Re: Systemd
On Sat, Apr 26, 2014 at 1:53 PM, Joel Rees <joel.rees@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 25, 2014 at 10:59 PM, Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Please, can someone explain - without too much on the politics, if
>> that's possible - whether it's right for me to invest time into
>> learning systemd?
>
>
> This one is impossible to explain without bringing in stuff that the
> systemd/dbus/etc. crowd (using posts like the one that started this thread)
> have managed to paint over with the politics brush. (That's what I meant by
> poisoning the well.)
>
> So, no, it's impossible to explain without "politics".
Okay. Thank you for explaining. (Including the below.)
> On the other hand, you could learn to code, and then you could examine the
> code, and then you would understand why the acrimony goes all the way up to
> the top.
I know how to code, and spend significant portions of my day doing so.
I'm familiar with C, having been using it for the better part of two
decades. But I've never dug into the Linux kernel, simply because it's
a huge amount of code to grok; and opening up a few source files won't
tell me why people are unhappy. (Unless it's all in comments, in which
case it's no different from reading text files.)
> Of course, understanding why XML configuration files don't belong in
> boot-time code does take a bit more learning to code than simply
> understanding the difference between a pointer and an array.
Uhh, XML config files don't belong ... pretty much anywhere. :)
>> I get very tired of the endless arguments (Open
>> Office vs Libre Office, cdrecord vs wodim, ffmpeg vs avconv - at least
>> in those cases, the replacement is mostly drop-in), and frankly, I
>> have a highly pragmatic approach to my init system: it should boot my
>> system, and it should be possible for me to configure a program to be
>> invoked. So is systemd the future, or are we going to have another
>> massive argument?
>
> I'll be a little less oblique than I was above.
>
> As near as I can tell, systemd, etc., are all good ideas that have been
> poorly executed, and have expanded way too far in scope.
That's something that's happened a good few times.
> Unfortunately, they
> are also the tools that certain vested interests are using to subvert the
> entire open-source development process. (Apparently using? No. It's getting
> pretty obvious now.)
It was developed at Red Hat. Are you saying they're trying to subvert
open source, or someone else is? I'm lost.
> When it became clear that Microsoft's products were becoming the accepted
> standard in the business world, back in the 1980s, did you decide to learn
> MSVisual Basic? If you were too young then, knowing what you know now, would
> you learn MSVB?
I did not, but I did learn other tools which would let me target
Windows (mainly Open Watcom C/C++, then, but if I knew then what I
know today, probably Python or Pike).
> I don't think it's the right question. If you're not game for the war, you
> don't really have a choice. You will use the winner of this war or you will
> quit directly using computers. The money, if you care about what the people
> with money do, looks to be behind systemd, for better or for worse.
>
> If you're game for the war, start by learning to code. And you will likely
> need to learn systemd anyway, so you can help build the tools to provide an
> alternative. You should also start learning how to use the BSDs, especially
> openBSD.
As I said above, I can code. (Most of my need for Upstart/systemd
scripts is to get my stuff running on startup.) But maybe I should
start targeting a BSD, if only to get some experience with it.
You say there'll be a fork in the Linux kernel. But if the split is
over the use of systemd, why isn't there simply a fork of a
distribution, shipping some other init instead of systemd?
Maybe I should just shut up and go be a user. :|
ChrisA
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