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Comment by NelsonMinar | Hacker News Reader

The NTP Pool has very simple guidelines for vendors distributing software with hard-coded NTP server names. Very simply, they ask that you set up a vendor DNS alias. Details here: http://www.pool.ntp.org/en/vendors.html#basic-guidelines

The NTP Pool is an incredibly valuable public resource. It's run by volunteers, all they ask is you treat the resource with respect so it works for everyone.

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Try explaining that to Poettering. [1] [2]

[1] https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/2014-Au...

[2] https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/437

I think you linked something that has little to do with the subject at hand in order to take a jab at Poettering. Lame behaviour.

The issue, as I remember it, is more complex than you suggest with your quip. Who is the vendor for a distributed copy of systemd, is it systemd or the distributor?

Both threads are exactly about the subject of the discussion. How does it have “little to do with the subject at hand?”

I think the context that a lot of people seem to miss is that this default was never used in practice with a real Linux distro. So in effect it was never really an issue in the real world since the default was always changed.

Then why provide a default at all? Especially one that isn't suppose to be used publically like google's?

So systemd at least compiles without manual settings, and convention over configuration trends. It would be ideal if they just setup their own NTP server for the default though. I think from a practical perspective though the whole thing was blown out of proportion.

It requires a configuration file to even compile? How's that work?

Oh, they already warn for using the default: https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/554 (which happen to be timeX.google.com)

It's really amazing that we've seen so many of the issues in the past. If you use standard tools in the standard way, you're not going to create any floods. It baffles me that vendors are re-inventing the wheel and generating NTP floods.

I can't help feel that we have gotten a generation of programmers and whatsnot that has no respect for existing tools. Rather than try to grok what is already out there they will instead grab whatever is the hyped language of the day and roll their own.

You're just describing inexperienced but somewhat technically competent developers. I was also like that at the beginning of my career. Most of the programmers go through this way. I guess the difference these days is that the ratio of people at the beginning of their careers to the seasoned developers is way higher and they are being assigned more and more critical tasks as demand goes through the roof.

And if you tell them that they are barking up the wrong tree, they run to social media to get you labeled as a "hater"...

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