On Mon, Dec 11, 2017 at 10:39:34AM +0200, Lars Noodén wrote: > Interesting essay. > > /Lars > > "The importance of Devuan" > > https://blog.ungleich.ch/en-us/cms/blog/2017/12/10/the-importance-of-devuan/ >
Related: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/17/12/11/0049245/does-systemd-makes-linux-complex-error-prone-and-unstable https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15891046 with, finally, not-so-harsh comments as we used to get two years ago. I like the essay but I must admit I don't particularly like the "doord" example. And the reason is that, believe it or not, technical aspects (like boot speed or number of bugs) are relatively marginal in the systemd debacle, at least for me. TL;DR: Maintaining alternatives is the only way to stay alive. The main point is "ecological" and is all about maintaining variety, avoiding to put all your eggs in the same basket, which also happen to belong to someone else and not to you. The GNU/Linux ecosystem has thrived and succeeded thanks to the existence of many, different, even contrasting alternatives, for virtually any aspect of the system. systemd is simply the negation of that approach. And to be honest, yes, in this respect the systemd approach is pretty much in line with the worst tradition of the unix systems produced back in the 80's, which where sturdly monolitic systems embracing everything in incompatible and closed ways, and whose stupid approach to "total domination" almost killed unix forever. That is not the "unix tradition" I would like to be preserved. This is not the "unix phylosophy" many of us keep talking about. Those of us who we have been grown up in the GNU/Linux bazaar know very well that there is no "one-single-way" of doing anything. Random Joe retains the freedom of coding yet-another-way of solving the very same problem, with high chances of fostering a nice leap forward. This is the main reason why the GNU/Linux ecosystem has produced high-quality software that could have not been conceived by one-single-mind in one-single-way following one-single-plan, even with a few thousand years at their disposal. This is the single main reason why maintaining alternatives to the systemd avalanche, and as many and variegated as possible, is so fundamental for the very survival of this ecosystem. This is what the auld-aunties are ranting about, in the end. Forget the technical details: quality comes out of natural selection, almost automatically, as it has done in the last 25 years, and natural selection is only possible if we can span a sufficiently large portion of the underlying solution space with different approaches, replacing pieces at will, merging, patching, diff-ing, scrapping, sharing. And once quality is achieved, it is available for everybody, including companies and businesses. Maintaining alternatives, and as many as possible of them, and allowing alternatives to hybridise and cross-fertilise each other is the only way of finding new, better, more efficient ways of solving the same old set of problems, and new ones. Knowing that any of those "perfect" solution is just waiting to be superseeded by a better one, resulting from the latest hybridation, to which new code and new ideas have been added in a creative way. Maintaining alternatives is the only way to stay alive. My2Cents KatolaZ -- [ ~.,_ Enzo Nicosia aka KatolaZ - Devuan -- Freaknet Medialab ] [ "+. katolaz [at] freaknet.org --- katolaz [at] yahoo.it ] [ @) http://kalos.mine.nu --- Devuan GNU + Linux User ] [ @@) http://maths.qmul.ac.uk/~vnicosia -- GPG: 0B5F062F ] [ (@@@) Twitter: @KatolaZ - skype: katolaz -- github: KatolaZ ]
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