Re: Really, ...
Uoti Urpala <uoti.urpala@pp1.inet.fi> writes:
> Would you expect anyone who thinks such activity is not useful to help
> with it? This would seem to lead to the absurd conclusion that
> expressing a negative view/evaluation of anything would always be just
> noise, regardless of technical arguments or anything else.
If they haven't heard the evaluation, then it may be useful information
for them. Once you've already communicated the evaluation and established
that they don't agree with you, then yes, this is exactly true.
This is a major feature of free software. It doesn't matter how many
people think what you're doing is a bad idea as long as you don't need
their help. You can go off and try it anyway. Usually, if it's a bad
idea, that will become obvious anyway, and you may learn something in the
process. Sometimes, it will turn out that you're right and other people
are wrong. Either way, it's generally much more fun than arguing about it
incessantly.
It's just like a vim user going on about how horrible Emacs is. No one
cares. The Emacs developers are going to keep developing on Emacs because
they like Emacs. The vim developers are going to keep working on vim
because they like vim. There are only a few places where there's any
point in debating which one is better: when making a recommendation to a
brand new user who has never tried either, and when for some reason we
have to pick a winner.
Believe me, if we get to a point where we need to pick a winner for init
systems, you'll know, and it will be impossible to miss the discussion.
Everyone will have plenty of chances to make all their arguments. As a
bonus, they'll even be arguments that are current at that time and will be
able to take into account anything that changes between now and then!
And if we never do have to pick a winner, bonus! There's another big
argument we will have avoided.
> There's no need for Debian to make a formal decision that will be set in
> stone no matter what. But what you said was that it would be premature
> to pick winners and losers for init systems. I don't consider it
> premature to pick systemd as a winner; there's a difference between
> keeping your options open and claiming that they're all still equal.
Yes, it's been obvious for months that you think there's enough data to
make a decision right now. But we're still not going to, and that isn't
going to change just because you've stated your opinion for the 51st time.
> This thread was started by an "anti-systemd" poster, not "people
> advocating it". I don't see any justification for you to focus your
> blame on systemd *supporters*.
Consider it defocused and spread about widely. Really, I don't care who's
been "worse." I would like everyone to stop engaging in this pointless
bickering.
> Since you wrote this in a reply to me, I assume you meant that "people
> advocating it" to apply to me at least to some degree. The primary
> reason I wrote my original reply is that you made a misleading
> comparison between qmail (lack of working community) and systemd
> (working community, outsiders who complain).
You misread my message. I didn't compare qmail directly to systemd. I
was using qmail among others to make a general argument against the
position that social factors do not matter when choosing software.
Given your reply, you apparently agree but find the social factors in this
case debatable. That's fine; I find them debatable too, and am not
interested in debating them with you (largely because I haven't formed a
strong opinion). Apparently we're both vehemently agreeing that social
factors are important, making this yet another pointless digression.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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