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Comment by frodob12 | Hacker News Reader

They were told to by debian. They argued for as long as they could while debian was still 'their' distribution to change the direction systemd would take it. It was clean that wasn't going to happen. Final response; "If you don't like it you can always fork. But you'll never release anything."

So now they have forked and they have released. So now their splitters. Cake and eat it types, what can you do?

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> They were told to by debian.

I don't follow. Are you saying that representatives of the Debian project refused to collaborate with the Devuan developers with regards to improving init system interoperability?

I mean, I think the comment was pretty clear, and that sounds like exactly what they said.

What did "Debian" say exactly? Can you link it?

Or are you just stating what you imagine "they" might have said? :)

This[0] PCWorld article quotes two Debian list email posts which may clarify what "Debian" said.

From one of the email[1]:

  So, this vote effectively gives systemd the win

And the other[2] shows the result of Debian voting on the topic.

0 - http://www.pcworld.com/article/2854717/meet-devuan-the-debia...

1 - https://lists.debian.org/debian-ctte/2014/02/msg00338.html

2 - https://vote.debian.org/~secretary/gr_initcoupling/results.t...

So, to quote the subject of [1]: "call for votes on default Linux init system for jessie" Note that it says "default", not "only".

Where does that support the claim that Debian would oppose people working on sysvinit support?

  Where does that support the claim that
  Debian would oppose people working on
  sysvinit support?

In the body of the other[2] email where 'Option 2 "Support for other init systems is recommended, but not mandatory"' was selected by the Debian community. Once this path was chosen, while it theoretically isn't opposition, in practice it was only a matter of time before non-systemd init systems would become increasingly difficult to use in a systemd-leaning distribution (sysvinit or otherwise).

As Manfred Eigen said:

  In theory, there is no difference
  between theory and practice. But,
  in practice, there is.

(source: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/manfredeig211444...)

I'm just saying I think that's what the parent comment is saying. As for whether Debian actually said that...well that's anybody's guess.

Bullshit.

https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2014/08/msg00...

  For the record, the TC expects maintainers to continue to support
  the multiple available init systems in Debian.  That includes
  merging reasonable contributions, and not reverting existing
  support without a compelling reason.

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