Hi Aron, hi everyone, Aron Xu - 31.12.19, 15:57:22 CET: > On Sun, Dec 29, 2019 at 5:00 AM Ondřej Surý <ondrej@sury.org> wrote: > > the init systemd GR is over and we have reached the results in a > > democratic way by following Debian Constitution. However following > > the process is orthogonal to our opinions, positions we took, and > > our feelings. Now, more than ever, it’s important to be nice to > > each other, have a lot of compassion and not be condescending, > > whatever group you belong to. > > > > So, I am sending hugs to all my fellow Debian colleagues no matter > > whether the are pro-systemd, anti-systemd, anything in between, or > > something completely different. Happy new year to all of you and > > the Debian project as whole. > Thank you for saying so. > > Some moments I felt quite heart broken to see Debian is at some level > of risk that the project rarely faced before. We might hold different > opinions, techinical or perceptional, such diversity is a strength of > our community and we could to cherish it by being nice to our fellow > people. I am sad that already one Debian developer decided to leave the project over the result of this GR. One of them who tirelessly worked on fixing bugs for sysvinit bringing it to a state of exceptionally high quality when you consider what is left over in the Debian bug tracker. So sysvinit users in Debian and probably in Devuan lost, that is clear already – unless someone else steps up which given the outcome of this GR I see as unlikely. However, that does not really surprise me. It was one of the possible outcomes of this GR I clearly warned about. The GR had several options that are clearly "win-loose", and these in my eyes are never good for a project. Also in my opinion emotional exhaustion is a bad reason to actually have had this GR. It is a bad reason cause it justifies excluding the friction that apparently (!) – nothing external ever causes an emotion it is always *my* reaction to it – caused the emotional exhaustion. It does not go into a process of truly resolving the friction, but instead goes about kind of silencing one side of it. It can be very easily use as an argument to exclude people and viewpoints. I for myself am not sure how much I will feel at home with Debian anymore. With the option chosen it all depends on the good will of the ones who "won" with this option. This good will from what I saw has been quite limited in the past. The outcome of the GR may be harmful to both the Devuan *and* the Debian community. Cause any popcon stats posted here usually did not include Devuan popcon stats – for example 3 of my 4 own systems are Devuan already. And the election would only contain those votes of Devuan developers who are also Debian developers. So I believe the probable "loose" group of people of the outcome of the GR is bigger than you can see by the vote results or Debian popcon stats. And we also do not know how users feel about it, still having Systemd installed is *not* a vote. It may be coping as everything else in Debian is connected with some additional risk of breakage – that said I use elogind on Debian since more than half a year already, things just work. Of course it is also a high risk for Devuan itself. Devuan may fail due to the outcome of the GR… and then all those who are left out by the result of this GR may not have a good Debian like home after all anymore and would be left over… with either coping with Debian… partly unwillingly… or switching to another distribution… or… I don't know. Also if Devuan does not fail there they may need to deviate from Debian much more than they do by now. Which would reduce the amount of possible collaboration. Which again would be bad for both Debian and Devuan. I am prepared to switch over the last of my machines to Devuan which may mean that I'd drop package maintenance for Debian. I am not yet clear about it. It depends on the practical results of the GR which is very much dependent of what people will make out it. Especially those people who "won" with this GR. And it also depends on how much Devuan and Debian will deviate from each other. I may even decide to maintain my packages for Devuan and then Debian would have to do the porting work or find another maintainer. That said, my few packages have no need for a Systemd dependency and as long I maintain them, there won't be one. But it is more about whether I will really feel at home with Debian. Even if I could technically still contribute to Debian, if it feels like contributing to something that appears more and more alienating from what Debian was for me so far I may stop. I am not using RHEL or SLES or any other purely Systemd based distribution for a reason. Of course, it would have been the other way around if one of the Sysvinit favoring options would have won. And that is the whole issue of the GR. It has "win-loose" options and some lost now. Some options in it were not about diversity, but about exclusion. Again: Some options in it were not about diversity, but about exclusion. Anyway, I am no Debian developer and thus the only voice I could raise is here… and by freely choosing what I contribute to and use. My motivation to ever become a Debian developer is zero by now – not only due to this GR. And in the long run Debian may also loose me as a user. A difficult decision as I have bonds with the Qt/KDE team in Debian and would like to continue to work with them, even if just on the occasional base I do at the moment. Let's see about the practical outcome of the GR. Right now I think it did not serve the highest good of the Debian community. It did not resolve conflict and it may probably not even succeed in silencing it. In fact I believe as long as all those who prefer to use something else than Systemd, and thus also the Hurd and kFreeBSD people, do not have a new home there will still be friction. The outcome of the GR did not magically make that friction disappear. It is still there. So I am not sure anymore whether this whole GR even had a point. If this is a victory for some or who knows even a majority in my point of view it has been a very expensive one. Anyway, it is what it is, and I welcome that as well as best as I can. Knowing that I can freely decide what my personal consequences may be. Be nice to your fellow Debian colleagues so or so is a good idea. It is *always* a good idea. Mutuality and harmlessness go a long, long way. All the best to Debian. I do see *quite* some challenges ahead. Most of them, if not all of them *community* related. Parts of the Debian community are hurting and are hurting since quite some time. Again not just due to the topic in this GR, but also for other reasons. All the best for resolving at least some of those community related issues in 2020. Have a Happy New Year! Best, -- Martin
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part.