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posted by martyb on Monday January 21 2019, @07:14AM   Printer-friendly
from the their-way-or-the-highway dept.

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.]


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  • (Score: 1, Troll) by requerdanos on Monday January 21 2019, @07:15PM (6 children)

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 21 2019, @07:15PM (#789709) Journal

    Debian puts the poison in, and then Devuan takes it back out.

    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).

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @07:57PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @07:57PM (#789737)

    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)

      by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 21 2019, @08:18PM (#789744) Journal

      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:

      • Debian's unofficial non-free images
      • Your philosophy about modern computers
      • The likelihood of any hardware item working in the free world
      • Your assumption that all or almost all hardware is useless in the free world
      • Your post above
      • (Score: 3, Informative) by PinkyGigglebrain on Monday January 21 2019, @09:04PM (1 child)

        by PinkyGigglebrain (4458) on Monday January 21 2019, @09:04PM (#789775)

        "his 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."

        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

          by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 22 2019, @05:38PM (#790154) Journal

          Devuan did not include the non-free repositories by default.

          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] :

          All Devuan 2.0 ASCII install media make non-free firmware packages
          available at install time.... It is possible to avoid the automatic installation and
          loading of needed non-free firmware by choosing the "Expert install"
          option in the installation menu.

          Devuan 2.0 ASCII desktop-live and minimal-live images come with
          non-free firmware packages pre-installed. You have the option of
          removing those non-free firmware packages from the desktop-live and
          minimal-live after boot, using the "remove_firmware.sh" script
          available under /root.

          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)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @09:11PM (#789780)

        Yes, Debian cares... latelly without long term vision:

         4. Our priorities are our users and free software

        We will be guided by the needs of our users and the free software community. We will place their interests first in our priorities. We will support the needs of our users for operation in many different kinds of computing environments. We will not object to on-free works that are intended to be used on Debian systems, or attempt to charge a fee to people who create or use such works. We will allow others to create distributions containing both the Debian system and other works, without any fee from us. In furtherance of these goals, we will provide an integrated system of high-quality materials with no legal restrictions that would prevent such uses of the system.

        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

          by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 22 2019, @05:39PM (#790155) Journal

          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

          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.