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But more fundamentally than the desktop / server focus, they either don't understand or don't value what makes UNIX great. systemd is in many respects a major
by duncan_bayne 10y ago
But more fundamentally than the desktop / server focus, they either don't understand or don't value what makes UNIX great.
systemd is in many respects a major departure from UNIX philosophy, and I predict it will mark an inflection point in the quality and usability of Linux distros that adopt it, hence my efforts to migrate my own systems to FreeBSD.
For those wondering what I'm banging on about, please read The Art of UNIX Programming, which should have been called The Philosophy of UNIX:
http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/taoup/html/ http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/taoup/html/.
Edit: what I mean by fundamental is that it shouldn't matter whether the tools are intended for desktop or server use; they should be designed to interoperate seamlessly using text protocols via pipes, sockets and files. That way they can be composed, filtered and transformed in ways not yet dreamed of by their creators. The systemd folks are falling into the Microsoft and Apple trap by trying to anticipate how their software will be used, instead of building it so it can easily be hacked upon for uses they themselves haven't dreamed of (which oddly seems to include 'servers').
To put it bluntly: systemd has neither the hacker nature nor the UNIX nature, and history has been unkind to OSs with neither. I'm betting against it being a Good Thing in the long run.
- qwertyuiop924 10y agoYeah. As much as I hate ESR (I hate to beat that dead horse, but I don't want anyone getting the impression that I like him) he got it right here in this case, and Systemd definitely does the Wrong Thing. It's not a Good Thing now, though: It's an attack surface.
- duncan_bayne 10y agoAgreed - what I meant was, in the long run, I expect that systemd will prove harmful to GNU/Linux in general, strategically. Also FWIW, I like ESR a lot :) I'm mildly concerned about thread drift, but... why do you dislike him so?
- qwertyuiop924 10y agoHe's an okay programmer, but he's got a frankly wacko political agenda (Ayn Rand, Libertarian, racism, paranoia etc.), he's mismanaged The Jargon File by putting in some of his own phrases which nobody else uses, and he's just an all-around unpleasant person. Honestly, he's kind of worse than RMS, who is merely unpleasant to be around...
- duncan_bayne 10y agoI agree on Rand and Libertarianism - although (as an Objectivist myself) it may interest you to know he's not an Objectivist, as he objects to several aspects of Rand's philosophy. I still have his suggested reading in that area on my TODO list. But racism, and paranoia? I'd (seriously) like to see evidence of those if you have them. Nothing I have seen him write or do suggests he treats people in any way other than as individuals, on their merits alone.
- qwertyuiop924 10y agoDid you miss the blog article where he said a friend had told him that women were trying to have sex with OS leaders, so they could accuse them of rape? Sounds pretty paranoid to me. I might have been wrong about the racism stuff. I swear I saw some stuff, but I can't find it now, so I might have been confused with somebody else. But at the end of the day, he's still an unpleasant person.
- bnolsen 10y agovoid linux is a great holdout against systemd.
- qwertyuiop924 10y agoPretty cool. The other holdouts are gentoo, and part of the Arch userbase, because Arch is very hackable, and someone set up a repo for openrc.