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

[Khalid Baheyeldin]

On Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 11:51 AM, Hubert Chathi <hubert at uhoreg.ca> wrote:
> They are clearly trying to drum up support for Ian's proposal, and I
> don't think it's an effective way to do so.

I agree it is not an effective way for that.

But if people who don't want systemd forced on them can't have other
options, what can they do other than fork? It may be the only option
left if Ian's proposal does not go through allowing alternatives to
systemd.

>> Bruce Perens (long Open Source advocate, and author of BusyBox)
>
> Don't forget former Debian Project Leader, and main author of the Debian
> Free Software Guidelines and the Open Source Definition.

Thanks, I forgot about those ...

>> pointed out that there are governance issues within Debian, and
>> adopting systemd is a result of that. His comments were on Slashdot
>> when the Debian Fork news article was posted there.
>
> Looking at his recent comments (http://slashdot.org/~Bruce+Perens), I
> don't see any comment that I would consider blaming Debian's governance
> for the systemd decision.

This is what he said:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5852295&cid=48188823

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5852295&cid=48188887


>
> [...]
>
>> Something like UselessD takes what is good from systemd and removes
>> what is bad.
>
>> http://uselessd.darknedgy.net/
>
> Yeah, I'm interested in seeing how some of the new init systems turn
> out.  nosh is another one I'm interested in.
> http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jonathan.deboynepollard/Softwares/nosh.html

The proper way is to have an init standard. An API for how daemons are
started up, manage dependencies, and perhaps the syntax of config
files (e.g. yaml or ini).

Then implementation is up to the individual init systems, as long as
they stick to the API and configuration file format.

This has to be done in a way where daemons themselves do not require
major surgery to implement that API. Rather an intermediate wrapper
would do it, be it shell scripts, or upstart or system.

This way, something like systemd can be easily swapped for something else.

Wishful thinking, I know ...
-- 
Khalid M. Baheyeldin
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