Linux: concerns over systemd adoption and Debian's decision to switch

Wed Oct 22 21:54:18 UTC 2014

Well said, Rich.

Rich Kulawiec wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 22, 2014 at 11:30:57AM -0500, Jeffrey Ollie wrote:
>> The people that like systemd (like myself) have wisely learned that
>> the people that hate systemd, hate it mostly because it's different
>> from what came before and don't want to change.
> That's an entirely unfair characterization.
>
> Some of us, including a lot of people on this list, have been pushing the
> envelope on change for decades.  We've run alpha software on beta hardware,
> cobbled together networks with duct tape, and burned a lot of midnight oil
> while making innumerable mistakes and learning from them.
>
> Speaking for myself, after migrating through far too many Unix
> and Linux distributions to count, starting with Research Unix v6,
> my entire professional career has been *constant* change.  I suspect
> that the same is true of everyone else who's been doing this for a while.
> Anyone who doesn't embrace change as a way of life probably isn't on
> this list; they're somewhere else, maintaining Cobol written during
> the Nixon administration.
>
> My problem with systemd is not that it's a change: it's just one more
> out of tens of thousands and so, in that sense, it's really not a big deal.
> My problem with it is that I think it's a bad change, one not in keeping
> with the "software tools" philosophy that has served us ridiculously
> well for a very long time and -- so far -- has not been shown itself
> to be in need of replacement.
>
> A Leatherman pocket multitool is highly useful: I've had one for years.
> It's great.  Until you need two screwdrivers at the same time...at which
> point it becomes obvious why serious mechanics/craftsmen carry around a
> toolbox with dozens of tools and why glomming all of those into one
> supertool would be A Very Bad Move.
>
> Similarly, the monolithic (and ever-expanding) nature of systemd is a
> strategic design error.  That's probably not obvious to people who
> measure their experience in years instead of decades -- it wouldn't
> have been obvious to me back in the day either.  But it's pretty clear
> from here, and dismissing it as "hey you kids get off my lawn" geezer
> whining is not going to advance the discussion.  It would be better,
> I think, to pull out a copy of Kernighan and Plauger's book -- which
> is rather brief, actually -- read it cover-to-cover, and then consider
> carefully whether the myriad-and-steadily-increasing number of functions
> being subsumed by systemd should actually be in one program.
>
> If that doesn't suffice, then I suspect it will only require waiting
> a little while until a demonstration of why monolithic integration
> is a bad idea will be provided by someone who is at this moment
> studying the large-and-growing attack surface presented by systemd.
>
> I hope I'm wrong about that.  I'm probably not.
>
> (By the way, this should not be read to express unabashed support
> for *any* of the various init systems that have been present in SysV
> or BSD or AIX or Debian or Dynix or Red Hat or HPUX or Mint or Ultrix
> or Solaris or or or or.  They all have their issues, some of which
> were or are sporadically annoying.)
>
> ---rsk

-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.   .... Yogi Berra