4 ms·

> systemd has grown fast and conquered large market shares because it was backed up by a company, which put a lot of money and manpower into it - to write it, t

by glogla 11y ago

> systemd has grown fast and conquered large market shares because it was backed up by a company, which put a lot of money and manpower into it - to write it, to integrate it, to advertise it. The only thing that has not been correctly funded in systemd is research and design. > systemd is only Open Source if you read the license; all its other aspects are proprietary - it's software made by a company and aiming to capture a market. It is impossible to compete with systemd on the same grounds, because no real Open Source developers will have as many resources as Red Hat. This. The reason systemd is hated so much by "old unix guys" is because it shows that Red Hat basically owns linux the way Microsoft owns Windows and Apple owns OS X. Many people protested against systemd but it was still pushed by force. It was made specificaly incompatible to make experience on BSDs worse and it sucessfuly removed Gnome from there. So yeah. Some "haters" talk about unix this and complex that, but I believe it's mostly about scummy company showing off it owns linux now.

derefr 11y ago
I would say it's more like RedHat has actually stepped up and made a "Linux-derived OS" the way that Android is a "Linux-derived OS" or OSX is a "BSD-derived OS." They've thrown the "basic Unix principles"—the ones that make Linux distributions effectively interchangable commodities, but with software having to target a very low lowest-common-denominator of functionality—to the side, and instead adopted a complete "base system API", in the same sense that CoreFoundation+Cocoa is for OSX, and Win32 is for Windows. As with those other APIs, you can now "target systemd" in the same way you could "target Win32" or "target Android"—and, because of this, we'll probably see a virtualization library (like winelib is for Win32; like ARC is for Android) spring up, giving other OSes the ability to provide the "systemd API" without needing to run a Linux kernel. From RedHat's perspective, they were just trying to copy OSX and Android: making a "real OS" atop Unix-y foundations. The interesting thing is that a large number of other providers in the Linux space has started to agree with their design decisions—effectively unifying on the "systemd platform" rather than on the "Posix platform" they were focusing on previously. I think this has been coming for a long time; the large OS providers already think of Desktop Environments as the GUI equivalent to a "platform" rather than as application software for the OS; thus why Ubuntu, for example, has a separate distribution for each GUI software suite. In a discussion of systemd history held here previously, it was pointed out that back in 2007-or-so, there was a large amount of interest expressed by various distro makers in adopting OSX's launchd as the basis for a new platform standard, if only it had been FOSS at the time. Early systemd was a launchd clone; upstart also started as a launchd clone before mutating. I have a feeling that although RedHat was the one to step up and create a platform, all of the major distro providers were actually waiting to hop on the first available FOSS "OS platform", no matter who it came from. If, for example, Apple had created "Apple Linux": a version of Linux that runs the OSX GUI and OSX apps—then I can bet you right now that every other distro would have standardized on whatever "platform" gunk was in-between that GUI and the Linux kernel; CoreFoundation et al would have become to Linux distros as WebKit is to mobile web browsers. As it stands, it's only an accident of history that this didn't happen with the Android platform. (If the Android Runtime ran native-speed binaries from the start, and the GUI was developed five-or-so years later such that it was developed from the start with Win8-like unified desktop/mobile support in mind rather than getting type-cast as "only for mobile devices", I could bet that Linux would "be" Android now.) --- With all that said, while all the big, commercially-backed Linux providers have been waiting on tenterhooks for a "platform" to latch onto, all the little distros are looking to remain Unix-y, and that's a wonderful thing. Think about it: when you've got the POSIX platform "for desktops and servers" and the Android platform "for mobile", and nary the twain shall meet, it makes little sense to care about cross-compatibility; why would you want to run Android apps natively on your desktop? But if you add in a third platform that's also for desktop—the systemd platform—suddenly kernel developers and distro makers and whatever you call the FreeDesktop people start thinking about how to create a Linux-based OS that natively supports multiple platforms, so that it can run code targeting systemd, and code targeting Plain-old-POSIX, without making a mess. And once you have that infrastructure in place... why not let it run code targeting Android too? Why not first-class Wine support? Etc. One thing Windows has had forever (though lately in a degraded state) is multi-runtime (or, given the above discourse, multi-"platform") support. Windows can be Win32 to one program, OS/2 to another, and POSIX to a third. OSX had the capability for multi-runtime support back when it was called Rhapsody (the "Red Box, Blue Box, Yellow Box" architecture) and also co-supported Cocoa and Carbon apps for about a decade. And these are just single companies trying to meet small needs. Linux, the OS with a kernel that supports every device a nerd ever cared to packet-probe, could easily become "the multi-runtime OS", if we care enough to make it that way. If we don't, though, at least systemd is decent. :P
- vezzy-fnord 11y ago
  In a discussion of systemd history held here previously, it was pointed out that back in 2007-or-so, there was a large amount of interest expressed by various distro makers in adopting OSX's launchd as the basis for a new platform standard, if only it had been FOSS at the time. I don't think there ever was a large amount of interest. In fact, the only party that studied launchd at the time (circa 2006) was Canonical. It was indeed licensing issues that stalled further research, but there was also another contender at the time being considered called initng, which Canonical ended up rejecting and went on to write Upstart instead, led by Scott James Remnant. See SJR's proposal and introduction to Upstart. [1] Early systemd was a launchd clone; upstart also started as a launchd clone before mutating. Upstart was never a launchd clone to the best of my knowledge. launchd was likely a spark that influenced Canonical to take action, but the design is pretty different. Your musings about the "multi-runtime" convergence that systemd will allegedly enable do not appear to pan out. systemd is nothing like the OS X Core frameworks or like the Windows Runtime, it's much lower level than that. It's more of a middleware than a runtime platform (think Hurd, not Core Foundation). There is also absolutely nothing implying that GNU/Linux will ever target Android code. The divergences are plentiful, with my article about an Android init porting attempt listing only a few. [2] Nor is there any expressed interest from any Android vendor to have any serious GNU/Linux convergence to begin with. Not sure what "first-class Wine support" is supposed to mean. Wine is pretty self-contained. If we don't, though, at least systemd is decent. You're too big of a dreamer, I'm afraid. [1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReplacementInit https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReplacementInit [2] http://blog.darknedgy.net/technology/2015/08/05/0-androidinit/ http://blog.darknedgy.net/technology/2015/08/05/0-androidini...
  - derefr 11y ago
    > systemd is nothing like the OS X Core frameworks or like the Windows Runtime, it's much lower level than that. It's more of a middleware than a runtime platform You're not considering the full scope of the thing labelled "systemd." If you only use parts of it, it's middleware, yes. If you "work with the grain" of systemd, though, then you're packaging services in nspawn containers and so forth, which does constitute a separate "platform target", in the same way that e.g. CoreOS is a (mostly-ignored attempt at a) "platform target." Basically, I'm talking here about a Linux equivalent to Solaris's "Branded Zones": within a container boundary, an app can be made by the system to think it's running on "systemd Linux", or on "POSIX Linux", or on "Android Linux", or on BSD or Win32 or Cocoa or whatever else. Runtime-virtualization is done at the system container-management level (with more or less help from the kernel), rather than expecting applications to "port" themselves by applying their own proprietary virtualization wrappers ala Cider for OSX. > Not sure what "first-class Wine support" is supposed to mean. Wine is pretty self-contained. I mean, basically, support to the level of DOS applications run in Win32 VMM containers, rather than to the level of X11 applications run on OSX: management of Wine sandboxes as OS-level "runtime containers", such that you could run and maintain Wine apps alongside other apps, in production, using the OS's maintenance tooling. A Linux "ReactOS Runtime" equivalent to Windows's "POSIX Runtime." > Nor is there any expressed interest from any Android vendor to have any serious GNU/Linux convergence to begin with. I don't mean to suggest convergence. This is something very different: making "running an Android binary" a primitive action of the system (not the Linux kernel), where "using an Android virtualization layer" is then an implementation detail of how the system accomplishes this. Think of Linux's binfmt_misc and its ability to execute e.g. JVM code by booting a JVM, but with an upcall to the init daemon to decide how to implement the policy of running a particular binary format. If that init daemon is effectively a container-manager that understands how to instantiate and manage different "branded containers" for each runtime it supports, Linux multi-runtime support just falls out.

by glogla 11y ago

derefr 11y ago

I would say it's more like RedHat has actually stepped up and made a "Linux-derived OS" the way that Android is a "Linux-derived OS" or OSX is a "BSD-derived OS." They've thrown the "basic Unix principles"—the ones that make Linux distributions effectively interchangable commodities, but with software having to target a very low lowest-common-denominator of functionality—to the side, and instead adopted a complete "base system API", in the same sense that CoreFoundation+Cocoa is for OSX, and Win32 is for Windows. As with those other APIs, you can now "target systemd" in the same way you could "target Win32" or "target Android"—and, because of this, we'll probably see a virtualization library (like winelib is for Win32; like ARC is for Android) spring up, giving other OSes the ability to provide the "systemd API" without needing to run a Linux kernel. From RedHat's perspective, they were just trying to copy OSX and Android: making a "real OS" atop Unix-y foundations. The interesting thing is that a large number of other providers in the Linux space has started to agree with their design decisions—effectively unifying on the "systemd platform" rather than on the "Posix platform" they were focusing on previously. I think this has been coming for a long time; the large OS providers already think of Desktop Environments as the GUI equivalent to a "platform" rather than as application software for the OS; thus why Ubuntu, for example, has a separate distribution for each GUI software suite. In a discussion of systemd history held here previously, it was pointed out that back in 2007-or-so, there was a large amount of interest expressed by various distro makers in adopting OSX's launchd as the basis for a new platform standard, if only it had been FOSS at the time. Early systemd was a launchd clone; upstart also started as a launchd clone before mutating. I have a feeling that although RedHat was the one to step up and create a platform, all of the major distro providers were actually waiting to hop on the first available FOSS "OS platform", no matter who it came from. If, for example, Apple had created "Apple Linux": a version of Linux that runs the OSX GUI and OSX apps—then I can bet you right now that every other distro would have standardized on whatever "platform" gunk was in-between that GUI and the Linux kernel; CoreFoundation et al would have become to Linux distros as WebKit is to mobile web browsers. As it stands, it's only an accident of history that this didn't happen with the Android platform. (If the Android Runtime ran native-speed binaries from the start, and the GUI was developed five-or-so years later such that it was developed from the start with Win8-like unified desktop/mobile support in mind rather than getting type-cast as "only for mobile devices", I could bet that Linux would "be" Android now.) --- With all that said, while all the big, commercially-backed Linux providers have been waiting on tenterhooks for a "platform" to latch onto, all the little distros are looking to remain Unix-y, and that's a wonderful thing. Think about it: when you've got the POSIX platform "for desktops and servers" and the Android platform "for mobile", and nary the twain shall meet, it makes little sense to care about cross-compatibility; why would you want to run Android apps natively on your desktop? But if you add in a third platform that's also for desktop—the systemd platform—suddenly kernel developers and distro makers and whatever you call the FreeDesktop people start thinking about how to create a Linux-based OS that natively supports multiple platforms, so that it can run code targeting systemd, and code targeting Plain-old-POSIX, without making a mess. And once you have that infrastructure in place... why not let it run code targeting Android too? Why not first-class Wine support? Etc. One thing Windows has had forever (though lately in a degraded state) is multi-runtime (or, given the above discourse, multi-"platform") support. Windows can be Win32 to one program, OS/2 to another, and POSIX to a third. OSX had the capability for multi-runtime support back when it was called Rhapsody (the "Red Box, Blue Box, Yellow Box" architecture) and also co-supported Cocoa and Carbon apps for about a decade. And these are just single companies trying to meet small needs. Linux, the OS with a kernel that supports every device a nerd ever cared to packet-probe, could easily become "the multi-runtime OS", if we care enough to make it that way. If we don't, though, at least systemd is decent. :P

vezzy-fnord 11y ago
In a discussion of systemd history held here previously, it was pointed out that back in 2007-or-so, there was a large amount of interest expressed by various distro makers in adopting OSX's launchd as the basis for a new platform standard, if only it had been FOSS at the time. I don't think there ever was a large amount of interest. In fact, the only party that studied launchd at the time (circa 2006) was Canonical. It was indeed licensing issues that stalled further research, but there was also another contender at the time being considered called initng, which Canonical ended up rejecting and went on to write Upstart instead, led by Scott James Remnant. See SJR's proposal and introduction to Upstart. [1] Early systemd was a launchd clone; upstart also started as a launchd clone before mutating. Upstart was never a launchd clone to the best of my knowledge. launchd was likely a spark that influenced Canonical to take action, but the design is pretty different. Your musings about the "multi-runtime" convergence that systemd will allegedly enable do not appear to pan out. systemd is nothing like the OS X Core frameworks or like the Windows Runtime, it's much lower level than that. It's more of a middleware than a runtime platform (think Hurd, not Core Foundation). There is also absolutely nothing implying that GNU/Linux will ever target Android code. The divergences are plentiful, with my article about an Android init porting attempt listing only a few. [2] Nor is there any expressed interest from any Android vendor to have any serious GNU/Linux convergence to begin with. Not sure what "first-class Wine support" is supposed to mean. Wine is pretty self-contained. If we don't, though, at least systemd is decent. You're too big of a dreamer, I'm afraid. [1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReplacementInit https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReplacementInit [2] http://blog.darknedgy.net/technology/2015/08/05/0-androidinit/ http://blog.darknedgy.net/technology/2015/08/05/0-androidini...
- derefr 11y ago
  > systemd is nothing like the OS X Core frameworks or like the Windows Runtime, it's much lower level than that. It's more of a middleware than a runtime platform You're not considering the full scope of the thing labelled "systemd." If you only use parts of it, it's middleware, yes. If you "work with the grain" of systemd, though, then you're packaging services in nspawn containers and so forth, which does constitute a separate "platform target", in the same way that e.g. CoreOS is a (mostly-ignored attempt at a) "platform target." Basically, I'm talking here about a Linux equivalent to Solaris's "Branded Zones": within a container boundary, an app can be made by the system to think it's running on "systemd Linux", or on "POSIX Linux", or on "Android Linux", or on BSD or Win32 or Cocoa or whatever else. Runtime-virtualization is done at the system container-management level (with more or less help from the kernel), rather than expecting applications to "port" themselves by applying their own proprietary virtualization wrappers ala Cider for OSX. > Not sure what "first-class Wine support" is supposed to mean. Wine is pretty self-contained. I mean, basically, support to the level of DOS applications run in Win32 VMM containers, rather than to the level of X11 applications run on OSX: management of Wine sandboxes as OS-level "runtime containers", such that you could run and maintain Wine apps alongside other apps, in production, using the OS's maintenance tooling. A Linux "ReactOS Runtime" equivalent to Windows's "POSIX Runtime." > Nor is there any expressed interest from any Android vendor to have any serious GNU/Linux convergence to begin with. I don't mean to suggest convergence. This is something very different: making "running an Android binary" a primitive action of the system (not the Linux kernel), where "using an Android virtualization layer" is then an implementation detail of how the system accomplishes this. Think of Linux's binfmt_misc and its ability to execute e.g. JVM code by booting a JVM, but with an upcall to the init daemon to decide how to implement the policy of running a particular binary format. If that init daemon is effectively a container-manager that understands how to instantiate and manage different "branded containers" for each runtime it supports, Linux multi-runtime support just falls out.