Piero Bosio Social Web Site Personale

@karolherbst I think you are putting a lot of effort into equating "fighting Nazis" with "being pro-systemd", which conveniently is the system you have chosen to use. Your arguments about "supremacy in software" feel sophistic to me, and could easily be reversed: what piece of software, if any, could be described as hegemonic in the Linux userspace today? 🤔

I don't think we'll come to an agreement over this, so I will let you fight Nazis your way, and I will fight them my way, and I'll be the one choosing the place for that. 🙏

@karolherbst The point that I'm trying to convey here is that the characteristics I'm talking about are not artificial. They have real consequences on how software evolves, from a technical standpoint and also a political standpoint: who wields the power?

I want the power to be in the hands of the user, as much as possible, that is the point of FOSS. And so, I am going to take the position opposite yours: being anti-systemd is a leftist thing to do, because it aims to decentralize power.

The fact that some alt-right people espouse the same position does not mean the position is bad. It means that they feel disempowered too and want more agency. (The difference is that fascists want power over someone less privileged than they are, whereas leftists want justice for all; but that is irrelevant here.)

@karolherbst To be very blunt, I don't give a flying fuck what alt-right people are drawn to. I'm not using that metric as any kind of indicator for software quality, and I don't think anyone should. And if you insist, my personal interpretation of their motives, for most of them, is not "follow a supremacy mindset", it's "be an edgy contrarian and trigger the libs", and for now that means opposing systemd. If s6 was the most deployed init system worldwide, they would probably oppose s6 instead. It doesn't mean anything, I don't care about these people, and you shouldn't either.

@karolherbst If you don't see modularity as a goal, then it's fine, but it must also come with the expectation and acceptance that systemd cannot be universal. It should not try to target embedded devices. It should not try to target containers. etc. It cannot have it both ways.

But yes, we probably have a fundamental difference of opinion here: I do believe that one integrated piece of software managing all the parts of a given system is bad design. I believe that several projects interoperating with simple, well-defined interfaces, each one being replaceable, is the superior design, because it gives more power to the user as opposed to the author of the software.

@karolherbst "systemd sucks because it's monolithic" is an oversimplification, but there is some truth to it - it depends on what exactly is meant by "monolithic", a term vague enough that you can attribute a meaning to it and dismiss all the criticism as invalid, when there is a perfectly good argument if we try and define "monolithic" more accurately.

When you think "systemd is obviously not monolithic, these people don't know what they're talking about", you probably mean that systemd is made of several independent amovible parts and not everyone has to run everything. And indeed, under this acception it is silly to accuse systemd of being monolithic.

Here is my fundamental criticism, that I posit is what people mean when they say "monolithic", but that would be more accurately expressed as "hostile" or "closed":

The architecture of systemd, the interfaces it defines, the way it is split into modules, makes it so that it is generally difficult to write a replacement for one of these modules without buying into the systemd model and the way it manages a system. The interfaces are systemd-specific, using concepts that are not used anywhere else than systemd; the modules are designed to interact with systemd, and no effort is made to encourage external software to interact.

As a result, when a replacement module is written, it follows exactly the systemd model, because it's the only, or best, way to make it work. There is no value in writing replacement parts, because they would end up looking exactly like the initial module! The uselessd project was abandoned for this exact reason: it was impossible to make a lightweight clone of systemd.

So, systemd is "monolithic" in the sense that it's a unique piece of software that interacts with itself only; it's not "modular" because no individual module is replaceable, which is one of the points of a modular design.

This post is long enough so I'll stop here, but there are countless examples of hostile design in systemd (I have talked at length about NOTIFY_SOCKET already and am prepared to do more). Because most people are not technical nerds like you and I and are not expressing their criticisms accurately doesn't mean they're entirely wrong in their perception.

I think your callout was using a generic "you", but just in case: I do not jump on any hype, and I am getting played by nobody. I once left a project because it was full of people who were very vocal against systemd without any substance, they were mostly looking to spew hate, and this was not what I wanted from a community. Fortunately, not all alternative communities are like that, and pretending otherwise is doing a disservice to the free software ecosystem.

(Edit: typo)

@karolherbst Sorry, but no, you are being dishonest here. You are purposefully conflating 1. contrarianism and "divide and conquer" tactics in the service of a harmful ideology with 2. legitimate technical and political criticism of your chosen technology, political being defined here as "the way a project spreads and impacts the community". These are not the same.

Are there ill-intentioned asshats in the anti-systemd crowd? Yes, absolutely, and unfortunately, they are the ones who tend to make headlines.

Are there good, alternative communities who object systemd because we find it is not the ultimate technical solution that it pretends it is? Also yes, and they are full of wonderful, generous, honest, extremely talented people with no other political agenda than "we want what is best for the community". We are not many. We are not nearly enough. We are working on alternative solutions, and it is difficult because we do not have as much manpower or funding as people who work on systemd or freedesktop projects.

We are not gratuitously contrarians, we legitimately want to work on alternatives, and your rhetoric is making it more difficult for us. Calling "MAGA" everyone who disagrees with you is an insult and a crybully tactic worthy of the very authoritarians you're saying you hate (and that I hate as well, for the record).

(Edit: typo)