Re: Please assume good faith (was Re: systemd effectively mandatory now due to GNOME)

[Thorsten Glaser <tg@mirbsd.de>]

Lars Wirzenius <liw <at> liw.fi> writes:

> I write a backup program. It uses its own storage format, and people
> sometimes ask if they could use tar files instead. But I am evil
> incarnate and FORCE them to use my own storage format instead. Should
[…]
> can be, and I think that the storage format I've developed is better
> than storing backups in tar files. I truly, deeply feel that using my
> format makes the program better, and that offering tar as a choice
> would be pretty much disastrous, because almost all of the features I

This *is* bad because if there is an existing userbase with tar
(which isn’t true in the obnam case, sure, but would be true if
you were to try forbidding all other backup programs in Debian)
this will break their use cases, and *that* is what the systemd
situation is all about.

I don’t mind systemd in Debian existing and being installable.
I could even live with systemd being the default on “modern
desktop” architectures, even though I’d rather not have that
in a server install on the same architecture. But I absolutely
must be able to choose to use a different init system. Most of
the loud-voiced GNOME/systemd proponents say that their way is
the only way. (Which, AFAIHH (I don’t use GNOME myself, never
found it usable even in 1.x days), is also true for GNOME: it
is said to disable the ability of users to theme and customise
it, and Torvalds’ opinions are well-known.)

Basically, it boils down to
• not breaking existing users, and
• keeping tinkerability.

bye,
//mirabilos