accountable for their own actions, in some way.
Hypothetically, there are a number of ways such a fear could be created. Traditionally, things like "being voted out of office" and "jail" have been used to decent effect. While I really wish such things were still realistic goals, I fear we have left those opportunities behind in the distant past.
Unfortunately, I fear there only one thing left that can break through the years of conditioning: the sight of one of their peers losing their head to the Guillotine[1] the angry mob constructed for the occasion. It might only take one - fear of that magnitude can shift attitudes amazinly fast. As a pacifist, though, I loath the idea[2] of such a tool could be necessary. There's still time for the players involved to choose one of the better alternatives.
As time goes on, the probability of some person(s) snapping and deciding to "fix" this mess French Revolution style is sounding far more realistic than a bunch of politicians suddenly ignoring years of conditioning and flipping sides, all on their own...
[1] : or the modern substitute [2]:...and really really really hope I am wrong about this
Slashdot Mirror
That's the whole point of all of this mess: {,k}dbus
Neither an init system nor vertical integration are the goal. The one consistent thing in all of the "systemd mess" is to leave the actual implementation officially a moving target where the trditional .so based library APIs are either hidden and undocumented or they are left out entirely. This forces you to use an IPC mechanism (dbus/kdbus) instead of simply linking to the functions you need and calling them directly. Forcing data to be serialized/unserialized so it can be sent over IPC is not nearly as efficient as calling a dynamically loaded local function. The systemd people love fast thing ("boot time!", etc), so why would they require this slow IPC everywhere?
*** if you never need to link to a library to use it, you can "link" to and distribute GPL code without being bound by the GPL. Poettering's cabal and systemd is an attempt to enable a new form of "tivoization" ***
If you are technically only "using" a library (no linking, no modifications to the library), you have not "infected" your proprietary code with the GPL. It's slower, but computers got fast enough that it doesn't really matter.
The nasty part is that by forcing arbitrary incompatable interface with systemd, to run stuff like GNOME you have to provide the key dbus features even if you don't use systemd. The end-run around the GPL still works with uselessd or any other "systemd replacement".
Unfortunatley, Lennart's cabal has everybody discussing technical features so this obvious goal isn't even addressed.
Flamebait? I thought this is the new standard for discourse with the systemd cabal. *sigh*
Applogies if it seems harsh; consider this Linus style "strong opinions". When you've used linux all the way back to kernel 1.2.13, watching coup to turn linux into windows hits hard.
(paraphrasing a previous post of mine, becuase more people should see this)
It breaks existing promises, and makes few new promises in return.
There has been a lot of talk about the various technical problems with systemd and its developers inexperience-betraying design decisions. As bad as those are, they miss the larger point. There has also been a lot of very important talk about philosophy of design ("the unix way") that again shows how little experience the developers have and their disregard for the work people have already done and will have to do to fix the systemd mess.
These topics are valid, but miss the larger problem that systemd represents and the threat it is to Free Software in the Linux ecosystem.
## The problem with systemd's design: embrace and extend ##
As an excuse for all the vertical integration Poettering's cabal have been busy aglutenating into what they still sometimes claim is "justs an init system" has been the laughable claim that systemd is in any way "modular". They claim that "modular" is a *compile time* feature, or some property related to the fact that they build several ELF binaries. This is not modular, because it does not represent some form of stable, well-defined API.
What is an API (Application Programming Interface)? It's not a technical feature. It is not documentation that describes how to use some set of features. It is not a calling convention. So what is it?
An API is a PROMISE .
It is a social feature, not a technical one.
The functions and documentation are just a particular implementation of that promise. The key attribute that makes an API an API is that it is a promise by the developer: "If you want to interact with some feature, this is the way to do so, because while other internal stuff may change at any time, I promise this set of functions will be stable and reliable".
Binding previously-separate features into one project is bad design, by itself, the problem with systemd. The problem came when Poettering stripped down the barriers betwen features with the specific goal of removing established APIs (and breaking existing promises that developers relied on). His stuff may compile into various separate programs, but Pottering is very careful to keep various key interfaces "unstable" (despite being good enough for RHEL), specifically to not make any promise about how those interfaces will work in the future. He likes to call this hididng of interfaces "efficency" or "removing complexity". What he never mentions is that many of us used those promises, and by removing them he has at best forced others to do a lot of work to fix the breakage, or at worse made various features impossible.
A good example is logind, which was absorbed into systemd just so promises about its behaviuor in the future ("stable APIs") could be removed.
The reason many of us that have been watching Poettering's cabal for many years now suggest these changes are intentional and malicious are based on this. Occasionally removing features because of a technical need or bug or security requirement is understandable. Purposfully stripping out entire sets of features - that is, the features that allow other groups to develop with confidence that some feature they won't simply vanish - is something entirely different.
If MS acted like Poettering's cabal and removed a formerly-public API that competetors used - while promoting their own product that happens to use internal, not-publicly-promised APIs, the world would be screaming "monopoly". This happened, and resulted in several high-profile court cases.
## systemd threatens the GPL ##
It goes without saying that many people would like to distribute various GPL licenced software and not be bound by the terms it requires. The fact that some of these same people use the courts to threaten people who do the same to their software is noted, but off topic for now. The problem is t
Admiral Rogers,
The anonymous letter above has some good ideas about respecting the Constitution. You swore an oath to defend that social contract, and that oath is one of the most respectible American values I know. i know nothing about you and your history, so I respectfully - and hopefully - give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that has an American Admiral, you understand words such as "oath", "honor" and "duty" better than most.
The duty to defend the Constitution is not an easy one at times, but it is something your fellow citizens will respect. The would even come to aid you if you should need them; you only have to ask. Open up the whole problem, without the usual spy-talk filled with obfuscation and dissembling, and ask the many intelligent men and women - your friends and neighbors. The internet seems help us solve even complex problem when we work together. Yes, this might require retreating from some current investigations; the investment you would gain by having support by working with your fellow citizens will more than make up for any short-term losses. Call if a "strategic retreat", if you want.
The previous anonymous letter mentioned a key point:
This is a key idea, and the NSA - or, possibly, this country - cannot last if the intelligence community is undermining the rest of the country. We have already seen billions of dollars in damage over this, and cannot take much more. As a suggestion on how to address the problem targeting your collections, you may want to consider re-hiring William Binney and Thomas Drake. Their original program known as THINTHREAD may not be the ultimate solution to this situation, but the ideas it had about encrypting all captured until an individual warrant is provided seems like a good place to start.
This country, more than ever, needs people to defend the Constitution. It's a simple document, with good ideas. Now, more than any time in the last two hundred years, has our founding document and highest law needed defending. It has threats that are foreign, and even larger threats that are domestic.
Admiral, I do not envy your position and the hard challenges ahead of you. Fortunately, your oath makes the path ahead clear. Good luck and godspeed.
/not posting anonymously, because I stand behind my words
//just like I stand behind the right to post anonymously by anybody who so desires
This would be hilarious if it didn't imply such a terrible future for Debian. In the infamous debian-ctte arguments, one of the big reasons the systemd advocates insisted it was so important to only use systemd was their claim that maintaining multiple options would be far too much work.
I think it was only Ian Jackson that truly recognized that this wasn't a complaint about workload - it was a threat that systemd would become a moving target should Debian fail to conform.
The thing the inexperienced systemd developers (but I repeat myself) do not understand is that "modular" isn't about some technical detail such as how you compile various features. For example, busybox intentionally compiles everything into one big binary. The features it provides, on the other hand, are still very modular in the UNIX sense. The key difference is that the tools busybox provides ("cat", "wc", "mkdir", "dd", and many others) all implement well defined APIs.
What is an Application Programming Interface (API)? It's not some function you can call, or the fact that a program understands some option ("--foo"). It is not even the documentation that may or may not be provided that describes how to use some feature. So what is it?
An API is a PROMISE .
It is a social feature, not a technical one. The functions, options, and documentation are just the technical implementation of that promise. The key part of an API is that it is a promise by the developer that if you want to interact with some feature, this is the way to do so, because while other internal stuff may change at any time, the promised API will be stable and reliable.
The problem with systemd is exactly this. Pulling a n00b move and agglutinating various features into one project is annoying and not recommended, but it is not, on its ownn, a reason to avoid systemd. The problem came when Poettering stripped down the barriers betwen features with the specific goal of removing established APIs. His stuff may compile into various separate programs, but Pottering is very careful to keep various key interfaces "unstable", specifically to not make any promise about how those interfaces will work in the future. He likes to call this hididng of interfaces "efficency" or "removing complexity". What he never mentions is that many of us used those promises, and by removing them he has at best forced others to do a lot of work to fix the breakage, or at worse made various features impossible.
A good example is logind, which was absorbed into systemd just so promises about its behaviuor in the future ("stable APIs") could be removed.
The reason many of us that have been watching Poettering's cabal for many years now suggest these changes are intentional and malicious are based on this. Occasionally removing features because of a technical need or bug or security requirement is understandable. Purposfully stripping out entire sets of features - that is, the features that allow other groups to develop with confidence that some feature they won't simply vanish - is something entirely different.
If MS acted like Poettering's cabal and removed a formerly-public API that competetors used - while promoting their own product that happens to use internal, not-publicly-promised APIs, the world would be screaming "monopoly". This happened, and resulted in several high-profile court cases.
So go ahead an prove that you don't know what you're talking about and assert that systemd is in any way "modular", when non-modularity was an explicit goal behind systemd. The rest of us are choosing to not go along with Poettering's attempt to embrace and extend Linux into a cheap, buggy, feature-free windows clone.
Ahh, and here comes the shill, with the usual personal attacks and strawmen. Yes, go ahead and praise Poettering's cult of personality and ignore the many people in this very thread who rebutted the nonsense that there was a need to replace "init scripts". By focusing on that point alone you get to pretend that systemd is "just an in init system", and hasn't embraced and extended a long list of other tools.
Evidence? LOL. More evidence that you are either lying to push propaganda, or shockingly ignorant of what Poettering himself has said about the state and future of systemd. Or do you not consider the creator and manager of systemd to be a reliable source? Do you want to still pretend this issue is about "just an init system"? Because that would essentially be calling Poettering a liar.
I'm sure you won't bother properly understanding this... at least in public. Obviously, the goal is to simply bully the people who disagree with you. Sorry, no, we aren't going to simply shut up, and stop pointing out how Linux worked just fine, despite your unsubstantiated assertions.
You want a suggestion on how to fix things? Stop breaking everybody else's code! Any minor problem that sysvinit had has been vastly overshadowed by the breakage systemd has caused.
While the obvious answer is that Poetternig/RedHat wants a windows alternative they can sell to "big" software developers, a more cynical (and mildly speculative) answer is that systemd is an outstanding way to shoehord into linux all the things that linux users would never normally allow. PID 0 is an important spot to control; if it wants to, it can control what programs are started and under what permissions. There are a few groups that really want this capability, or at least the capability to add something optional that can later be a forced dependency in GNOME or some other popular package.
The first group that comes to mind are the people who want DRM and a protected media path. A monoculture that forces features on users whever it wants to change things is the only way you'd get around the problem of having distributions simply compiling out or otherwise ignoring your DRM. Systemd has effectively raised the costs of not using whatever future "upgrade" is mandated, because the tight integration means you have to replace all the other software you now use as well.
Another group that would really like it if a buggy, alpha-quality, horribly overcomplicated, uncommented, unproven, monolithic black-box of software was a required to use Linux is... the NSA. Simplicity is important when it comes to key services like PID 0. I'm sure it's just a coincidence that the NSA is one of RedHat's larger customers, and that the NSA - while suberting NIST, Cisco, etc - submitted various pateches through redhat. I have no proof, of course, but you don't get security by assuming eveybody is being "nice". I strongly suggest listening to PHK's talk on this subject.
Finally, I'll link a post I just made over at HN. The reason systemd is causing emotions to run high is because it is trying to do to linux what has been done to many other tools: dumb it down and hide how it works. There are a lot of people trying to do that right now, because the idea of open computing that *cannot be limited* (see: "turing complete"). Welcome to the Civil-War On General Purpose Computing.
The fact that systemd is causing fragmentation - arguably worse fragmentation than any previous disagreement in the Linux community - is a valid (though not particualrly interesting) argument, because a primary design goal of systemd is conformity. Poettering has stated many times that his goal is to force distirbutions to use his one-true-way, and he often uses the supposed complexity of having to write portable code as an argument for why systemd and nobody else should be the software that manages the "core system".
This fragmentation means systemd is failing at it's own goals.
The SystemD developers are self-described unix-haters, who have very strong feeling against ever having to use a "shell script".
Aside from that, this is one of the big problems with the systemd evangelists: they assert that there was some set of missing features that "nobody was willing to implement" outside of Poettering's cabal. They never mention that they were the ones to make up most of those problems, and the few they didn't make up were already solved by existing tools.
(auto-restart was solved ages ago with DJB's daemontools)
I've used it and could list SystemD's various technical issues, but that isn't and never has been the point.
The complaints we have about SystemD - and the Poettering cabal in geneal - is not about any technical issues. Bugs can be fixed; bad design, antisocial not-invented-here attitudes, and disregard/blindness to any use case outside their experience are what we have been complaining about. After about 2 years of arguing the topic, we've had to add rudeness, blatant propaganda, and attempts to bully opposing views to the list of complaints.
Typically, SystemD defenders - such as yourself - spend a lot of time and effort disrupting forums and discussion threads by posting strawmen, non-sequiters, or simply praising SystemD as it applies to very narrow use-cases. Recently, the tactic has bene what you are doing right now: accuse the opposition of being "old" or "luddite" or "hating change". It is quite telling, actually: a big complaint against SystemD's development style (as mentioned in this article if you bothered to RTFA) is that they don't bother to understand how people outside their immediate group actually use their computers, or what their needs are. Comments like this are exactly what we're talking about.
Nobody has been saying systemd should be banned or that you wanting to use it is bad. Nobody has said OpenRC or sysvinit should be the only option. If some tool solves problems for you or make your life easier - or even if you just like the tool's style/asthetics - then use it. What we're complaining about, more than anything else, is the tight coupling that SystemD has been doing, as it prevents everbody else from having that same freedom of choice.
Once, a very long time ago (internet years) when an image of a certain borg-ified CEO was common, there was a phrase that was commonly used to describe Microsoft's monopolistic actions against competing technologies: embrace, extend and extinguish. Many discussions on slashdot warned about how Microsoft was trying to "embrace and extend" various standards such as Kerberos.
So instult us if you like - it makes our arguments against SystemD's attitude for us. You can even sit in ignorance, if you desire, while Poettering embraces and extends linux so he can remove all the useful parts form it. The rest of us that have watched this happen before will continue using Free Software that preserves freedoms such as the freedom to choose your init system. We have been marginalized and a social outcast in the past and are used to crap like this. Just remember that it was that same freedom of choice that provided a place for SystemD to be developed in the first place.
You may want to read that last line again...
I'm not actually advocating an amendment; I'm suggesting that if powers were *actually needed* (then the public would likely be willing to work with the intelligence and law-enforcement communities. The fact that it's so obviously NOT an "actual need", that these unamerican cowards don't even TRY the lawful route and instead jump straight to dissembling and obfuscation betrays their guilty mind. A "proof-by-contradiction", more or less.
A law enforcement agency invented or discovered a new technique, that can help them in their job? Great! It's good to hear that they are exercising their creatived talents and advancing their field. As long as the new methods are legal and constitutional, there is no problem. If, on the other hand, it croses the constitutional limits in small ways, that's understandable - time change, and if the proposal is reaonable, the constitution can change with it.
So the simple solution is to see if an Amendment can be passed to allow it. Worries about criminals finding out aren't relevant - you can' t use it in a court anyway. As for worries about the NSA or CIA flying in to classify it, well, it's a LOT harder to put that geenie back in the bottle once amendment debates start happening. Even in the worse case where this particular case is ruined from the public disclosure, the investment towards free use of a new category of tools in the future could easly be worth the setback.
Now, I'm sure a lot of you are thinking I'm being sarcastic (or delusional). It's not like such an amendment would ever have a chance at passing, right? Well... that's hard to say. I would probably be against it as initially proposed, but that's not relevant - by making the proposal, and opening up the topic for public discussion and public input, instead of working in secret, maybe we - the citizens - can negotiatiate with our neighbors and figure out a way to allow this new law-enforcement technique. How can we know how such a debate would go? Yes, it's a risk, but so is working in secret, hoping nobody finds out about some new technique.
Maybe it just needs some ground rules about when/where it can be used. Maybe we could allow it if it had some sort of oversight/watchdog group. Maybe we can invent some new type of social compromise; after all, it's a new technique - maybe it needs a new way of fitting into our legal system.
On the other hand, maybe...
Stop right there.
Some random telecommunications engineer and a lobbyist ain't the same fucking thing.
Ain't no fukcing ballpark neither.
Now, look, maybe your way of judging bias differes from mine, but, you know,
having some personal biases and having a job that literally tries to biasing people
for a 3rd party ain't the same fucking ballpark.
It ain't the same league.
It ain't even the same fucking sport.
I think there's a slight misscommunication here (probably on my part).
The instability in NK isn't only from a change in attitude, though that HAS been significant in recent years. The instability comes from the fact that it's getting harder and harder to ignore the *starving population* and *rapidly failing "industry"*. Even the strongest True Believer in the Kim family regime has to be doing an increasinly absurd amount of justification. The fact that some (still VERY small, but growing) portion of the population has started to look outside that carefully controlled box is a byproduct of this decay. There are many parts of NK that are really only holding together by the thinest of threads, and that imbalance is harder to support when you run out of natural resources and productiivty to pillage.
Hence the problem for China: if NK went full rebellion, tthat would sugest there's a certain critical mass of people within NK that could handle stuff like rebuilding their infrastructure, at least in principle. After the dust settles, go in with some UN people to offer a bit of financial or industrial help while they bootstarp. As bad as revolutions are, that situation at least has a "reasonable" chance at a stable, not-horribly-expensive-for-China outcome.
Unfortunately, as you note, there ISN'T enough support for a traditional rebellion. It's a big change in attitude for NK, but you can't erase that much indoctroination overnight. They likely will need a nation's worht of "deprogrammers"/exit-councelers or somesuch, which is *not* something China (or anybody) really wants to be suck providing.
So many people here obviously haven't learned anything new about the NK situation in the last 10 yeears, or even the last 5.
Basically any real "stability" in the country died with Kim Jong-il. It probably collapsed much earlier, though that gets harder to pin down the further you go back. The key point, though, is what once was a more-or-less unified group of fanatics has slowly come to realize that there's another world out there, and the reality of what their leaders are has become harder and harder to ignore.
Doubt this? Think there's still some kind of politics or ideology at work here, making NK the same "annoyance" they were 10 - or even 5 - years ago? Then watch this brave NK woman publicly confront a soldier, shame him, and chase him off .
A handful of years ago that would have been suicidal - or worse.
Oh, and China? The politics of the past doesn't matter. What they know now is that there are a VERY large number of people - mostly decent people, most likely - that have lived their whole lives in what was, more or less, a cult. And they know that there is a very real risk that those "[sometimes former] cult members" could become "starving refugees" almost overnight.
Even if they wanted to, that's a crisis on a scale not even China can sweep under a rug. They are facing the possiblity of being neighbors to a country with a small number of fanatics/old-guard that no longer have real power (enough to be a problem, though), a MASSIVE numbre of people who really need some sort of deprogramming/cult-exit-councelor, and some unknown mix of economic assistance, knowledge assistance/guidance, etc. If they end up with an incredible amount of luck, the people of NK might just be able to so they can bootstrap their country into something aproaching sustainable.
I suspect that China, more than anything, wishes they could simply get rid of this mess.
I have read the news, and while there are quite a few spots around the world - some of them islamic. None of them are particularly threatening. We have a military that drawfs the militaries of the rest of the world combined.
Or are you saying that the fine men and women in our various armed forces are so incompetent that they couldn't defend against an attack from a far smaller, far weaker enemy? (not to mention all those impressive tool and weaponss we've invented) Such a position would be rather insulting to those serving to defend this country.
To suggest that any small terrorist group is any kind of actual threat implies that either 1) you have no idea wthat you're talking about ("the fool"), 2) you are unable to tell the difference between political rhetoric and a an actual threat of attack ("the easily frightened"), or 3) you're trying to scare other people with bogeymen in an effort to push another agenda ("the shill").
Maybe you'll find something if you look.
You know what I see in the news/etc? Certain US agencies and elected officials breaking their oaths to the constitution, spreading panic to get what they want, and generally doing their best to ruing this country's reputation.
So ou're right - we should keep up with the news and learn from the real threat: the unamerican traitors that are trying to destroy the very things this country if founded upon.
Please, go watch the talk I mentioned in some other posts.
You really, REALLY need to listen to the lessons in the talk. The the current "You'll get over it" attitude hurt fark a lot, and it will hurt you too. The talk covers the issue VERY well, though, and there is still time to reverse course by following the lesson the talk presents. They clearly show a way you CAN intoduce a new set of features like your beta in a way that doesn't scare existing users.
In all seriousness, this will be the most important hour of video you'll watch in years. Learn from those that made mistakes in the past... and were kind enough to *discuss* those mistakes in public so we can avoide repeating the failures!
As I said (late) in the previous thread, the people over at Fark gave an incredible talk on this very issue, after figuring out how to recover from their "You'll get over it" incident. It is literally the perfect discussion of the ways /. is failing hard right now.
As you say, it's about a fundamental miss-understanding of relationship, by thinking of your members as an "audience", and not peers. Even worse, they are peers that are only here because it's the current familiar ploace to "hang out" at. Piss them off - or even simply surprise them the wrong way and they will simply go hang out somewhere else.
(*sigh* - the /. staff doing the beta *REALLY* needs to watch this talk ASAP, because they are currently doing basically *every* single bad move discussed in the talk. Yes, you there, slashdot staff - drop what you're doing and watch this talk right now. There's a good chance you know the incident I'm refering to with the phrase "You'll get over it", and you need to listen to these lessons from those that walked the path your're currently on. You still have time to reverse course, if you change right now)
Yah, they could use an editor. Do note, though, that many of the authors have been at this for years now; the weary may be showing a bit. I certainly noticed a bit at this VERY interesting talk by two of the authors (Drake, Binney, with Jesselyn Radack also speaking) from a year ago at 29C3 . They're certainly not practiced public speakers, either.... but hearing theory stories told first-person more than makes up for any such deficency O.O
You'll note that the only link I provided that brought up "phone metadata" disagrees with that assessment, but that's not really important. As I'm sure you noticed, I'm talking about a larger problem than any one court case, about how we seem to have a status-quo where patent 4th Amendment violations are ignored. When writs of assistance are regularly used to justify mass collection[*] without specific warants, we're obviously not using the *Constitution* any more, and the SCOTUS isn't particularly relevant.
I'm sure you have some better response for THINTHREAD-vs-TRAILBLAZER and the NSA's role in 9/11, right? Instead of just projecting more onto Snowden? Or are your too busy masturbating over your assination fantasies like so many other NSA-apologists seem to be doing recently?
[*] Note: do NOT bother replying with the usual NSA doublespeak. If they get to redefine "collecting" to to mean "only if we choose to log that we looked at it, even though it's in our database", then I get to redefine "protest" into all kinds of fun things. Words have meanings, and you know it.
As interesting as Snowden is, this is a distraction from the more important (and probably more urgent) question of... when are the criminals at the NSA going to be brought to justice?
Also, when do we fire the people that sold out our actual spy talent - with their far more targeted, far more 4th Amendment compatible tools like THINTHREAD - instead of continuing to give a paycheck to the assholes that let 9/11 happen so they could keep funneling money to their contractor friends to develop the far more expensive TRAILBLAZER? The families of the victims that died do this willful neglegence will probably want to file civil lawsuits, too.
A cornerstone of the very idea of "justice" is equal protection before the law, and these people need to get their day in court. If they do, then maybe we can start to put this feckless imbroglio behind us and move on, with only the usual political drama to worry about.
On the other hand, if we fail to accomplish this task - if we fail to obtain some basic symbol that the Constitution is still respected as the highest law of the land - then we've really given up any last pretense that this is any kind of civilized nation with a social contract.
no, what Snowden did was to make the crimes of his superiors public, aka "whistleblowing". At no point does "civil disobedience" enter into this.
The only chaning of laws that have even been mentioned by him is to respect the constitution. Do you really want to claim that respecting the constitution - the highest law of the land - is civil disobedience?
It's a good thing, then, that Snowden - nor anybody actually following this saga - is claiming that Snowden is engaging in "civil disobedience".
Snowden is a whistleblower.
Furthermore, the espionage act (which he is currently charged under) would NOT allow him to defend himself in court, so these cries that he should have stayed and faced our legal system are only asking for a show trial similar to those found in the Star Chamber.
So which are you? "badly misinformed" or "NSA shill"?
We've been slowly moving in that direction for quite some time now. Often, when some of those small, individual steps have been noticed and discussed, the discussion tends to (understandably) focus on the declne itself and the problems it brings.
Unfortunately, this almost always ignores another slowly-amplifying aspect of the problem: the gradual conditioning (Pavlov-style) of the people responsible. Each time we - The People - allow abuse of power to go unpunished or a another roadblock placed in the way of our Rights, the politician responsible is trained to do it again. We are very slowly traiing our politicians to believe that nobody will actually stop them. Even worse, we reward some of it, such as when we give paid vacations instead of years-in-prison whenever the police beat somebody up.
So now we have a problem on our hands: we've taught some people that they are above the law. We've taught that the risk of being caught is so close to zero that such concepts don't apply to them. When you have people that no longer fear reprecussions, there is no incentive for them to change. An argument could be made that it would even be a rational decision, given how reliable the historical record has been.
I strongly suspect that we won't see real change until this feedback-loop has been disrupted. Once the usual human level of fear has been re-established, we could see improvments quite quickly, but it has to be real - they have to truly fear that they could be held accountable for their own actions, in some way.
Hypothetically, there are a number of ways such a fear could be created. Traditionally, things like "being voted out of office" and "jail" have been used to decent effect. While I really wish such things were still realistic goals, I fear we have left those opportunities behind in the distant past.
Unfortunately, I fear there only one thing left that can break through the years of conditioning: the sight of one of their peers losing their head to the Guillotine[1] the angry mob constructed for the occasion. It might only take one - fear of that magnitude can shift attitudes amazinly fast. As a pacifist, though, I loath the idea[2] of such a tool could be necessary. There's still time for the players involved to choose one of the better alternatives.
As time goes on, the probability of some person(s) snapping and deciding to "fix" this mess French Revolution style is sounding far more realistic than a bunch of politicians suddenly ignoring years of conditioning and flipping sides, all on their own...
[1] : or the modern substitute ...and really really really hope I am wrong about this
[2]: