Re: [Lennart Poettering] Re: A few observations about systemd

[Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk>]

Jon Dowland writes: 
> It completely predates Debian releasing non-Linux
> kernels and is not mentioned in the social contract.  That some
> people feel it justifies (or even mandates) non-Linux kernels in
> Debian is a retcon.  pf, ZFS; these are valid reasons stated that
> support kFreeBSD.  "I interpret 'the Universal OS to mean'?" is not.

Debian has a long history of trying to make it possible to use Debian
for as many purposes as we can, even when that means that the system
has to be more complicated, or even when it means Debian has to be
less perfectly suited to some particular purposes - even particular
purposes which many people think are very important.

Or to put it another way, we place a very high value on flexibility.
Whatever phrase one uses to encapsulate this, I think it is one of
Debian's strengths.

Being able to run a different kernel is, I think, one of those
strengths.  Others have given practical reasons why one might want to
run a specific different kernel right nnow.  But another reason is
just that it wouldn't be healthy for us to bind ourselves too
inextricably to the success of any other project, even one as
well-established and apparently successful as the Linux kernel.

For me, all this means we should not standardise on an init system
which depends heavily on very Linux-specific (and perhaps not even
particularly stable) kernel features.

Ian.