Joey Hess Resigns From Debian 450
An anonymous reader writes: Long-time Debian developer Joey Hess has posted a resignation letter to the Debian mailing list. Hess was a big part of the development of the Debian installer, debhelper, Alien, and other systems. He says, "It's become abundantly clear that this is no longer the project I originally joined in 1996. We've made some good things, and I wish everyone well, but I'm out. ... If I have one regret from my 18 years in Debian, it's that when the Debian constitution was originally proposed, despite seeing it as dubious, I neglected to speak out against it. It's clear to me now that it's a toxic document, that has slowly but surely led Debian in very unhealthy directions."
DebianNoob (Score:4, Interesting)
What directions is he referring to? What's seen as wrong with the constitution? Toxic?
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My impression of Debian has always been that they take themselves very seriously, especially compared to other distributions. They seem to have a very thought out management structure and inner politics that probably rival large companies. Years ago I remember reading some discussion and coming to the somewhat painful realization that open source now has and possibly even needs PHBes. My guess is that it has continued to (de)volve down the political line, and become the same broken mess s most political sys
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open source doesn't as much need phb's as much as it attracts them.
can't code, want to contribute? become a phb! if someone calls you out on it when you try to make some decision or another so that you can have your name on some decision or another, just call them toxic and quote some club rule!
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open source doesn't as much need phb's as much as it attracts them.
can't code, want to contribute? become a phb! if someone calls you out on it when you try to make some decision or another so that you can have your name on some decision or another, just call them toxic and quote some club rule!
Is that really what has been happening?
I have never worked with a large open source project (beyond bug reports), but I always suspected they had a real need for project managers, technical writers/documenters, and various other support personnel.
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Can you prove that? The quote here is so small and vague he could be speaking of a policy of eating while on conference calls, for all we know
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(posting to undo a moderation misclick on the above post, sorry)
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It's not proof, but if you look at the Init System general resolution thread on the mailing list, there's a loooong subthread where the logic behind the GR is appropriate under the debian constitution.
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If it hadn't been, he would have clearly said so.
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More specifically to the decision not to delay the next release to await the results of the GR on whether packages are allowed to require systemd. I can't say I blame him. There is obviously some kind of coup in progress in Debian, some say by (ex-) Red Hat people. Lets see whether the project starts to bleed maintainers. Would not surprise me one bit, this is not a company were some people of questionable character take over, but the workers have to stay due to lack of better alternatives. This is a FOSS p
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No, if you read his contributions to the thread, he's generally neutral to positive on systemd, and seems to consider most of the whining to be sore losers rehashing shit that's already been discussed ad nauseam multiple times.
He also specifically attacks the notion of using a GR to set technical directions, and he stated a profound dissatisfaction with people raising the GR 2 short weeks before Jessie was supposed to freeze for release.
He's not leaving "because of systemd", unless you're saying that he's s
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Really. Could it not just be that it's toxic? Or at least he considers it to be so? As a resignation it seemed pretty mild to me, especially in the geek world where such things usually are laced with profanity and obscenities as well as venom.
Re:DebianNoob (Score:5, Informative)
Based on what I've read....
His departure has to do with the interruptions to the release cycle by introducing arguments about technical minutia in sub-projects as requiring a GR vote to decide. Technical arguments being decided by the ignorant masses, versus the specific groups (which anyone from the GR can join) who have the specific job of making those decisions. At least that's one way to look at it.
This is not the first time and probably will not be the last that Debian technical decisions will be handed up to the popular vote, completely subverting the whole specialized delineation of teams within Debian. GR votes are being taken (again) for the specific purpose of avoiding losing a technical argument by appealing to a larger group, which also impacts the Debian release cycle. Normally, such votes would be delayed in the interest of the distro, but this is allowed by the Debian constitution. I would believe, such an act (appealing to the GR) was supposed to be limited to hotly debated and controversial topics (like systemd) but not implementation details (which is what is happening)...much less so close to the release date.
He is stating that he expects it to continue. He's not interesting in taking up this fight as a call to amend the constitution. He obviously feels alone in calling out that it's counterproductive to argue over details so close to a release. He's just done with a community that cares about who wins arguments or following strict process procedures rather than respectfully, making deadlines that users and commercial interests depend on (or at least use as an indicator of a stable project).
https://lists.debian.org/debia... [debian.org]
Re:DebianNoob (Score:5, Informative)
I disagree strongly about this being an "implementation detail", IMO it's a question of fundamental strategy. What this GR really comes down to is when the choice comes down to denying admins the choice in init systems or refusing new upstream versions bevause systemd's tendrils have dug too deep in the upstream project which side should Debian take?
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> I disagree strongly about this being an "implementation detail",
I'm not making an argument against or for any position within the Debian groups. I was trying to understand and articulate the context (I'm wrong a lot). I'll submit that my personal opinion (being a non-Debian user since 2000) does not matter. I'm speaking about Joey Hess' position. If a distro uses systemd or not will be 1 factor in my decision making regarding what distros I choose to use. JH is not taking a stand about the Debian direc
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That's well put and fairly characterizes the choices that Debian is going to be faced with going forward which is rare in the systemd debate. Agree 100% and well done.
That being said the bug he seems to be upset about is automatically switching old systems on upgrade.
Re:DebianNoob (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. It is basically a decision about whether Debian becomes a monolith (and installation without systemd is exceedingly painful or impossible) or whether it retains large freedoms for its users to configure things, like, for example, the init-system. Now, monoliths do have advantages (if done really well, something basically nobody manages), but they also have severe disadvantages, like the concentration of power and and with it, decisions not being based on technical merit anymore. For a commercial project that, it can still be worth it. For a non-profit venture, it is toxic.
Re:DebianNoob (Score:4, Insightful)
Becomes a monolith? Before Jessie sysvinit was essential.
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(...) in a FOSS environment the USERS get a say in things?
Well, yes and no. Developers also use their own dogfood, and they're a non-trivial percentage of the userbase.
We know what is good for you, you filthy peasant" top down management bullshit that treats the users as ignorant children
As you frequently post lets-call-it-pro-microsoft-stuff (sometimes you hit the head of the nail, sometimes a finger), it's not too much different from what Microsoft (and other companies) try to do. The idea that "users will get used to" was big with Windows XP, and it was a major success. They try to repeat it ever since and fail miseably (although, I look at the metro interface I personally don't
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"> When RH (which is, both in business model and revenue, a small player in the IT panorama)
I continue to hear this and see absolutely no evidence of it. I see evidence to the contrary, in the US, India and Europe, over the last 20 years.
Generally, it's RPM/RH that is first listed."
Microsoft 2014 sales Income: 86.73B
Oracle's: 38.28B
SAP: 17B
CA: 4.5B
And then, Red Hat, 1.5B
So yes, there's evidence that Red Hat is a small fish in the pool.
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> And then, Red Hat, 1.5B
> So yes, there's evidence that Red Hat is a small fish in the pool.
And Debian is 0. I'm not convinced this is a useful metric.
Re:DebianNoob (Score:5, Insightful)
> So in other words the massive egos are butthurt that in a FOSS environment the USERS get a say in things?
I think that's an unfair characterization.
Any USER can join the technical committee. How is it constructive to have a TC vote bypassed on an issue on the basis of a TC member similarly rejecting the process, as a method to bypass an unfavorable outcome? The toxicity is not the community, it's the process. Once set (by the constitution), it has been effectively unalterable. I do not DISAGREE with this process, I simply recognize the unfairness of it all, from his point of view.
Those "egos" are the egos of people who are part of the technical committee. As Joey asks, why even have one now? Well, because it's taken time to get to this point and it just happened to be close to a release. He thinks technical decisions should be limited to the TC and anything related to those decisions (like the following practices) should also be from the TC. It's not just about this one incident, it's about a consistent waste of time in the TC that he worked to be a part of. He doesn't want to be a USER level contributor either, so he's walking. It's just altogether unfortunate that the community no longer fits his tastes and it's not uncommon for people to leave commercial jobs under the same circumstances.
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"So in other words the massive egos are butthurt that in a FOSS environment the USERS get a say in things?"
No, it isn't, since here USERS don't get a say in things. Only Debian Developers do.
"Frankly its asses like this that will end up making a Debian fork successful,"
No it won't, because USERS don't produce forks, developers do.
Re:DebianNoob (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, you don't know Joey Hess. Being one of the most equanimous, quiet hard-working, involved-everywhere guys I have had the privilege to work with (I am a DD since 2003, and Joey has been one of my role models in the project... Of course, even if our skillsets are quite different) He is not quitting because of "not getting his way".
Gnome3, systemd etc. (Score:5, Interesting)
After all of the rhetoric regarding "community" you can see how Debian has fallen short. While I still like and use Debian currently I am seriously looking at other options. When Debian pushed Gnome3 and the community didn't like it they moved forward with it as the default desktop anyway. Now there is the systemd debacle. A large number of people have voiced their disapproval, but No, Debian is going to go down that route anyway. Perhaps this could be a real gain for the BSDs?
Re:Gnome3, systemd etc. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Gnome3, systemd etc. (Score:5, Interesting)
In fact, someone on the Phoronix forums posted a bunch of links to Joey's debian-devel posts [phoronix.com] which seems to bear this out.
Especially the first one is a clanger. If you can't support systemd on technical grounds without getting threats, something is very toxic indeed.
And no, that first post is not directly related to the Debian Constitution. That the idiotic GR trying to override the Technical Committee decision two weeks before the Jessie freeze is inspired by this kind of drivel, and that the Constitution makes these kind of purely political overrides of the technical decisions possible is rather evident though.
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The GR doesn't override the TC decision, it enhances it.
The CTTE decision said "systemd is the default init for jessie", without saying whether non-defaults are to be supported or dropped. This is the part the GR is for.
Re:Gnome3, systemd etc. (Score:5, Informative)
In fact, someone on the Phoronix forums posted a bunch of links to Joey's debian-devel posts [phoronix.com] which seems to bear this out.
Especially the first one is a clanger. If you can't support systemd on technical grounds without getting threats, something is very toxic indeed.
And no, that first post is not directly related to the Debian Constitution. That the idiotic GR trying to override the Technical Committee decision two weeks before the Jessie freeze is inspired by this kind of drivel, and that the Constitution makes these kind of purely political overrides of the technical decisions possible is rather evident though.
From what I read there, stuff like https://lists.debian.org/debia... [debian.org] (trying to make technical decisions via politics when there actually is no disagreement between devs which needs any help with the decision-making) also contributed to his decision to quit.
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If you can't support systemd on technical grounds without getting threats, something is very toxic indeed.
Under no circumstances has systemd been supported on technical grounds (those proposing it keep repeating this ad nauseam in the hope it will just be accepted as fact), nor has there been any extensive discussion in the manner he describes. systemd has been imposed as a de facto default almost overnight and the general consensus has been that it would be accepted with nary a whisper. Now that there is some pushback various characters are getting upset.
Given that this is an extremely core piece of softwar
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No. Systemd supporters give plenty of technical reasons for their support. In my case (for one thing) it is wanting event based processing of service management. Systemd offers that, sysV rc doesn't. Like it or not, that's a technical reason.
On the other hand, you anti guys keep bringing up things like this shit, or 'not Unix philosophy', or 'monolithic hairball'. Those are not technical arguments.
Do me a favour, and refrain from answering until you can actually muster a technical argument against systemd.
Re: Gnome3, systemd etc. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Gnome3, systemd etc. (Score:4, Insightful)
If the users don't like what the developers are doing, the developers are free to leave.
You've gotta be fucking kidding me. The opposite is true with most open-source projects, as it should be. Those who do the free work get to decide what they work on, and if they want to pander to user's demands. No developer would want to work for free in the way you're describing. Also, developers are users too.
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"I disagree. The point of being in a community is to... be a part of a community. As you describe it, there is no community, there are just two groups of people. Developers and users. If the users don't like what the developers are doing, the developers are free to leave. They will be replaced by people who respect others in the community."
Are you really so naive or just trolling? Because what you are saying is the exact opposite to reality.
And not because a matter of moral judgement, what's right and what
Re:Gnome3, systemd etc. (Score:4, Insightful)
When Debian pushed Gnome3 and the community didn't like it they moved forward with it as the default desktop anyway. Now there is the systemd debacle. A large number of people have voiced their disapproval, but No, Debian is going to go down that route anyway.
GNOME3 and SystemD are a natural choice because the developer community behind them is so large. Hopefully that leads to software which has less glitches, less vulnerabilities, new features are implemented faster, documentation is up to date, and quality assurance works. These days open source projects are so complex that you really need the pure manpower. This is probably the direction which we are even more heading towards in the future.
Re:Gnome3, systemd etc. (Score:5, Interesting)
I was kind of neutral about systemd until I realized that the only way to get centralized logging out of systemd boxes is to turn on syslog mode (journald has no concept of network transport).
At that point, I realized that the systemd developers aren't actually server admins.
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This makes no sense. In the past to get network logging you needed to install a syslog daemon. And with systemd you still need to install a syslog daemon. What's the big deal?
Re:Gnome3, systemd etc. (Score:5, Insightful)
"It is trivial to export systemd log files to such a centralized logging server by using "systemd-journal-gatewayd", "
That is a pull based system, ie: it allows you to retrieve logs from the generating server. It is in no way a replacement for push based logging to a central server.
The fact that you suggested this as a viable alternative demonstrates the huge disconnect between system admins and systemd advocates. It'd be nice if existing solved "problems" weren't re-solved without fully understanding the original problem.
It's like reinventing the wheel, based on you only ever seeing a bike travel down stairs. Then wondering why people complain about the fact that you decided a square wheel would be better. A square wheel may very well provide better traction on the stairs, but you've missed the bigger picture.
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"You mean a disconnect like the fact that you can pretty trivially 100% a couple of servers running feature extracting daemons processing text based logs at the moment for a small cluster of machines?"
No. I see that you still don't see the problem with switching from a push to a pull based system, despite your tangents into text vs binary, etc.
You have illustrated my point.
"Where has this absurd notion that text logs are efficient come from?"
I'll entertain your straw man for a bit. You are talking about tr
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"RELP is TCP based with another layer of protocol over the top."
You could say the same about HTTP or any other application level protocol,
I don't know, maybe my point was spelled out in the immediately following sentences which you didn't read?
Because you just went on to prove the entire point I was making by talking all about extra network protocols and daemons all created to make networked syslog reliable while you're in the middle of complaining about using a separate daemon to make journald network exportable.
At this point, I have no idea what you think the problem is other then "oh my god journald is new and scary". Because you've been e
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Because you just went on to prove the entire point I was making by talking all about extra network protocols and daemons all created to make networked syslog reliable while you're in the middle of complaining about using a separate daemon to make journald network exportable.
You have no point at all apart from making a whole load of noise to make it look like you have one.
At this point, I have no idea what you think the problem is other then "oh my god journald is new and scary".
Not an argument I'm afraid, but this is the kind of non sequiturs that systemd critiques usually boil down to once its proponents have exhausted all the nonesense.
Sys admins demand logs they can read under as many circumstances as possible and the ability to take logs off a machine promptly in the event it is compromised. systemd fails conclusively on both counts. The point, and the end.
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"Where has this absurd notion that text logs are efficient come from?"
From the vast army of sysadmins left with a broken server to see what happened and how to recover it.
"Text based logs generate a huge amount of redundant network traffic."
For one is not a "huge amount", for other, redundant is good here because it means it'll be easy to extract meaning out of a (slightly) corrupted stream. Try that from a 0 redundancy stream.
"Wht ime is it?" - What did I intend to say?
"89035213492" - Is this the number I
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23.23.142.124
Did a digit go missing? Get flipped? Maybe it meant to say 231.23.142.124
It's redundant in the sense that it's useless. Not redundant in the sense that it's robust.
Re:Gnome3, systemd etc. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Or, you might check the issue tracker and you will find that network logging is on the to-do list."
And this quite says it all.
Despite still lacking basic features and obviously being a moving target, someone wants it as the default for such an important component as the init system for the Stable version of one of the most used and respected distributions known, among other things, for not adding variations once frozen (remember the thing about "moving target"?).
Re:Gnome3, systemd etc. (Score:4, Insightful)
"Seriously this fetish the community has with every new thing being 110% feature compatible and complete with the old the moment it hits github is getting tired."
The strawman argument is what's getting tired.
1) No one asks for your petty project to be 110% feature compatible with anything when it hits github.
2) What people asks is for THINGS ALREADY RELIABLY WORKING, being at least as good as the old thingie PRIOR TO BE PROMOTED TO A PRODUCTION ENVIRONMENT.
3) For it to be accepted into a production environment, the new thingie has not only to be as good as the old thing but BETTER by a factor that makes it worthy the expenditure in relearning and readapting old systems and people to the new thing. And then add an extra margin to cope with the risk that in the end things may not end as expected.
I know it's in the human nature but what it's tiring is for each new generation know-it-alls to throw away the experience and knowledge of the ones that came before and then even telling they "find tired" when told, no boy, you don't know it all.
Re:Gnome3, systemd etc. (Score:5, Insightful)
Gnome3, systemd, wayland, pulseaudio etc might (or might not) be good ideas. But they should probably not be introduced before they are completely bug-free -- or at least more bug-free then the thing they will replace. (And they should be better designed than the thing they are trying to replace.)
This has not always been the case. Actually, this has rarely been the case. They have been introduced as the new hip thing despite bugs and design flaws.
And considering that the *ix world is full of people who don't like change - it's one of the main selling points - changing things because it's hip, doesn't solve the problem, introduces new bugs and introduces the well known problem of update-your-legacy-system-or-don't-update-your-machine-ever-again doesn't really sit well with everyone.
Re:Gnome3, systemd etc. (Score:4, Insightful)
I should add to this that Debian has built a reputation, over more than a decade, for being a conservative, rock-solid stable distro. By adopting new packages which are less stable than their predecessors, Debian, more so than other distros, seriously erodes its reputation.
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Yeah, we shouldn't have released X11 until it was 100% bug free either...
Re:Gnome3, systemd etc. (Score:4, Interesting)
Mature software is almost always vastly less buggy than newer feature rich software. In any cycle of improvement the less buggy software is replaced with more feature rich software.
I don't know that. I think there is a some change resistance in Linux now that didn't used to exist. The Unix world used to love change. I think it is a generational shift since the early 2000s. But the Android user base which is the vast majority of the *ix world seems pretty happy with the changes. As do iOS and OSX users. And frankly most Linux desktop users like systemd. And frankly most server people are using cloud solutions which either have or will shortly be switching to systemd easily to take advantage of those features.
There is a vocal minority what doesn't like this change.
Of course it does solve the problem which means you are just making stuff up.
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Aha, i get your point, like equally nobody uses a Linux desktop neither, what a bunch of wasted efforts is that! Right?..
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That's called progress. I liked MySpace and didn't like the switch to Facebook. So what?
There is no catch-22. Gnome is led by RedHat. RedHat is moving in the direction of OpenShift. PaaS vendors want process management i.e. systemd. That's a clear cut chain of dependency. If you want to be on
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You do not have to install gnome3 on Debian, I don't. As for systemd, I suggest looking through Debian's extensive documentation detailing why they chose systemd over the alternatives. At any rate the time to argue systemd was last year when Debian had a very lengthily consultation process. I also suggest looking up the systemd documentation for yourself considering the huge amount of FUD being spread about it and I find it telling that neither the Debian fork website nor the boycott systemd websites don
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If gimp pulls in systemd libs then a bug should be filed there. There is no technical requirement it needs to be that way according to the gnome folks.
During that "lengthly consultation process", nearly all of the for systemd was based on the advantages that systemd, as an init system, offer over competing init systems. In the months since Debian committed to systemd, Poettering has been increasingly vocal that he wants systemd to be more than an init system. That is why there is a renewed call for debate.
This is what I mean by reading things for yourself. I've been reading about his plans but you are mistaking the systemd init system with the overall collections of things he is working on. It's not as if the high speed DHCP daemon he has just written will end up in PID 1. His proposals so far is that there will be more optional daemons that either work be
Re:Gnome3, systemd etc. (Score:4, Insightful)
Can nobody do anything about this chap on an ego trip?
First, he didn't do what was necessary for audio; but made a huge, convoluted "Eierlgende Wollmilchsau" from it (I guess, he knows what that is!) that pops up and tells me all the while that I have plugged in some headphone or some; but doesn't remember, ever, despite of all my efforts, that, no, I don't want the internal sound card after each reboot, thank you very much! So I have been telling my machine for the last 2 years, whenever I boot, exactly that, and again. After each reboot. Thank you very much!
He seems to like all the convoluted stuff - against all Unix philosophy, by the way - and the stuff that usurp the rest of the world. How can a maniac be such unstoppable?
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Installing GIMP, for example, will pull in systemd libs.
Some optional dependency of GIMP pulls systemd-libs. And who cares anyway, if it's just a library? You know that GIMP depends on a bunch of libs one more or one less who cares. A systemd-lib is not systemd.
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Poettering has been increasingly vocal that he wants systemd to be more than an init system.
Who fucking cares? systemd is modular, Debian can just pull in the init stuff of systemd. How is that relevant that the guy who wrote a software peace that Debian wants to use want to add new features?
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I agree. Systemd is now about a "2nd kernel" or "userspace plumbing". Essentially a redesign of Linux.
The problem is I don't know what there is for Debian to debate. They don't have the upsteam influence. If systemd is expanding and large numbers of developers in upstream and going to be introducing dependencies on systemd what is there for Debian to debate? The most they could in a practical sense do would be to create a subset of packages that don't have systemd dependencies directly or indirectly an
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You seem to be speaking for "the community", but I don't see any hard numbers suggesting that the majority of said community actually shares your opinions. Just because many voices cry out and cry loudly, does not make those voices representative of anything meaningful.
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What is Debian? (Score:5, Funny)
I've never heard of Debian before - is it based on Ubuntu Linux?
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I've never heard of Debian before - is it based on Ubuntu Linux?
Debian is destined to be merged into Ubuntu, it seems.
Um, (Score:2)
Um, !
How did the Constitution Fail? (Score:3)
This can be a warning for other groups.
The Debian constitution looks like nothing more than normal club bureaucracy. Without it, I would expect Debian wouldn't have survived as long as it has.
https://www.debian.org/devel/constitution [debian.org]
Without specific concerns about such a constitution, I'm inclined to not make much of this. People change, projects change, people leave, people join. It doesn't matter how vital the participant, things change.
This is the only hint of what's wrong, I don't see how it has anything to do with the existence of a constitution: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2014/11/msg00196.html [debian.org]
No offense to anyone involved... I'm more interested in learning what's wrong with the constitution so that I can avoid similar problems in my own clubs.
Re:How did the Constitution Fail? (Score:5, Informative)
The longest lived linux distribution has no constitution. It's based on the idea of making sure it works well for the leader of the project. Surprisingly, Slackware is gaining, not losing, users due to this.
Of course, it doesn't hurt that Patrick Volkerding seems to prefer something other than systemd.
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What are the options, then?
Even though option 2 works well for some projects, it's not always ideal. This doesn't seem to be a problem with a simple solution (and it probably doesn't help that not many techies are great at po
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no, option 2 only works if the dictator is benevolent - if not, then other options should be chosen.
Turns out the worst option is democracy, but its also the best compared to all the others.
Personally, I like the checks and balances of several people who have power over each other in a circle - like a chairman 'owns' the chief executive but otherwise has no power, the ceo 'owns' the product direction, and introduce a third (the users?) who have control over who gets to be chairman. Between them, they are al
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Indeed, soon they will be petrified. Perhaps even naked.
Other way around, I think. If you got a bowl of steaming hot grits dumped down your pants, wouldn't your next action be to remove them? Petrification would come later.
Yep (Score:3, Funny)
Thanks systemd.
Re:Yep (Score:5, Informative)
Thanks systemd.
BINGO. In spite of Joey being on the 'winning' side of the systemd debate, his resignation seems to be a direct reaction to the schism that systemd has driven into the linux community. As someone far brighter than me [darknedgy.net] said:
Read the whole piece. It's one of the best round-ups of the state of the debate.
(And by 'debate', I mean 'debacle' of course.)
Re:Yep (Score:4, Insightful)
IMO: the article is wrong. Many of the reason that systemd is hated are technical. And those technical reasons have expressed, and then ignored, many times.
Unfortunate, but not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
I've spent way too much time over the past month reading threads on the developers' list related to Joey's proposed vote. Basically, he was advocating a policy which stated that no package shall be dependent upon one particular init system, the situation which has been in place all along. Unfortunately, what it's really come down to is total commitment to systemd or not, not only for Debian but essentially for the Linux community in general. There are many developers who are modifying packages to totally depend upon systemd and its ever expanding list of services, and they have made it clear that they will not consider alternatives. What's become equally clear to me is that the developers in general, and the systemd proponents in particular, are completely unconcerned about the impact upon the user community, the server segment which has almost no concern for improvements such as reduced boot time, or pretty much anything outside of the development community.
Perhaps in the long run this will all work out, but as a long-time (17 years) Debian user and longer-time (30 years) UNIX guy, I'm very skeptical. Too many things being aggregated into a single system, too many dependencies upon large packages which are almost certain to prove susceptible to security and reliability defects, and a lead developer with a poor track record, monstrous ego and an alienating personality. At this point, it seems that a fork of Debian is almost inevitable, though that effort appears to me to be more likely to simply dilute the overall effort than bring any resolution.
What's perhaps most frustrating to me is that systemd is but one of several changes to the ecosystem which are being made with little regard for the consequences. We've seen how well the Gnome3 desktop has been received by the user community, with essentially no concern from the developers. The loss of a desktop manager is an inconvenience, however there are many applications based upon GTK which are essentials, and these are being adversely affected. Another turn in the wrong direction, in my opinion, is Wayland, which breaks many highly useful (to users) capabilities provided by X11. I'd be OK if Wayland continues to be an alternative to X11, however I suspect that, like systemd, it will become an avalanche once Red Hat and any other major distribution adopts it as a default.
As I wrote above, perhaps in the long run it will all be good, and the consequences of people like Joey Hess departing will not be detrimental. We shall see.
-- MC --
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As a (primarily desktop) Linux user since 1998, the unfolding of this debacle is starting to look like an example of why Linux distros in general lack appeal in the desktop space. Desktop/laptop users can't 'make do' with server architecture; there isn't enough veritcal integration of the powerful features we need. When layers represented by systemd and wayland must be considered swappable, the more talented users turn off to the possiblity of building stable user-facing applications on that platform.
One bi
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Is there a good *BSD that has figured out binary package management yet?
Not that I don't love being able to compile everything from scratch but I've stuck with debian for so long because apt-get "just works".
I think in 8 years of use I've had a handful of issues with it (or aptitude/dpkg) where as I've had many more with Windows dependencies.
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I asked a similar question a few weeks back. It seems that FreeBSD's "pkg-ng" still has a few rough edges but is coming along pretty nicely.
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Re:Unfortunate, but not surprising (Score:4, Informative)
Joey Hess did not propose such a vote, Ian Jackson did.
In fact, Joey Hess endorsed an alternative which basically states "we need no stinking GR".
https://www.debian.org/vote/2014/vote_003#amendmentproposerc
Unfortunate, but not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
You outlined your scepticism, thought processes, and the "general concern" standpoint that is so often lost in political vs. technical (or "politechnical") battles involving the "monolithic systemd" approach and I share your sentiments completely. Maybe that's because, like you, I'm an "oldish UNIX guy" (1990 and counting), and a lot of us have been around long enough to see the negative effects of "change for the sake of change" (which, in my opinion, systemd suffers greatly from); a lot of software today suffers from that driving force, so I shouldn't exclusively pick on systemd.
The author of uselessd said [darknedgy.net] "many of the more technically competent people with views critical of systemd have been rather quiet in public, for some reason". The reason is that most of us in those positions do not have the time, energy, or interest to partake in long-winded uphill battles when our jobs, responsibilities, and lives tend to already be inundated with energy-depleting tasks; the last thing we need is to voluntarily enter into a near-religious debacle when we could just switch distros or flavours (e.g. Linux vs. BSD) and continue to do what we've done for a long time (and continue to do it well). Thus, our scepticism is justified -- we are not "against" change, we just don't make hasty decisions.
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Why AC? I would have liked to know who is behind such thoughtful lines.
And I have no mod points to make myself heard through your words.
Yours is an insightful and fully seconded message; since what we have been advocating from the early years of GNU onwards, was first and foremost freedom; and secondly modular architectures.
I have been teaching this to my students throughout the years, and I have poked fun at the 42 levels of dependencies gobbled together in Redmond. Today I'd blush if any of my students ev
Re:Unfortunate, but not surprising (Score:4, Informative)
Another turn in the wrong direction, in my opinion, is Wayland, which breaks many highly useful (to users) capabilities provided by X11.
If Keith Packard thinks Wayland is a good idea, I'm inclined to trust him. And, he does. [lwn.net]
Perhaps you don't fully understand what Wayland is or why the senior X11 developers think it is a good idea. Please read through this and see if it changes your mind:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=x_wayland_situation&num=1 [phoronix.com]
Re:Unfortunate, but not surprising (Score:4, Insightful)
Joey Hess was pro-systemd. Your entire article is wrong.
Whatever (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't care what skill you may or may not have, all developers are the same: Random and often wrong.
I say this as a developer myself for 30+ years. We are esoteric, egotistical, opinionated, and often, very often, wrong when it comes to the overall picture, prediction of future trends, and proper leadership. This is why I always try to seek out leaders that can guide my skill to success. I know for a fact that I suck at understanding the high-level world.
Re:Whatever (Score:5, Insightful)
I will be changing to FreeBSD too (Score:3)
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I have no relationship. Just using happy Fedora 20 with systemd. I just want to hear a genuine error of systemd.
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systemd (Score:5, Insightful)
systemd is designed to prevent duplicated boilerplate in init scripts -- but it won't support arbitrary verbs in its init scripts so best practice is to put those functions in auxiliary scripts elsewhere. Which will mean you have to duplicate long sets of the same functionality in both places. Yay for systemd!
systemd is designed to minimize how long you spend booting. Given how often I reboot, if systemd costs me even one more minute to deal with over the course of a year, systemd has actively failed to save me time.
systemd brings binary logging to Linux, which is good because I was talking to Nobody Ever, and Mr. Ever had a lot to say about how big a help the Windows Event Viewer is in sorting out issues.
I guess Debian was a great thing to learn Unix on and I'll really miss it.
Re:systemd (Score:4, Informative)
systemd is designed to give Linux a full featured process manager like you have on mainframes. Speeding booting is a side benefit.
___
As for your comment about arbitrary verbs systemd should be handling each process, that's its job. There shouldn't be any functionality in both places after conversion.
Re:systemd (Score:4, Informative)
Let's number the responses:
1. For your complaints about lack of arbitrary verbs in init scripts I don't really see much of this as a problem. When systemd's settings do what they are supposed to there is no duplicate functionality elsewhere. This is true for the distros I've seen it used. Far LESS scripting to start the system.
2. Systemd is not about boot time, actually I saw at least one example showing it's slower than upstart. But if you think that's the reason systemd exists you have a lot of reading to do.
3. Binary logging is a useful feature IMO. But hey you can't please everyone. Oh wait you can, a single setting change will give you standard syslog compatibility. Who knew!
Re:What does he mean? (Score:4, Interesting)
What does he specifically mean?
He means that Debian, like many other FOSS projects, needs Giving Trees to drain.
Joey was one such tree, and all that is left now is a stump. Others are at various stages of being just a trunk, or perhaps having a few branches left. The Giving Trees are being chopped down faster than they are being planted.
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For me, the not-caring about corrupted logs was the kicker. Nobody with even the least bit of interest in security and stability will _ever_ tolerate something like that. The logs are critical and _must_ be complete, if technically possible.
Poettering is an incompetent hack or has a nefarious agenda. (Personally, I think he is a pansy for others with the nefarious agenda...)
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Well, if the language is deserved, nobody will be sorry to see you go. People not listening to valid concerns when they are voiced in a reasonable manner, eventually get shouted at and rightfully so.
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