Martin Steigerwald - 28.12.17, 13:41: > Hello. > > This is long, it may invite disagreement, but I tried my best to avoid > triggering any hurt feelings. In case you just want to be bothered with the
do not want of course. I proof read the mail several times, but this still slipped through my conscious awareness. > past even for the purpose of figuring out ways to learn from it, I invite > you to just skip reading the mail. There is certainly no need to relive the > past. Given current human experience it is also not possible to change it. > But maybe there is a way toward healing wounds. > > Ian Jackson - 28.12.17, 11:20: > > Martin Steigerwald writes ("Re: Let's Stop Getting Torn Apart by > > Disagreement: Concerns about the Technical Committee"): > > > Any workable solution lies beyond blame, however. > > > Any workable solution lies beyond "I am right and you are wrong". > > > > Traditionally Debian has a very workable approach for disagreements > > over whether software X or Y is better. (For whatever value of > > "better") Offer both and let people decide for themselves. > > Sure. And it is a good approach. > > Regarding Systemd/SysVInit/OpenRC this approach comes with a considerable > cost tough as it is such a core part of the system. One cost is that a lot > of packages link against Systemd library which is part of the reason why > Devuan exists. Or that GNOME and to some degree other DEs without Systemd > is somewhat challenging. Devuan developers gave up on the GNOME without > Systemd topic for now as far as I understood. > > As far as I understand it is not possible without considerable effort and > quite some of alternative, basically duplicated packages to provide the > choice of a truly Systemd free system within Debian. It appears to me to be > almost like a new architecture like FreeBSD or Hurd flavors, not a > different CPU architecture. Sure Systemd is not an operating system kernel, > but it is a software that is really tightly coupled with one – a perfectly > valid, but not the only possible choice made by upstream developers. But to > provide a new architecture for this would also be considerable, heavy > overhead. As far as I understand Devuan works a bit like that. They pull in > a lot of packages unchanged from Debian and inject their own packages with > some kind of an overlay mechanism. Maybe there is something for Debian > people to learn from that approach. I did not review it closely so far. > > I think it is partly this limitation that invited most of the uproar in the > discussion some years ago. > > > When things start to get really emotional and heated is when people > > feel (rightly or wrongly) that such choices are being curtailed. > > Exactly. > > For those who don´t want any part of Systemd installed and used, not even > the libraries, Debian I think is just not the suitable choice at the > moment. > > Providing that free choice would mean to think about ways how something like > Devuan could be possible *within* the Debian project. Quite a challenge, > but not impossible I think. Of course, Devuan people may not want to join > the Debian project, at least not at the moment. On the other hand they do > not provide Systemd as a choice within Devuan. They just refer to using > Debian in case one wants to use Systemd. The other way around it could be > perfectly valid to refer to using Devuan for those who want a Systemd free > system. > > I hope for a time where Debian and Devuan people come together to heal the > forking. And I mean "heal" literally here. Cause there are still wounds. On > both sides. Whether there would still be a (officially approved?) variant of > Debian called Devuan does not matter, it could be a perfectly valid > outcome. But to heal the wounds… I think that is important work to allow > for that healing to happen. > > A first step could be to stop accusing each other. Letting go of wanting to > accuse the other side can help here. I do read dng mailinglists from time to > time and some main people there often actively ask to drop Systemd debates > or even hate speech on their lists. As far as I saw they try to be fair to > Debian packagers as well. > > Within the Debian project a first good step would be to accept the fork, > instead of just tolerating (and probably suffering from) it (what else could > Debian people anyway than at least to tolerate it? it is free software > after all). Accepting the fork basically is just accepting that the past is > they way it is. Could I let go of wanting to change the past? Especially > when all my wanting to change the past still was not able to change it? > > I read at least occasionally comments about Devuan in various Debian related > mailing lists that suggested would not be a long lasting project and there > would be no capable packagers / developers involved. Comments that tried to > undermine the relevance of Devuan. A good first step could be to refrain > from commenting in this way and open up to the possibility that some people > there are capable packagers and testers as well and that some people have > there have perfectly valid reasons for doing the work they do. Reasons you > can think differently about, but still valid reasons. > > Same goes for Devuan people of course. Accepting each other as they are is > the first big, important step here. > > > To come back to the Technical Committee topic: I think it is important to > appreciate both sides in a dispute even when announcing the final decision. > I don´t have all the text of the final decisions in mind. I bet tech-ctte > members care to at least word such a final decision as neutrally or non- > offensively as they could. But actively appreciating both sides, especially > the side that "lost" the conflict, may be a step beyond current practice. > Those decisions are not about right or wrong. They are about technical > preferences. > > I just reviewed some CTTE decision announcements in debian-devel-announce ml > and while some of them include at least some rationale about the decision, > some others are just presenting the result of the decision with strong, but > accurate wording like "We exercise our power to decide" (including the > various Systemd ones like 727708 and 762194). I however bet tech-ctte > members have been completely exhausted after that discussion and decision > process. So maybe my suggestion to appreciate both sides when announcing > decisions… is asking for unrealistic super-human powers without other > changes in the process. > > Also are either not all CTTE´s are announced on debian-devel-announce or is > [CTTE #741573] Debian Menu System from September 2015 really the last > technical decision of the CTTE? According to > > https://www.debian.org/devel/tech-ctte#status > > it appears that there has not been an technical decision of the CTTE > afterwards. > > Thanks, -- Martin