On 2015-08-31 at 10:49, Christian Seiler wrote: > On 08/31/2015 02:33 PM, The Wanderer wrote: > >> Also, while I agree that Lennart is not out "to get us" in the >> sense of malicious laughter and diabolical plans, he _does_ seem to >> outright reject some principles which have been valued in the >> free-software world for decades, to want to see those principles >> crushed to whatever extent they interfere with his own goals, and >> to have zero sympathy or respect in practice for those who do value >> those principles. The end result may not be all that different. > > I think that you are - unintentionally - assuming bad faith here, by > claiming Lennart doesn't have any sympathies or respect for other > people's opinions. How would you know that? Two things: One, I said that he "_does_ seem to [...] have zero sympathy or respect in practice for" those things. The words "seem to" were chosen intentionally; I am actively, though perhaps not entirely successfully, trying to avoid making assertions of things I can't know. Two, I base this assessment on the things he has said and the ways in which he has reacted when people have objected to various of the things he has done - on his public comments and discussion, more than on what has been done with systemd itself. (As has been pointed out many times, systemd is not Lennart's baby alone, and he isn't the only one who decides what happens with it.) I don't have any specific examples of such comments ready to hand (I frankly try to avoid thinking about that whole mess any more than I can avoid, just for the sake of my own stress levels), and even if I did, most of them by themselves don't look all that damning; it's only in the aggregate that the picture forms. I would _love_ to see examples indicating that he does respect those whose values conflict with his own in these areas (or, even better, that he does value the principles in question, even if he concludes that $X other principles outweigh them), but I'm not even sure what would constitute a recognizable example of that. (If anything, I would say it's less that I'm assuming bad faith than that I'm _concluding_ bad faith. I don't think I'm doing either, but the latter would probably be closer to being accurate.) >> Agreed. For what it's worth, I don't think this particular >> iteration of the discussion has gotten nearly as heated or as >> hostile or as harmful as many of the previous ones have done. > > Sure, but I would rather come to the situation where people can air > their honest disagreements here without resorting to name-calling, > greatly exaggerated hyperbole and assumptions of bad faith. I entirely agree, but given how far apart philosophically the sides of this disagreement are, I'm not at all sure that it's reasonable to expect that there will not be anyone even in the lowest grades of either side who does not go that far. > And while this has not been the worst exchange on this topic, the > very first posting in this thread is a prime example for people > assuming bad faith. Just look at the title of this thread and thus > the framing of the discussion. Instead of talking about what actually > happened (that there's a new alternative to su that fits slightly > different use cases) the title claims that su will disappear. Note > that _nobody_ working on su, neither upstream nor maintaining it in > distributions, has claimed that they will stop. Nobody working on sysvinit claimed that they would stop doing that when systemd came along and Lennart started claiming that it was the vastly better approach, either, and yet sysvinit is well on the way to becoming marginalized. It doesn't seem entirely unreasonable at first glance to expect something similar to happen again, since presumably this new tool will get installed along with systemd and the systemd ecosystem will provide pressure (however minor or oblique) to use it. (Closer examination may well reveal that it _is_ unreasonable on deeper analysis.) The Subject line is an overstatement, yes, but it's not an entirely baseless one. Consider: * There is apparently an interaction between su and the collection of binaries which are known collectively as "systemd" which produces undesirable results, and is at least arguably a bug. * Lennart refuses to change that collection of binaries in order to prevent this interaction from causing these results, on the grounds that A: su is ill-defined to begin with (or so he asserts), and B: an alternative tool which he thinks is better is already available as part of the collection of binaries which are known collectively as "systemd". * Therefore, the only way to avoid the friction which arises from that interaction and its undesirable results is to either not use su or not use systemd. (And not using systemd is an increasingly pushing-against-the-current proposition. It's possible, but it's becoming less and less the default.) * Therefore there is increased disincentive to use su, and increased incentive to use Lennart's proposed alternative (and thereby become increasingly locked-in to systemd). It's premature to conclude that that will result in su disappearing, but the idea doesn't seem entirely irrational either. -- The Wanderer The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw
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