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> What is it about init systems that causes this outrage? I really want to know! There are some technical concerns, but a disproportionate amount of criticism

> What is it about init systems that causes this outrage? I really want to know! There are some technical concerns, but a disproportionate amount of criticism is because the lead developer[0] of systemd also developed PulseAudio, which was adopted by distros too early and therefore caused a lot of problems for people. People remember PulseAudio without much fondness, so they are bitter and take it out on systemd. It doesn't help that he has a somewhat direct manner of communicating, which some people find off-putting. So, to answer your question, a lot of it is personal, not technical. That's why you see much more vitriol than you'd otherwise expect for a somewhat technically controversial, low-level piece of software. [0] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lennart_Poettering http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lennart_Poettering

vezzy-fnord 12y ago
Not as much as you'd think, actually. A large part of concerns are technical, sometimes abstract though still quite valid (Rob Landley's take on it was good). That said, Poettering's character is so distinctive that it's nearly impossible not to do a little jab against him.
- chimeracoder 12y ago
  Just so you know, what you are saying doesn't contradict what I am saying. You're saying that there are technical concerns, and that those are a large number of the concerns expressed. I'm saying that his personality and previous history with PulseAudio are a reason that those technical concerns are expressed far more often (and with more vitriol) than they otherwise would be.
- ausjke 12y ago
  I happened to work in parallel with Rob a while ago and could not agree more with him on his systemd opinions. I just wish that Debian did not take systemd, that _really_ saddens me.
epdtry 12y ago
Another part of the problem is that people feel that systemd is being forced on them (more so than the usual "my distro switched to X, so I'm stuck using X"). The major issue right now is systemd-logind, a replacement for the unmaintained ConsoleKit daemon which is used to manage login sessions. logind provides functionality that is necessary for modern desktop environments, but it's designed to work only with the systemd init daemon. GNOME in particular has been talking about adding a hard dependency on logind, and once that happens the only choice of init system for people running GNOME will be systemd.

vezzy-fnord 12y ago

Not as much as you'd think, actually. A large part of concerns are technical, sometimes abstract though still quite valid (Rob Landley's take on it was good). That said, Poettering's character is so distinctive that it's nearly impossible not to do a little jab against him.

chimeracoder 12y ago
Just so you know, what you are saying doesn't contradict what I am saying. You're saying that there are technical concerns, and that those are a large number of the concerns expressed. I'm saying that his personality and previous history with PulseAudio are a reason that those technical concerns are expressed far more often (and with more vitriol) than they otherwise would be.
ausjke 12y ago
I happened to work in parallel with Rob a while ago and could not agree more with him on his systemd opinions. I just wish that Debian did not take systemd, that _really_ saddens me.

epdtry 12y ago

Another part of the problem is that people feel that systemd is being forced on them (more so than the usual "my distro switched to X, so I'm stuck using X"). The major issue right now is systemd-logind, a replacement for the unmaintained ConsoleKit daemon which is used to manage login sessions. logind provides functionality that is necessary for modern desktop environments, but it's designed to work only with the systemd init daemon. GNOME in particular has been talking about adding a hard dependency on logind, and once that happens the only choice of init system for people running GNOME will be systemd.