Re: Proposal - preserve freedom of choice of init systems

[Ansgar Burchardt <ansgar@debian.org>]

Hi Ian,

Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes:
> It answers this question: Suppose the work is not done.  Ultimately
> then we would have to drop either (a) GNOME or (b) non-systemd init
> systems, and non-Linux kernels.  What choice should we make ?

You might be interested in the discussion in #727708. There it was
pointed out several times that these are not the only options.

> For me the answer is: We should preserve diversity and freedom of
> choice, at the cost of functionality.  Making that statement now,
> very clearly, will make that doomsday scenario less likely.

I think it's sad to see iptables, several drivers and their reverse
dependencies go just because it has no support for FreeBSD and thus
limits diversity and choice, but if you think this is the way
forward...

Could you please also look into the problem of lock-in into specific
version control systems? There the risks are even higher: the data is
stored in non-standard formats that other VCS systems might not be able
to read! I think it's important not to force users into this slavery and
forbid dependencies on specific VCS systems. We need to drop packages
enforcing such dependencies sooner rather than later!

Ansgar