Systemd has turned into the Godzilla of Linux controversies. "Everywhere you look it's stomping through blogs, rampaging through online discussion threads, and causing white-hot flames that resemble Godzilla's own breath of death," writes Jim Lynch. Now Sam Varghese reports at iTWire that although Linus Torvalds is well-known for his strong opinions, when it comes to systemd, Torvalds is neutral. "When it comes to systemd, you may expect me to have lots of colorful opinions, and I just don't," says Torvalds. "I don't personally mind systemd, and in fact my main desktop and laptop both run it."
Oh, there's been bitter fights before. Just think about the emacs vs vi wars. Or, closer to systemd, the whole "SysV init" vs "BSD init" differences certainly ended up being things that people had "heated discussions" about. Or think about the desktop comparisons.
I'm not really sure how different the systemd brawls are from those. It's technical, but admittedly the systemd developers have also been really good at alienating people on a purely personal level too. Not that that is anything particularly new under the sun _either_: the (very) bitter wars between the GPL and the BSD license camps during late-80s and early-90s were almost certainly more about the persons involved and how they pissed off people than necessarily deeply about other differences (which existed, obviously, but still).
Torvalds was asked if systemd didn't create a single point of failure which makes a system unbootable if it fails. "I think people are digging for excuses. I mean, if that is a reason to not use a piece of software, then you shouldn't use the kernel either."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 19 2014, @09:21AM
so the linux kernel is like the car engine and the rest is... the rest.
so obviously the future is shaped by people that DO not by people that TALK.
so just like google took the engine and made a android, I guess these systemDee guys are taking the kernel and build8ng their own kind of car.
speculationonly but at this point it seems systemdee people are using as mich programming resources as possible to get this car on the road and once it runs okay it will probably be called ... gnome OS.
this is all just a top down impression im getting, tbh I dont understand enough of this linux stuff anyways, andd there is some interesst in keeping it difficult and hidden because it can provide a livelihood for a "sys admin". I mention this because some migjt say, if you dont like it fork it or roll your own.
in the end I think in the end systemdee proves that interpreted programs (scripts) are slower then compiled programs but that scripts are easier to read and fix then binary blobs?
I guess this is just the direction the "young uns" are taking ... it.
which leaves just one important closing thought: maintainability. it was important innoriginal unix philosophy and im not sure if systemdee will be in 30 years when the torch will pass naturally to the next generation?
also maybe think about "unrealistic" situations like a momster meteor strike and lota of dead people world wide or plague or a cascading nuclear meltdowns that leave lots of brain damaged savages ... how maintainable would it be in such a situation?