On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 03:59:13PM +0000, Uoti Urpala wrote: > Wouter Verhelst <wouter <at> debian.org> writes: > > > > Debian/kFreeBSD is here to stay, it's not going away. With that as a > > > > given, systemd is suddenly a lot less interesting. > > > > > > Once you stop taking things as a given there are a lot more opportunities > > > for improvement. > > > > kFreeBSD is hardly the only reason why systemd is a bad idea for Debian. > > It's the only argument I've seen you mention. And I don't remember seeing > convincing arguments against it from anyone else in the thread either. Pfff. You're the one who wants to change the status quo, not me. > > > If you want to do whatever work is necessary to keep kFreeBSD working > > > that's fine of course. But the attitude that it's OK for kFreeBSD to set > > > limits on Linux development (or that developers working on Linux must > > > handle the BSD porting/compatibility to be "permitted" to adopt a new > > > technology) smells of trying to hold the project hostage, and I doubt it > > > can have positive effects for the project overall. > > > > There's nothing wrong with requiring portability. > > Of course there is when it interferes with other goals. And your claim would > at least require a lot of further qualifications to avoid being totally > absurd - It's always possible to read absurdity in a totally reasonable statement; that doesn't make the original statement absurd. > if you say any portability requirement whatsoever is fine, I said nothing of the sort. Currently, Debian requires that software in the Essential set of packages be portable to any of our kernels. It does not even require POSIX, let alone "any portability requirement whatsoever". [...] > > > IMO letting kFreeBSD block a technology like systemd (or even letting it have > > > a significant impact on the discussion about whether it's desirable to > > > introduce the technology for the main Linux case) would only be justifiable > > > if there were very solid arguments why kFreeBSD is a big net win for the > > > project, or after a vote showing significant support for the port. > > > > IMAO, a statement of (paraphrased) 'portability is for weenies' isn't > > Keeping portability in mind is a good thing especially if you're doing > something that is easily implementable with common interfaces. Init has been implemented since the early 70s. I'd say that qualifies it as "easily implementable with common interfaces". Of course it's true that there are issues with the current init implementation, and that a replacement would be nice. And yes, of course it's true that one can cut corners by focussing on just one kernel, and not caring about the rest; that way, you can get a working implementation quickly with much less effort than you would if you were to keep portability a requirement from the very beginning. However, that doesn't mean it's the only possible way, or indeed the most desirable one. [...] > > doing any of us a favor. Systemd might've been nice if it was portable > > to other kernels; the fact that it isn't, makes it less than useful for > > Debian. > > That systemd isn't portable to other kernels affects kFreeBSD and > Hurd. Given that the contribution of those to the overall usefulness > of Debian is negligible, this has little effect on how useful systemd > is for Debian. kFreeBSD is currently released as a "technology preview". With that, we mean it works, but it isn't necessarily ready yet for prime usage. The fact that there currently aren't many users yet isn't surprising in that light. However, as the port matures, it's not unthinkable that there will be many more users. Frankly, I'd be somewhat surprised if some time after the release of wheezy (but still before wheezy+1), usage of Debian kFreeBSD did not surpass that of the i386 port. [...] > > > > Whatever its features, if we have to jump through a large heap of hoops > > > > to get it to work at all, or to make life for maintainers of daemon > > > > packages not a complete nightmare, it's not likely to become the default > > > > in Debian any time soon. > > > > > > I think the life of many maintainers of daemon packages is a "complete > > > nightmare" now with sysvinit, compared to what it would be with systemd. > > > > It's of course your prerogative to have that opinion, but (as a > > maintainer of a source package that ships two initscripts) I disagree > > with it. > > You disagree with systemd service files being much simpler than sysv > init scripts for many daemons? No, I disagree with your statement that life of many maintainers of daemon packages is a complete nightmare currently. Perhaps some things would be a bit easier to do with systemd unit files; but most initscripts are slightly-modified template initscripts from dh-make anyway; it's not as if they require a lot of effort to maintain. [...rest of this trolling snipped...] -- The volume of a pizza of thickness a and radius z can be described by the following formula: pi zz a
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