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Comment by doe88 | Hacker News Reader

I think the author should refrain from using the word trolls so much it hampers his overall message.

So what happens with the pinning example with GNOME (I didn't know this useful command)? Because of the dependance on systemd it is not upgraded then?

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Indeed, I've went off on some anti-systemd rants, simply based on its design philsophy, but all I ever wanted was init-system flexibility. I'm just glad to see that Debian has went in the right direction with this, rather than enforced a lock-in as has been previously suggested and may be the case on many other distributions.

Would you like your Debian with Unix or Windows flavoring? ;)

Seriously though, I am not really sure how I feel about this. While systemd obviously has benefits, I just can't shake the feeling that it goes against the Unix paradiam. But then again, I also prefer xterms and a window manager over a desktop environments like KDE, Xfce, and Gnome, so maybe that explains my mixed feelings.

I've gone to FreeBSD for now on my personal dev box, I'm a real sucker for a dead simple /etc/rc.conf like Arch used to have and their system philosophy seems more in line with my own anyways.

Very glad to hear we have a major binary distro like Debian committing to init system flexibility this strongly. I just hope it's true. The people who are hesitant can experiment and stay where they are for now, moving only when it's actually desired rather than forced.

We'll see how this develops, but this ain't Gentoo, I wouldn't count on Debian to keep supporting sysv. Quote from Debian forums:

it's very unlikely that SysVinit will continue to be supported, because writing init scripts for SysVinit is hard work, and if it isn't used as the default on Linux they'll rot.

Well, this post and http://lwn.net/Articles/616571/ does seem to indicate they're planning to keep some level of compatibility with other init systems at least.

I'm not in love with sysvinit, I just don't think systemd is the best option. It clashes, at least with my views on simplistic system design philosophy. OpenRC and FreeBSD's rc seem notably better than both systemd and sysvinit to me.

I agree with everything you said, my point was that it's necessary to be prepared, in case systemd becomes a hard dependency for Debian, which is likely given that more software is depending on systemd, and the lead developer is trying to "merge" linux with systemd. And in that case, I think only Gento is willing to fork.

>I've gone to FreeBSD for now on my personal dev box, I've been contemplating that, too. How do you like it?

Well, it took some RTFMing, but overall it seems quite good. The ports system is great and it has a lot of simple stuff I really like, like having a list of vulnerable packages emailed to root automatically every night by default.

There have been some real hate-filled messages on the mailing lists. If they had been directed at a women then they would have made HN all on their own. The article links to one of them, if you want to check it out.

For the record, the guy on the mailing list linked in the article probably has serious mental health issues.

He also does those really creepy youtube videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2toVPMHRo8M

And I've heard he contacted other devs and I've heard a couple of stories that I'm not sure I can share publicly at this point.

Generalizing that all systemd opponents are trolls because there is one guy with serious mental health issues is not a valid argument.

Here is the message:

There has been no General Resolution amongst debian package maintainers. Red Hat has instituted a regulatory capture of the "bug squashing" committee within debian (the "Technical Committee") by having current or former (but stock holding) employees moonlight in debian and gradually gain membership in that comittie.

Once their numbers were sufficient they proceeded to file a bug report on the fact that systemd was not standard in debian.

This is illicit abuse of process and they need to be prosecuted.

Debian is an unincorporated association. It has bylaws, trade practices, and dealings by which it was governed. The RedHat associated members of the Technical Committee have illegally and in bad faith abused their positions in-order to realize financial and strategic gain for their employer.

Do you really believe this is hate speech? Hate speech attacks a person or group on the basis of attributes such as gender, ethnic origin, religion, race, disability, or sexual orientation.

It may not be hate speech, but it is not very constructive and have a smell of conspiracy theory.

Mr. Snowden's revelations prove that "a smell of conspiracy theory" is not a strong enough argument. Obviously Red Hat is interested in widespread systemd adoption, and that message might offer an explanation as to why debian only considered 3 alternatives and unprecedentedly rushed the adoption process. So this angle is definitively constructive.

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