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Ladies and gentlemen, this is open source at work. Open source empowers people and if you don't like it some way, you have the power to move on. There are so

Ladies and gentlemen, this is open source at work. Open source empowers people and if you don't like it some way, you have the power to move on. There are so many other platforms that this will never be possible on. Don't like something in Windows, tough. Don't like something in OS X, tough. Don't like something in Linux, xBSD, etc? Fork or go home. I'm excited to see what happens next and if it will be folded back into Debian in the future.

eots 12y ago
I'm sorry but I really don't understand this comment. If you don't like something in an open-source project you can walk away, but if you don't like something in a proprietary project you can't?
- stinos 12y ago
  Also kind of the opposite of the open source 'Don't like it? Fix it yourself' mantra. (of course there's lots of truth in that, but people sometimes throw this at me when filing bug reports for a project I know nothing about except how to use it, not even the language it is written in, which make them come over as extremist crusaders:)
lmm 12y ago
We used to say "linux is about choice". It was a point of pride for Debian that it ran on dozens of platforms - multiple architectures, multiple kernels even - that multiple desktop environments were available, multiple MTAs, multiple webservers, all fully supported, all benefiting from the shared infrastructure and spirit of collaboration. Debian runs on enormous Itanium servers and tiny ARM chips, and it doesn't need a fork to do so. It's sad to see an end to this era - and it's an end that's been brought not by Dr Jackson (who's been part of Debian for decades) but by SystemD abusing the spirit of openness, following the letter of open source but not the spirit of open standards, of allowing a diversity of solutions to blossom and letting users mix and match whatever best suits their needs. There will be a fork; there are enough people who care about good engineering not to let this lie (unless they all turn to FreeBSD). But it's sad that it's come to this, and it shouldn't have happened this way.
- mateuszf 12y ago
  It still is about choice. If you want you can fork Debian any time.
  - lmm 12y ago
    If everyone has their own forks that's a lot of wasted effort compared to everyone having their own packages but using shared distribution infrastructure.
    - mateuszf 12y ago
      And it's the exact reason why unification through systemd makes sense.
      - lmm 12y ago
        Actually one of the biggest problems with systemd is its refusal to cooperate with other system components. Need a binary log format? Let's write our own! Need a database? Let's embed our own! Interoperate with ConsoleKit? Nah, we'll just reimplement a replacement.
        mercurial 12y ago
        I don't know about the rest, but AFAIK, ConsoleKit wasn't maintained anymore.
        the_why_of_y 12y ago
        Given that the second most prolific committer to the ConsoleKit git repository is a certain Lennart P. it is reasonable to assume that the systemd people did not decide to implement logind from scratch because of NIH syndrome.
  - e7620 12y ago
    This is not true, unless you happen to have too many dollars to spare. Also, Windows can also be forked, by distributing patches instead of binaries.
deong 12y ago
To argue the other side, if you don't like something in OS X or Windows, you can type "vim my_os.cpp" and start implementing your own version from scratch. If three years from now, everything from Firefox to GNU tar depends on systemd, then your open-source Linux is in the same boat. [Edit: Just to be clear, I don't expect that to happen. I'm just pointing out why people get upset when systemd encroaches on very large numbers of system components.]

eots 12y ago

I'm sorry but I really don't understand this comment. If you don't like something in an open-source project you can walk away, but if you don't like something in a proprietary project you can't?

stinos 12y ago
Also kind of the opposite of the open source 'Don't like it? Fix it yourself' mantra. (of course there's lots of truth in that, but people sometimes throw this at me when filing bug reports for a project I know nothing about except how to use it, not even the language it is written in, which make them come over as extremist crusaders:)

lmm 12y ago

We used to say "linux is about choice". It was a point of pride for Debian that it ran on dozens of platforms - multiple architectures, multiple kernels even - that multiple desktop environments were available, multiple MTAs, multiple webservers, all fully supported, all benefiting from the shared infrastructure and spirit of collaboration. Debian runs on enormous Itanium servers and tiny ARM chips, and it doesn't need a fork to do so. It's sad to see an end to this era - and it's an end that's been brought not by Dr Jackson (who's been part of Debian for decades) but by SystemD abusing the spirit of openness, following the letter of open source but not the spirit of open standards, of allowing a diversity of solutions to blossom and letting users mix and match whatever best suits their needs. There will be a fork; there are enough people who care about good engineering not to let this lie (unless they all turn to FreeBSD). But it's sad that it's come to this, and it shouldn't have happened this way.

mateuszf 12y ago
It still is about choice. If you want you can fork Debian any time.
- lmm 12y ago
  If everyone has their own forks that's a lot of wasted effort compared to everyone having their own packages but using shared distribution infrastructure.
  - mateuszf 12y ago
    And it's the exact reason why unification through systemd makes sense.
    - lmm 12y ago
      Actually one of the biggest problems with systemd is its refusal to cooperate with other system components. Need a binary log format? Let's write our own! Need a database? Let's embed our own! Interoperate with ConsoleKit? Nah, we'll just reimplement a replacement.
      - mercurial 12y ago
        I don't know about the rest, but AFAIK, ConsoleKit wasn't maintained anymore.
      - the_why_of_y 12y ago
        Given that the second most prolific committer to the ConsoleKit git repository is a certain Lennart P. it is reasonable to assume that the systemd people did not decide to implement logind from scratch because of NIH syndrome.
- e7620 12y ago
  This is not true, unless you happen to have too many dollars to spare. Also, Windows can also be forked, by distributing patches instead of binaries.

deong 12y ago

To argue the other side, if you don't like something in OS X or Windows, you can type "vim my_os.cpp" and start implementing your own version from scratch. If three years from now, everything from Firefox to GNU tar depends on systemd, then your open-source Linux is in the same boat. [Edit: Just to be clear, I don't expect that to happen. I'm just pointing out why people get upset when systemd encroaches on very large numbers of system components.]