Re: RFC: OpenRC as Init System for Debian
Roger Leigh wrote:
> One of the definining characteristics of the Linux ecosystem, including
> Debian, has been that the system has been made up of a set of loosely-
> coupled compoments with well-defined interfaces. This is in stark
> contrast to, e.g. Windows, MacOS and other proprietary systems, which
> have extremely tight coupling between their components, and where being
> able to swap out one component for another is almost unheard of. Given
> that this loose coupling has enabled experimentation with a wide
> variety of different solutions to problems, and allowed the evolution
Recent innovation related to init systems has largely happened in
systemd. More conservative approaches have failed to show enough
progress to solve even the immediate problems. IMO there's enough
evidence that the part which needed new innovation was the interfaces
and the integration between them, not the individual pieces trying to
work within the limitations of the old interfaces.
> While sysvinit is clearly inferior, it gives us (Debian) something the
> others do not: control over our own destiny, and the ability to
> modify every aspect of it and the init scripts to fit our needs. Both
> systemd and upstart are largely influenced by third parties.
> But given the rapid speed at which systemd is growing and swallowing
> up more and more functionality previously served by different tools,
> would we have the ability and will to continue to patch every bit that
> didn't fit our needs, and keep that working over time? If we can't,
> we'll potentialy end up with a technically superior system... which
> meets the needs of Gnome/Fedora and other distributions, rather than
> our own.
You're not offering any competitive alternative to systemd. In fact,
you're pretty much saying that that it's not realistic to maintain an
alternative. If you're given a choice between using Debian from 10 years
ago or the latest Fedora, would you choose the old Debian because "it
was made for our needs"? I think there's a quite direct equivalence
between preferring the 10-year-old Debian and preferring to stay with
sysvinit just to "control our own destiny".
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