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Michael Biebl, long-time maintainer of systemd for Debian (2010 or earlier, based on changelog.Debian.gz), is taking undetermined holidays from packaging it. The e-mail was short:
Will stop maintaining systemd in debian for a while.
What's going on is just too stupid/crazy.
This takes place after he discussed a bug in which he expected systemd to respect local settings, and not rename network devices:
@yuwata a default policy like /lib/systemd/network/99-default.link should never trump explicit user configuration.
Later he seems surprised about how things roll there:
I'm amazed that I have to point this out....
The issue is locked currently, and also archived just in case, so everyone can read the initial report and the replies he got.
Opinion: It seems distribution developers are starting to get the stick too, not just users with their "errors" (taken from a reply). Will distributions finally wake up or is that they don't still grok the attitude of projects like this? [Or is it something else? --Ed.]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday January 21 2019, @02:46PM (9 children)
Does anyone see a problem with this?
Debian puts the poison in, and then Devuan takes it back out. If there wasn't any poison there to begin with, why add it in the first place only to have to remove it again? Imagine this process applied to municipal water projects.
Debugging is the process of removing bugs from software. Programming is the process of adding bugs to software. Don't do any programming and the debugging would be unnecessary.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @07:07PM (1 child)
Just like Ubuntu add featureware onto Debian and Mint in turn repair the damage from both upstreams. Hey, what would we call a Mint derived from Devuan instead of Debian? Muant?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday January 21 2019, @08:07PM
That would be a good thing for Mint to take notice of.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 1, Troll) by requerdanos on Monday January 21 2019, @07:15PM (6 children)
Works both ways: Debian takes the poison out (no non-free packages), Devuan puts it back in (non-free packages on all official install media).
Thinking that Devuan is "Debian without Systemd" ignores that it's actually "Debian without Systemd and without Debian's social contract and commitment to 100% free packages."
The issue that Systemd is in many ways a sprawling mess, however helpful its desirable features may be, argues that it should at least be optional.
It's pretty handy to have if you accept its worldview and outlook, but it has its tendrils into many areas you might not even suspect until you are one of the ones who starts debugging and wishing for its removal (and perhaps its demise in creative ways involving fire or ionizing radiation).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @07:57PM (5 children)
Debian distributes non-free, just makes it clear and opt-in. With modern computers, it's more probable that you need the non-free installer than the fully free. Even if you do the extra hops (extract disk and install by debootstrap, eg), you will have to install non-free to get things working (or buy usb dongles because the laptop has etherne or wifi chips that don't work with only free, or run with VESA video). Too many firmwares.
(Score: 0, Troll) by requerdanos on Monday January 21 2019, @08:18PM (4 children)
Perhaps you misunderstand.
Debian is committed to no non-free packages. In order to add something non-free to debian, the user must specifically seek out and add it manually.
This is in stark contract to Devuan, who couldn't care less, and who install non-free packages automatically and silently, providing them whether needed or not.
Thus, if a person who was interested in using all free software heard the nonsense about "Devuan is just like debian but with no systemd", they would be seriously misled.
This makes it important to point out that "Devuan is not just Debian without Systemd. They also add non-free packages to all install media."
Perhaps you personally don't care (in which case, why weigh in?), but Debian and DFSG have been going a long time, and there are people who care about them.
Here are some things that have nothing to do with the above:
(Score: 3, Informative) by PinkyGigglebrain on Monday January 21 2019, @09:04PM (1 child)
When I did a clean install of Devuan ASCII a few weeks ago I had to add "non-free contrib" to sources.list after the installer finished. So, at least as far as the net-installer.iso version I downloaded and used is concerned, Devuan did not include the non-free repositories by default.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Tuesday January 22 2019, @05:38PM
No, Devuan includes non-free firmware packages on all official media; it doesn't also add the "contrib non-free" to sources.list.
Per https://files.devuan.org/devuan_ascii/Release_notes.txt [devuan.org] :
So, in Debian, there's no non-free packages and you have to work if you want them. In Devuan, there's always non-free packages, and you have to work if you want to get rid of them.
Both sane choices, differing only in what's important to you, freedom-purity or non-free-world hardware working out of the box. And both important to know in advance, for just those reasons.
IMO, always, always having non-free packages but still making the user add "contrib non-free" as if they weren't there, is misleading; you yourself seem to have been thusly misled.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @09:11PM (1 child)
Yes, Debian cares... latelly without long term vision:
If their first interest still is the free software community, they would not have made systemd the default and allow packages to hard depend on it, and are default in some cases (GNOME3 is default for desktop task, IIRC). Include it but don't wear it as cement shoes (kfreebsd & hurd anyone?). As in other posts, it means extra work, but also it means the more it is tolerated, the harder it would be to break the cement later and remain independent.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Tuesday January 22 2019, @05:39PM
There are reasons to eschew systemd (books could be written on the subject), but "free software" isn't one of them, because systemd is free software.