Who's Afraid of Systemd?
Now that systemd is uneventfully running the latest releases of major distributions like Debian, Fedora, and Ubuntu, you might imagine that opposition to it is melting away -- but you'd be wrong. Instead, the rumors are as common as ever. Devuan, the anti-systemd fork of Debian, is still trudging towards a release while making the same arguments as ever. Devuan's home page asks: Have you tried to opt-out of the systemd change in Debian and stay with sysvinit? You will quickly notice that "Debian offers no choice." Yet a search quickly unearths instructions for making an install image without systemd and for removing systemd from your system.
Nor does the claim that systemd violates the Unix design principles stand up under scrutiny. Systemd is actually a general name for a series of related, similarly structured commands. From this perspective, systemd conforms to the principle of one program doing a single function in much the same way as the Linux kernel or a command line shell does. It is a suite of programs, not a single monolithic one. Systemd may not be ideal, but systems continue to boot and function the way they are supposed to.
In fact, not only are the most common anti-systemd arguments easily discounted, but they are surrounded by a vagueness that raises suspicions. Wild claims are made without any attempt at substantiation. The result is an air of secrecy and danger that, however appealing and reminiscent of freedom-fighting that it might be, does nothing to justify the anti-systemd rhetoric or make it plausible. Devuan's mailing list mostly shows the same dozen or so posters, and has raised only 7934 Euros. Supporters sound as though they are doing more fear-mongering than constructive effort.
Nor does the claim that systemd violates the Unix design principles stand up under scrutiny. Systemd is actually a general name for a series of related, similarly structured commands. From this perspective, systemd conforms to the principle of one program doing a single function in much the same way as the Linux kernel or a command line shell does. It is a suite of programs, not a single monolithic one. Systemd may not be ideal, but systems continue to boot and function the way they are supposed to.
In fact, not only are the most common anti-systemd arguments easily discounted, but they are surrounded by a vagueness that raises suspicions. Wild claims are made without any attempt at substantiation. The result is an air of secrecy and danger that, however appealing and reminiscent of freedom-fighting that it might be, does nothing to justify the anti-systemd rhetoric or make it plausible. Devuan's mailing list mostly shows the same dozen or so posters, and has raised only 7934 Euros. Supporters sound as though they are doing more fear-mongering than constructive effort.
"If you fight against monsters you should take care that in the process you do not become a monster yourself".Errm, what facts, exactly? All due respect to Bruce Bryfield, but he posted a blog entry presenting an unsupported opinion piece. The only figures present are where he reports the total donations received by Devuan to date. The only facts I can see apart from that are that Lennart Poettering is involved and a lot of people don't like him very much.
He doesn't even try and summarise the arguments pro-systemd, let alone the ones against. It's hardly a ringing vindication for either side of the debate. I don't think it was ever intended to be.You posted a highly partisan opinion, presented it as news and backed it up with one solitary link to an equally partisan blog post. If you'd said "Bruce Bryfield has posted an interesting article advocating acceptance of systemd. I think he makes some good points, what do you think?" then I wouldn't have an objection. Instead you posted one saying "I'm right, anyone who disagrees with me is wrong, and by the way this dude (who I can't even be bothered to name) agrees with me, so that settles it".
I'm sorry, but regardless of whether your opinion is right or wrong, you're still editorializing. And I'm not saying you shouldn't be able to do that. I just ask that you draw a clear line between your opinions and what you're reporting as news. I hadn't thought it was a lot to ask.