Re: Integration with systemd
Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes:
> The question is: are we going to permit those technical contributions
> into Debian ? Are we going to keep making it awkward or are we actually
> going to _welcome_ them ?
> Are we going to say to those of our contributors who want to see a nice
> tidy hegemony, "sure, throw all the sysvinit stuff away, it is OK to
> reject the patches with init scripts, it is OK to work to make it
> impossible to have this stuff in Debian, even if the software works" ?
> And, are we going to continue to wear people down with awful threads
> like this one, where a parade of doomsayers tell us we can't have what
> we want *even though it already exists and is maintained* ?
Exactly. And this to me is why a GR is a good idea, because right now we
don't have a clear project decision to point to, and therefore everyone
feels free to argue their side of the issue every time it comes up. And
there isn't a clear project statement that people shouldn't remove init
scripts from their package, or that people shouldn't reject patches with
init scripts, that's documented somewhere and that we support as a
community.
We have a rough compromise that those of us who were there at the time
remember and try to support, but it's not written down, and there are
far-flung segments of Debian that don't read debian-devel and only
interact with systemd systems and aren't going to naturally support that
compromise. Plus, that compromise was understood at the time to be
contingent on future developments, so we need to revisit it.
This is the deferred decision that I'm talking about: what is the project
going to say is Debian's position on what we're supporting and what we're
not supporting? One option is to ratify the existing compromise, which
would have the advantage of putting some teeth into it and which I will
volunteer to try to write Policy text for. But I do think it's not 100%
obvious that a majority in Debian supports that compromise, or understands
it in the same way. We gain a lot of clarity by figuring that out.
I should also point out that this is exactly why Ian wanted a clear TC
ruling or GR on this after the original systemd debate, and what we're
seeing are the negative consequences of not doing that, just as he had
predicted. As mentioned elsewhere, I still support the decision the
project made at the time for other reasons, but this is the downside that
we have not yet come to grips with, and I think it's worth noting that Ian
was correct about the negative consequences.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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