5 ms·

So basically, "we're not forcing you to use systemd! you can shim it!"

bkor 13y ago
Systemd provides a replacement for things like ConsoleKit. It further makes various things much simpler for GNOME. It provides dbus interfaces. We're not forcing, it is that we do like to share the amount of work a slight bit. Meaning: those "portability" requests are nice, but almost everyone uses Linux. Isn't it logical that after 10+ years of making things also possible on BSD, we now have Linux as main focus? All those portability claims and that there somehow good: you're just doing things for lowest common denominator. Requiring a huge amount of effort to change or develop low level bits across BSD and Linux. Now systemd comes along and does a lot of things for us. While you'd still have dbus. We now have people who solely developed for Linux and they're installing FreeBSD, that's indicative on how much development resources there are on BSD! You imply that GNOME developers (none running or knowing anything other than Linux) are bad because they're not also developers for BSD. I've seen other people claim that us focussing mainly on Linux will somehow reduce the amount of help we get from BSD and so on. Yet practically speaking, the amount of developer resource we received during most of GNOME 2.x from BSD is pretty low (mainly implementations; hal, upower backends, etc). Plus often lagged behind a bit. Recently we're making clear that we focus on Linux. We're still as open to portability as before, but someone really has to put in an effort to do this. Putting that with people who have only used Linux and mainly care for Linux is a bit strange IMO, especially after all those years. Given that *BSD often did lag behind and did eventually provide implementations, the situation has not changed much. Expect for the often repeated claim of "forcing things".
- robinh 13y ago
  This incoherent rant as a response to a single sentence isn't really helping your case. "All those portability claims and that there somehow good: you're just doing things for lowest common denominator. Requiring a huge amount of effort to change or develop low level bits across BSD and Linux." I don't even know what you're trying to say here.
  - bkor 13y ago
    I gave an explanation on how things are, it was not a rant. I don't understand how you could see it as a rant. Regarding your question: GNOME does a lot of infrastructural work (freedesktop.org, and other things). A lot of the times things are just not available. Thing e.g. of colord (colour management), PackageKit, hal (dead :-P), ConsoleKit (dead :-P), etc. Making that work on Linux is one thing (already loads of differences). Making that work for others as well, while sometimes there is not much available only increases the time you have to spend on things.
- rjzzleep 13y ago
  not really he's implyming gnome developers are bad, because they shut off any kind of dialog. it's kind of the same reason why gentoo folks developed eudev. who cares about bsd? you can't even use different distros anymore, because these folks are destroying the unix philosophy. wanna run gnome? sure, replace everything with systemd. wanna disable geolocation in gnome? no problem just wait for the next release http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTYwNTM http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTYwNTM EDIT: Firstly this post was more about "the GNOME attitude" than systemd. However, I've already read the biggest myth post, so please stop responding with that post. So far all our software engineering efforts have lead to the conclusion that whenever a system leads to too much complexity it because cumbersome to use extend, and prone to errors. i would argue that you can build a single piece of software that is modular without splitting it into multiple parts, but systemd isn't that. In fact, a lot more companies are moving away from big monolithic blocks. No one ever said that single components should be built in a non-connected way. in fact, composability is a big part of good components. where ever did you get the idea that its the opposite? why do you think imlib2 got so successful? but hey, care to explain to me what the advantage of merging udev with systemd was?
  - Morgawr 13y ago
    Not saying I disagree with you, but you mention the "unix philosophy". These last few years I've seen a lot of people repeat that sentence over and over again, but I ask you, what is the "unix philosophy"? Treating everything as a file? Do one thing and do it well? Develop beautiful software, not bloated and simple? Every single person has a different idea of what this mythical "unix philosophy" actually is. Certainly, all these practices apply well on servers but the world is moving forward and we have much much more complex devices that aren't just mainframes with terminals anymore. We are not dealing with software anymore, we are dealing with systems. And we want performance and stability. Developing single components in a totally individual and non-connected way, oblivious of their environment does not always work anymore. Sometimes you need to build an environment, not just a single component. You need to have software that interfaces and integrates properly. Does the Unix philosophy go against that? I don't know. The point is that you should always question things, not just repeat "but the Unix philosophy says...", because systems evolve. Furthermore, I'll point towards this page http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/the-biggest-myths.html http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/the-biggest-myths.html It might be relevant, it might be not, but it's a good read nonetheless.
- senko 13y ago
  almost everyone uses Linux Actually, almost everyone uses Windows. Of those that do not, majority uses OSX. As someone who's been a Linux desktop user since the early 2000s and was laughed out loud because everyone uses Windows so why even bother, I'm saddened by seeing the same logic from the GNOME team. (PS. Obvoisly we're talking about desktop here so Android doesn't count).
  - abenga 13y ago
    Is it not obviously implied that the "everyone" here is "everyone interested in using Gnome"?
    - bkor 13y ago
      I actually meant the people helping out at GNOME. So the developers, translators, etc. If everyone helping out in GNOME, then I find it logical that the focus is mainly on Linux.
  - darklajid 13y ago
    I .. don't even understand how you can possible misunderstand/misrepresent that statement. Don't ignore the context: Gnome developers run, according to bkor (and I'd say he should know the numbers..), more or less completely on Linux. That's what they work with, what they know. THAT is what 'almost everyone uses Linux' means. Your random 'Hey, what about Windows?' statement is absolutely irrelevant, period.
  - riquito 13y ago
    Paraphrasing, "obviously we're talking about GNOME here so Windows and OSX don't count", don't you think?
  - coldtea 13y ago
    >As someone who's been a Linux desktop user since the early 2000s and was laughed out loud because everyone uses Windows so why even bother, I'm saddened by seeing the same logic from the GNOME team. Well, below some number of users (userbase) the logic becomes solid. I'm sure you'd agree too. E.g Would you go out of your way to cater for an OS with 10 users? At some point there are diminishing returns. Is that 100? 1000? 10000? What NetBSD has? I don't know. But just because you found it unfair to be laughed out because "everybody used Windows", doesn't mean it's not pragmatic to stop catering to niche OSes at some point, if your main focus is say Linux and getting compatible with them eats on your time and effort.
- nousernamesleft 13y ago
  >Isn't it logical that after 10+ years of making things also possible on BSD, we now have Linux as main focus? Sure. But then don't keep lying and pretending it is portable. If you are writing linux only software then don't get mad when BSD people call it linux only software.
  - bkor 13y ago
    Did you actually read the blog post? It seems like you didn't. Did you also read https://wiki.gnome.org/ReleasePlanning/WhatWeRelease https://wiki.gnome.org/ReleasePlanning/WhatWeRelease? Do you understand what I mean with main focus? It means we try to ensure that it is portable, but we don't go out of our way to make it already works anywhere other than Linux. While at the same time, some people are actually doing that more than ever before. Your summary of "keep lying" is so far off that I guess you just didn't read the blogpost, nor my comment in any detail.
    - nousernamesleft 13y ago
      I am responding to what you just said, not the blog post. Again, feel free to write linux only software. But if you do that and then call BSD people liars when they call your linux only software linux only software, then expect to be called on it.
darklajid 13y ago
I'd say you're right, but it seems bkor (and I feel somewhat the same) read some judgement in your summary. My summary would be So basically "We're really focusing on Linux officially now, since that's what we're accustomed with. But look at these great ports to two different BSDs!" Paired with the blog post at [1] (linked elsewhere in this thread) the situation doesn't look as ugly as people are trying to imply. 1: http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20140219085851 http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20140219085851
bitwize 13y ago
An OS which doesn't have systemd-like functionality probably isn't very modern and is thus not an interesting porting target for GNOME. I expect the BSDs will get such functionality sometime in the near future.
- nousernamesleft 13y ago
  You suspect wrong. Being new does not mean the same as being modern. Systemd solves a problem that doesn't exist. You are never going to see that kind of nonsense in openbsd for example.

bkor 13y ago

Systemd provides a replacement for things like ConsoleKit. It further makes various things much simpler for GNOME. It provides dbus interfaces. We're not forcing, it is that we do like to share the amount of work a slight bit. Meaning: those "portability" requests are nice, but almost everyone uses Linux. Isn't it logical that after 10+ years of making things also possible on BSD, we now have Linux as main focus? All those portability claims and that there somehow good: you're just doing things for lowest common denominator. Requiring a huge amount of effort to change or develop low level bits across BSD and Linux. Now systemd comes along and does a lot of things for us. While you'd still have dbus. We now have people who solely developed for Linux and they're installing FreeBSD, that's indicative on how much development resources there are on BSD! You imply that GNOME developers (none running or knowing anything other than Linux) are bad because they're not also developers for BSD. I've seen other people claim that us focussing mainly on Linux will somehow reduce the amount of help we get from BSD and so on. Yet practically speaking, the amount of developer resource we received during most of GNOME 2.x from BSD is pretty low (mainly implementations; hal, upower backends, etc). Plus often lagged behind a bit. Recently we're making clear that we focus on Linux. We're still as open to portability as before, but someone really has to put in an effort to do this. Putting that with people who have only used Linux and mainly care for Linux is a bit strange IMO, especially after all those years. Given that *BSD often did lag behind and did eventually provide implementations, the situation has not changed much. Expect for the often repeated claim of "forcing things".

robinh 13y ago
This incoherent rant as a response to a single sentence isn't really helping your case. "All those portability claims and that there somehow good: you're just doing things for lowest common denominator. Requiring a huge amount of effort to change or develop low level bits across BSD and Linux." I don't even know what you're trying to say here.
- bkor 13y ago
  I gave an explanation on how things are, it was not a rant. I don't understand how you could see it as a rant. Regarding your question: GNOME does a lot of infrastructural work (freedesktop.org, and other things). A lot of the times things are just not available. Thing e.g. of colord (colour management), PackageKit, hal (dead :-P), ConsoleKit (dead :-P), etc. Making that work on Linux is one thing (already loads of differences). Making that work for others as well, while sometimes there is not much available only increases the time you have to spend on things.
rjzzleep 13y ago
not really he's implyming gnome developers are bad, because they shut off any kind of dialog. it's kind of the same reason why gentoo folks developed eudev. who cares about bsd? you can't even use different distros anymore, because these folks are destroying the unix philosophy. wanna run gnome? sure, replace everything with systemd. wanna disable geolocation in gnome? no problem just wait for the next release http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTYwNTM http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTYwNTM EDIT: Firstly this post was more about "the GNOME attitude" than systemd. However, I've already read the biggest myth post, so please stop responding with that post. So far all our software engineering efforts have lead to the conclusion that whenever a system leads to too much complexity it because cumbersome to use extend, and prone to errors. i would argue that you can build a single piece of software that is modular without splitting it into multiple parts, but systemd isn't that. In fact, a lot more companies are moving away from big monolithic blocks. No one ever said that single components should be built in a non-connected way. in fact, composability is a big part of good components. where ever did you get the idea that its the opposite? why do you think imlib2 got so successful? but hey, care to explain to me what the advantage of merging udev with systemd was?
- Morgawr 13y ago
  Not saying I disagree with you, but you mention the "unix philosophy". These last few years I've seen a lot of people repeat that sentence over and over again, but I ask you, what is the "unix philosophy"? Treating everything as a file? Do one thing and do it well? Develop beautiful software, not bloated and simple? Every single person has a different idea of what this mythical "unix philosophy" actually is. Certainly, all these practices apply well on servers but the world is moving forward and we have much much more complex devices that aren't just mainframes with terminals anymore. We are not dealing with software anymore, we are dealing with systems. And we want performance and stability. Developing single components in a totally individual and non-connected way, oblivious of their environment does not always work anymore. Sometimes you need to build an environment, not just a single component. You need to have software that interfaces and integrates properly. Does the Unix philosophy go against that? I don't know. The point is that you should always question things, not just repeat "but the Unix philosophy says...", because systems evolve. Furthermore, I'll point towards this page http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/the-biggest-myths.html http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/the-biggest-myths.html It might be relevant, it might be not, but it's a good read nonetheless.
senko 13y ago
almost everyone uses Linux Actually, almost everyone uses Windows. Of those that do not, majority uses OSX. As someone who's been a Linux desktop user since the early 2000s and was laughed out loud because everyone uses Windows so why even bother, I'm saddened by seeing the same logic from the GNOME team. (PS. Obvoisly we're talking about desktop here so Android doesn't count).
- abenga 13y ago
  Is it not obviously implied that the "everyone" here is "everyone interested in using Gnome"?
  - bkor 13y ago
    I actually meant the people helping out at GNOME. So the developers, translators, etc. If everyone helping out in GNOME, then I find it logical that the focus is mainly on Linux.
- darklajid 13y ago
  I .. don't even understand how you can possible misunderstand/misrepresent that statement. Don't ignore the context: Gnome developers run, according to bkor (and I'd say he should know the numbers..), more or less completely on Linux. That's what they work with, what they know. THAT is what 'almost everyone uses Linux' means. Your random 'Hey, what about Windows?' statement is absolutely irrelevant, period.
- riquito 13y ago
  Paraphrasing, "obviously we're talking about GNOME here so Windows and OSX don't count", don't you think?
- coldtea 13y ago
  >As someone who's been a Linux desktop user since the early 2000s and was laughed out loud because everyone uses Windows so why even bother, I'm saddened by seeing the same logic from the GNOME team. Well, below some number of users (userbase) the logic becomes solid. I'm sure you'd agree too. E.g Would you go out of your way to cater for an OS with 10 users? At some point there are diminishing returns. Is that 100? 1000? 10000? What NetBSD has? I don't know. But just because you found it unfair to be laughed out because "everybody used Windows", doesn't mean it's not pragmatic to stop catering to niche OSes at some point, if your main focus is say Linux and getting compatible with them eats on your time and effort.
nousernamesleft 13y ago
>Isn't it logical that after 10+ years of making things also possible on BSD, we now have Linux as main focus? Sure. But then don't keep lying and pretending it is portable. If you are writing linux only software then don't get mad when BSD people call it linux only software.
- bkor 13y ago
  Did you actually read the blog post? It seems like you didn't. Did you also read https://wiki.gnome.org/ReleasePlanning/WhatWeRelease https://wiki.gnome.org/ReleasePlanning/WhatWeRelease? Do you understand what I mean with main focus? It means we try to ensure that it is portable, but we don't go out of our way to make it already works anywhere other than Linux. While at the same time, some people are actually doing that more than ever before. Your summary of "keep lying" is so far off that I guess you just didn't read the blogpost, nor my comment in any detail.
  - nousernamesleft 13y ago
    I am responding to what you just said, not the blog post. Again, feel free to write linux only software. But if you do that and then call BSD people liars when they call your linux only software linux only software, then expect to be called on it.

darklajid 13y ago

I'd say you're right, but it seems bkor (and I feel somewhat the same) read some judgement in your summary. My summary would be So basically "We're really focusing on Linux officially now, since that's what we're accustomed with. But look at these great ports to two different BSDs!" Paired with the blog post at [1] (linked elsewhere in this thread) the situation doesn't look as ugly as people are trying to imply. 1: http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20140219085851 http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20140219085851

bitwize 13y ago

An OS which doesn't have systemd-like functionality probably isn't very modern and is thus not an interesting porting target for GNOME. I expect the BSDs will get such functionality sometime in the near future.

nousernamesleft 13y ago
You suspect wrong. Being new does not mean the same as being modern. Systemd solves a problem that doesn't exist. You are never going to see that kind of nonsense in openbsd for example.