[kwlug-disc] What is all this about systemd?

[Ralph Janke]

I think one big issue (like with lots of things in Democracy) is the
way the vote has been set up. Besides, that it does not make sense that 
all
4 options pass majority, ... Option 1 and 2 (Mandatory / Recommended not 
to
require one init system) should be seen in context, so if I read the 
numbers
right, Option 1 & Option 2 together had more votes than option 4 (no GR 
required)

I also think the problem is democracy in governance, since it is about 
popularity
and requires participation. Out of 1066 possible voters, only 622 
ballots where
received and only 458 (< 50%) where unique voters. And this are only 
Debian
Developers, not even Debian Users.

There are certainly arguments for and against if the vote should be 
broadened
to the public at large or users, however, it would be nice to have at 
least a
non-binding additional vote from that pool to see the differences if 
they exist.

It seems interesting that one of the argument in particular in GPL are 
user rights,
however, in turn the distros are less interested in the opinion of the 
users.
So if the argument is, that it is a doocracy, than my question would be 
why is
such a vote needed anyway. In this case, it can just be done and the 
users decide
what they choose from different alternatives. This is still possible. 
Systemd as
default or not. The real question is, if it can be easily replaced by 
the users with
something else. Should all the packages interacting with the init system 
(and this
are a low percentage as only software that need background processes do 
this) have
alternative configurations that work with different init systems then 
there is
not a big problem. This can be achieved by adding patches inside Debian 
if the
upstream packages do not include them in the first place.

Quite frankly, I see this whole debate (about the GR) a lot of hot air. 
Surely,
it would be nice if at least option 2 would have been adopted, but I do 
not see
why people make drastic decisions because of the result of the vote. 
And, as I
understand it, the resignations have far more to do with the problems 
based on
governance and its processes in general than with the issues around 
systemd.

I can understand that. I have changed my focus to developing FLOSS 
software rather
than being too much involved in distros because it is just far too 
frustrating, and
time-consuming without real productivity.

So, the way I see it, it will still be possible to run Debian without 
systemd, and
if that should change, it is easily possible, to create a Debian-based 
Distro that
focuses only on those parts that allow systemd to be removed, and 
otherwise sync
everything from Debian, or, if not calling it distro, just provides a 
PPA or a
collection of packages that do that.

- Just my non-existing 2 cents

-tx

On 2014-11-19 13:49, Hubert Chathi wrote:
> On Wed, 19 Nov 2014 10:28:35 -0500, Khalid Baheyeldin <kb at 2bits.com> 
> said:
> 
>> This is troubling ...  No one would mind systemd if it was replaceable
>> by other init systems, and applications did not ask for it
>> specifically, but "an init system".
> 
>> Now, even this is not possible in Debian ...
> 
>> Ian Jackson's Debian General Resolution to prevent init system
>> coupling fails to pass
> 
> Again, to clarify, this does not mean that it is *not possible* for 
> that
> to happen, but that the Debian Developers have decided at this time not
> to *force* support for alternate init systems.  It is likely that most
> packages will still work with other init systems for quite a while.
> 
> BTW, for some statistics on the vote results, including a graph of how
> each option fared against the others:
> https://vote.debian.org/~secretary/gr_initcoupling/
> And the vote results:
> https://vote.debian.org/~secretary/gr_initcoupling/results.txt
> 
> 
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-- 
txwikinger

Long live free/libre software