> Compiling a package from source is not maintaining it. Maintaining a package
> means that there is someone who is looking after bugs and regressions and
> fixing them.
I have never said i am gonna maintain it. I just want to install and use it.
> There is no maintainer for sysvinit anymore which means serious bugs like
> this one [1] remain unaddressed. You might be able to work-around this
> single bug but future regressions due to changes in other daemons and
> the kernel can potentially render your whole system unbootable in the
> future.
That is a risk i am gonna take. If SysVInit will ultimately become unusable then i will try out another init alternative. I am merely sticking with it now because it is in the binary repo and i can simply install and use it.
> If the people who invested all the time and effort to set up websites like
> 'without-systemd.org' actually took that energy to pick up the sysvinit
> maintainership and start fixing the almost 400 issues the packages
> has [2], these people would actually have a case and people like
> you wouldn't enter a possible minefield.
without-systemd.org is not created to maintain SysVInit, but to inform people how they can avoid systemd. For example they enlisted dozens of alternative init systems which are still maintained, so people like me will know about what alternatives will we have when we have to abandon SysVInit.
> But with the current situation, you have to be quite courageous to
> replace core infrastructure on your machines with unmaintained
> software. This is never a good idea, independent whether you like
> systemd or not.
My secondary desktop is my old Amiga 500+ from 1992 with several hardware modifications, Amiga OS 3.1 & 1.3 and dozens of 3rd party patches. I also have a G4 with OSX Tiger and a Mac Mini with OSX Snow Leopard. And other Apple, Atari, Commodore and Sun machines. Not mentioning my 8 and 16-bit consoles with homemade modifications. I appreciate your warnings, but i am not afraid of obsolete technology and unmaintained software. Or to alternate them.
But i don't want to argue over systemd. I'm asking these here, because if i need a Linux for Sparc64 workstations (like my Sun Blade 100), then i have no other choice than Debian. (http://bgafc.t-hosting.hu/oses4sparc64.php?ft2=2&) Or maybe Gentoo, but i don't want to use Gentoo.