Comment by cyphar

8 years ago

Except Lennart was working on systemd long before he worked at Red Hat and Red Hat has very little control over what he does in systemd. The reason Red Hat has "foisted" systemd is that it solved problems that other init systems hadn't solved (which is why other distributions also adopted it). That doesn't mean it's the best solution by any stretch (I don't like systemd personally) but pretending that it was the same as putting adware into a text editor is quite disgusting. It solved a real problem, and if you have a better alternative you're free to contribute it as another member of the community (in fact, please do).

I work for SUSE, not Red Hat, but I find it incredibly gross that being employed to work on free software is seen as a negative thing by the wider community. I spend every day working and thinking as a community member first, but because I was lucky enough to get a paycheck from a company to do that clearly I must be the enemy.

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cyphar

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PhantomGremlin  8 years ago

I toy with Linux but I mostly use OpenBSD. So I'm thankfully not that affected by systemd.

I can completely understand what the OpenBSD init system does. It's a lot harder to fully understand systemd. Plus, as a benefit of systemd, you get headlines like "Don't panic, but Linux's Systemd can be pwned via an evil DNS query"[1].

Red Hat doesn't care if Poettering is a brilliant genius or just a useful idiot. Instead, Red Hat loves systemd for a very different reason: lockin. Most Linux distributions are now utterly dependent on systemd, and by extension dependent on Red Hat.

systemd gives Red Hat far too much control over Linux. They were already the 800 pound gorilla, now they're almost invincible overlords. But go ahead, keep drinking the Kool-Aid.

[1] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/29/systemd_pwned_by_dn...

  • cyphar  8 years ago

    It's quite clear that you didn't read my original message. I explicitly said that I don't like systemd (for some of the less inflammatory reasons you've mentioned), so I've not "drunk the Kool-Aid".

    Red Hat conspiracy theories are quite interesting, but you might want to provide evidence for the claim that a unified init system somehow locks people into Red Hat. You do realise that you can have the exact same .service file work on RHEL just as well as it works on openSUSE or Debian? I will reiterate that I don't like systemd by any stretch of the imagination, but a unified init system makes life so much simpler for any user.

    Rather than bashing systemd, the community should be working on alternatives. GNU Shepherd is a viable alternative, maybe we should work on that rather than sitting around complaining about what systemd is doing.

    • PhantomGremlin  8 years ago

      It's quite clear that you didn't read my original message.

      I did read your original message. Whether or not you personally like systemd or whether or not SUSE likes systemd, it nevertheless is in openSUSE. I don't know enough about SUSE to know if you have any other distributions that don't have systemd.

      Why is systemd in openSUSE? How was that decision made? If I were in the leadership of SUSE, I would hate being so dependent on key software that is essentially controlled by my largest competitor.

      At this point systemd has become the entrenched incumbent. So "alternatives" are mostly wishful thinking. For people to switch away from systemd, they would need to be convinced that something like GNU Shepherd wasn't just equal, but was significantly better. That seems unlikely to happen anytime soon.

      People aren't directly locked into Red Hat, but they sure are locked into a very key piece of software controlled by Red Hat.

      This state of affairs has to hurt SUSE. When selecting a distribution, why wouldn't businesses buy from companies as far "upstream" as possible? Why buy software from SUSE if key pieces come from Red Hat? Why not just buy from Red Hat directly?

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