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Debian Developers Take To Voting Over Init System Diversity
It's been five years already since the vote to transition to systemd in Debian over Upstart while now there is the new vote that has just commenced for judging the interest in "init system diversity" and just how much Debian developers care (or not) in supporting alternatives to systemd.
Due to Debian developers having differing opinions on handling non-systemd bugs in 2019 and the interest/commitment to supporting systemd alternatives in the scope of Debian packaging and various related friction points, they've taken to a new general resolution over weighing init system diversity.
The ballot is available on-line. The choices are:
Choice 1: F: Focus on systemd
Choice 2: B: Systemd but we support exploring alternatives
Choice 3: A: Support for multiple init systems is Important
Choice 4: D: Support non-systemd systems, without blocking progress
Choice 5: H: Support portability, without blocking progress
Choice 6: E: Support for multiple init systems is Required
Choice 7: G: Support portability and multiple implementations
Choice 8: Further Discussion
[Ed. note: I'm not sure what the letters after the choice numbers indicate, nor do I know where "C" disappeared to.]
(Score: 3, Informative) by tangomargarine on Tuesday December 10 2019, @04:09PM (29 children)
"Choice 9: Fucking rip out systemd and kill it" is not on the list. Hell, there's not even a "stop working on systemd but leave it in place" option.
I suppose it'll be interesting to see whether they bother to fake support for systemd, or just "admit it, we've got you now so it doesn't matter what you think"
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by FatPhil on Tuesday December 10 2019, @05:10PM (1 child)
There's Devuan for everyone who wants nothing to do with you any more because of it.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Wednesday December 11 2019, @03:25AM
Hey, I just went on a stag trip to Vegas and didn't get a stupid tato....is that a rash.....uh.....nevermind.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday December 10 2019, @05:17PM (20 children)
My understanding is that there are some sysadmins out there that genuinely prefer systemd. I'm not sure who these people are or what they're smoking, but they appear to think it's worthwhile. So I'd be fine with option "Support for multiple init systems is Required" and let systemd compete with other options on a level playing field.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @05:28PM (11 children)
My understanding is that there are some sysadmins out there that genuinely prefer systemd.
They also voted for Trump, so its better to lock them in a dark room with a troll or two.
(Score: 3, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 10 2019, @05:51PM (10 children)
Authoritarians that think their fucked up way of doing things should be the only permissible way and even simple dissent should be grounds for exile? Sounds a lot more like folks who wear the blue panties to me.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday December 10 2019, @07:54PM
Quite a few of them switch sides regularly, going from neo-lib to neo-con and back again seemingly at will.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @08:43PM
I don't wear *any* panties, you insensitive clod!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday December 10 2019, @09:31PM (7 children)
In general, assuming $MY_SIDE is always true and righteous and everything bad is the responsibility of $THEIR_SIDE is the path to evil actions. Both you and GP are wrong: Authoritarianism has both right-wing and left-wing versions, and there is no shortage of willing concentration camp guards in either camp.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday December 11 2019, @12:07AM (6 children)
This is true but one party is always more determined to fuck things up for everyone than the other. When I was growing up, it was the Reps and their trying to legislate morality. Today, it's the Dems and their... Why, exactly the same thing!
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday December 11 2019, @01:33AM (5 children)
All legislation I can think of right now has a moral dimension. It's just a question of who benefits and who suffers from each piece of legislation and to what degree. If a politician misrepresents or hides that moral dimension, it could mean the legislation may be considered immoral by a lot of voters.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday December 11 2019, @02:29AM (4 children)
Having a moral dimension ain't quite the same as full on legislating morality though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday December 11 2019, @11:28AM (3 children)
I think it might be an artificial distinction. I think it just becomes "legislating morality" when the morals happen to be different from your own. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt pay these taxes to fund public services. I'd argue actually those are both legislating morality, but I bet the second one gets your hackles up a lot more than the first.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday December 11 2019, @07:13PM (2 children)
Well of course it's an artificial distinction. Morality is an artificial abstraction invented by people. What I'm speaking of though are the fun things like Thou shalt not buy beer on Sunday or Thou shalt not say mean things to $protected_group. Full on, no questions, entirely morality issues.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday December 11 2019, @07:33PM (1 child)
Yeah I got that you meant those kinds of things. I just found it intellectually stimulating to pick at the foundations a bit. :)
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday December 11 2019, @07:36PM
Ha! Fair nuff. It wouldn't be the Internet without enthusiastic yet pedantic arguments.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 10 2019, @05:47PM (6 children)
They're MCSEs that admin Linux systems for whatever reason. Mostly it's a mix of getting forced to by the PHB and sheer sadistic malice.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @07:37PM (5 children)
I disagree. Systemd is good enough in practice, and I can see Systemd/Linux being a nice BSD-like integrated system if it ever fully matures. The alternatives are either old shit that still works but is lacking, or new shit that works but isn't popular enough to have universal support.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 10 2019, @09:15PM
Man, why you gotta mess up a perfectly good bit of shit talking by responding all reasonable?
Since you did though, have to disagree. It may have started out with that potential but the path Poettering is taking it down is going to leave it a bigger hot mess than the Windows registry. Hell, there's a fair and valid argument to be made that it's already far worse.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday December 10 2019, @09:45PM (3 children)
In my experience: It's good enough when everything is working as it's supposed to. When it's not, it can be downright nightmarish to figure out what's going on, because its error feedback is often confusing or non-existent.
For example, I once rendered a systemd box non-bootable by unplugging my mouse with the box not running, leaving me unable to make any changes to the system until I plugged that mouse back in, and had the problem really been that my formerly working mouse had stopped working I would have been screwed. Sysvinit, Upstart, Runit, etc would have started up without the mouse, and at worst forced me to use the keyboard and possibly a command line to explain what was going on.
As for it maturing, I don't expect it to so long as Lennart is in charge of it: His projects have consistently been not-terrible ideas to start with, but lousy questionable code and design that others have had to come along and make not suck anymore (see: Pulseaudio).
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Funny) by krishnoid on Tuesday December 10 2019, @10:14PM (1 child)
My God, what were you thinking? People like you should not be allowed near anything more complex than an abacus.
Well of course, isn't that how all UNIX-based systems work? Seriously, this is why people hate users who try to admin their own systems.
I'm baffled how you somehow figured out that the mouse was the culprit -- kudos.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday December 10 2019, @10:30PM
Yeah, I know. Clearly, I was holding it wrong too.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Funny) by krishnoid on Tuesday December 10 2019, @10:15PM
Just unplug his mouse. I think he'll get the point.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @07:46PM
They're people that aren't actually capable of system administration.
SystemD, like the Windows systems they are used to, absolves their incompetence. When it's down, it's not the admin's fault, it's like an act of nature, no blame.
They are people who are heavily invested in the paradigm that relies on blaming computers for mistakes. They don't want sane, reliable systems because they don't want the possibility of being to blame for downtime.
It doesn't matter if this system brings more downtime - as long as the downtime doesn't bring blame and the possibility of firing.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @07:12PM (3 children)
Actually, they have already biased the results in favor of systemd. It will be shocking if anything other than "Choice 1:F" wins. Look at the options.
Choice 1:F is what all systemd supporters will choose. All of them.
The other choices are split out into several variations. People against systemd will split their vote across all of those options.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday December 10 2019, @08:51PM (1 child)
That was my thought too, but isn't their voting procedure some kind of ranked choice thing? In which case it may end up closer than one might think, depending on how they do it.
If I was in a position to do so, I'd be tempted to try to galvanize people to all vote "Further Discussion" in protest until they put the choice we wanted to vote for on the ballot.
It's almost like if you try hard enough even democracy can be twisted to accomplish whatever you want /s
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 11 2019, @12:02AM
All votes in Debian use a Condorcet method. After using procedural maneuvers, they restricted the original vote in 2014 to read as follows:
The results were https://lists.debian.org/debian-ctte/2014/02/msg00402.html [debian.org] and basically ended up with sysvinit as default getting eliminated in favor of additional discussion (the default, which in itself is a questionable choice for default and affected the outcome), a tie between upstart and systemd and 4 identical votes (D U O V F). The guy who restricted the vote in this fashion then made the tie-breaking vote for systemd.
This vote will also be Condorcet, but with ambiguous terms and splitting in there, it might not come out clean, as illustrated by the previous vote.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 11 2019, @02:25PM
"People against systemd will split their vote"
Which is how we got into the mess in Debian to begin with. Systemd did not win the initial vote, but anti-systemd side was split across multiple options allowing a single "tie-breaker" vote to declare systemd the "winner."
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday December 10 2019, @08:29PM (1 child)
All those guys left a LONG time ago for FreeBSD and similar.
I don't think there's anyone left as a DD who isn't a fan of systemd.
Its like trying to find a Trump voter on the poop covered streets of SanFrancisco. Everyone who doesn't like poop, left a long time ago. You aren't going to see voter ballots with "plz no poop on sidewalk k thx bye"
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 11 2019, @06:03PM
Trump is one bug giant turd, his fans are somehow even worse because they like eating that shit.
Why is reality so hard for you? Does bigotry require a pre-existing mental fisorder? Or does it cause one?