Bug#727708: Bits from linux.conf.au

[Nikolaus Rath <Nikolaus@rath.org>]

Martin Pitt <mpitt@debian.org> writes:
> Bdale Garbee [2014-01-13 13:57 -0700]:
>> Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes:
>> 
>> > I'm coming round to the view that we should be planning to support
>> > multiple systems indefinitely.
>> 
>> This has been my opinion all along.  Various assertions that it's
>> somehow just too hard really haven't swayed me.  The tricky bit, I
>> think, is to define just what "support" means in the context of
>> non-default init systems.  
>
> I think that would be the worst possible (non-)decision that could be
> made. We already have more than enough bugs in Debian; officially
> trying to support 3 init systems is going to end up being a
> combinatorial explosion of testing and bugs, for no obvious benefit
> for the user ("pick your set of bugs").


I think it would be helpful for the discussion if people would first
define what they mean with "support" (and "default"), and then discuss
whether it's desirable or not.

Support could mean anything from "packages not shipping init scripts
using the full functionality of each available init systems are not
accepted to the archive" to "packages of alternate init systems are
allowed in the archieve, but integration has to be done completely by
the local administrator".

I'm pretty sure most people's opinions on whether Debian should support
multiple init systems would be quite different for those two cases. 


Best,
Nikolaus

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