I would agree, having no systemd is good, I don't know if it will make much difference to update the sources, but yeah... That thread brings back memories. Not good ones. I wish it wasn't like talking to a staunch crazy person. But yeah, systemd supporters are so full of themselves... alas.

In essence we should update our reasons when possible, but they will most likely always disregard the truth.

So don't worry about it too much. That's usually a good thought process.

Although it is good to be updating it when possible just for those who are not sure who or what to trust.

Not all free software is good or reliable.

Systemd and a heap of bugs and the hyperbola developers have made the right choice, being that the security and privacy of its users and priority.

It does not matter if systemd is free. In fact he is a cancer

For sure it is a very invasive approach - meaning systemd. But I just want to point out that Hyperbola is a really good way using another one for INIT-freedom. As you can see in the other discussion there are always tryouts to make the used arguments more invalid. There is no further need for reasoning against or for systemd. It would be better just noting that Hyperbola just want another way!

Therefore my question and of course this is part to be discussed furthermore.
I don't know Lennart Poettering to have any further opinion about him or his style for development in deep. And I don't want to build up my view about him based on systemd. The only fact that matters for me is that this component is way too much and its adaption causes many false dependencies under the so-called standardization.

EDIT: Thanks for moving the topic to the right place, moderation!

Although I consciously avoided discussing systemd on the Trisquel boards and social media, my experience was essentially identical to zapper's. They just aren't listening. As an intermediate user and autodidact, being told to "trust the experts and stop being stubborn" pretty much ruined any positive memories I might have of that community.

I don't know that they would listen to a refreshed argument or if continuing to try to reason with then would do any good at all. I very much appreciate the Hyperbola social contract including "no discrimination on the basis of social class" and also (perceived) "intelligence". I think knowing that I am safe from that here pretty much takes care of any controversial opinions or conspiracy theories about Poettering on my own end.

"I would prefer not to" is about the only thing productive I have to say to systemd fanbois; the rest of the anger and frustration probably belongs in a paper notebook that can be burned or an encrypted text file. My time online and on earth is better spent expanding my own horizons.

years ago i left open source for free software.

open source has one major play that it uses to suck in (well, suckers): "we are like free software, except more reasonable!"

what does "more reasonable" mean? it means that reasonable people eventually stop standing for anything on their own, and let the majority tell everyone else what to think. in other words-- reasonable = agreeable = herd mentality = corporate, as it turns out. open source is more reasonable because it shuts up and lets the "grownups" (enterprise) do the talking.

this completely flips the idea that the user is free and challenges user autonomy as "impractical" and ideological.

whereas systemd completely goes against user autonomy. it is an init system too hopelessly complicated to be maintained by anyone but salaried employees (this isnt literally true-- the linux kernel is pretty complex as well.)

but the technical side of systemd is pointless to get into, because youll never win the political argument against it (wait for why) because the foundation of any political debate about is "shut up, you dont know what youre talking about."

you cant win a debate with people who ignore one side of it. there is no debate. you "lose" the moment youre honest and theyre condescending and dishonest.

so the next step is to prove theyre being dishonest, right? but not with an argument-- same problem, same outcome.

at this point, they start saying youre crazy or paranoid. and it never gets better, because youre dealing with institutionalised narcissism.

the entire attitude of systemd and its proponents is "you have no choice anyway, so shut up and stop whining." that hasnt changed in literally years.

anytime this attitude is encountered, you have to realise that the people showing it are actively against software freedom. they couch this in terms of "we free, you cant tell us what to do" but THIS ISNT HONEST due to being one-sided: they can tell you what do, but you cant tell them what to do-- you cant even tell them to stop pushing you around.

thats the #1 lie you need to watch for.

the second lie is "we arent forcing anyone."

well, you have no choice-- but you arent being forced. this is the if-by-whiskey fallacy of systemd, in which they are constantly working (this can be shown, but not "proven" but shown adequately) to remove your choices. the whole stated goal is to make distros the same. theyre dissimilar because of choice. but hey...

when you talk about choice theyll say youre free to do whatever. when you talk about freedom theyll say its ideological. (yeah but this is free software we are talking about, so its pretty weird to be calling freedom an ideology as if thats automatically unreasonable. unless theyre dishonest.)

and as for the rest of it-- the on and on and on and on...

bottom line is this: experts are not always right. einstein was not always right. torvalds waves his arms and says "hey! im not always right!" but its basically impossible for you to be wrong all the time.

anyone who treats you like youre always wrong is probably lying. and theres as least one condition that explains all this behaviour, which is clinical narcissism.

narcissists do not care about you.

narcissists do PRETEND to care about you.

narcissists do not care or consider that you might be right-- ever.

narcissists do absolutely everything based on controlling people, even when its profitable to give up control (to their own detriment.)

because control is worth more than profit.

in this regard, clinical narcissists are one-man monopolies. open source will always provide them with an opportunity.

the image of being right and the image of success, the popularity and fanbase comes first.

thats corporate. thats monopoly. thats control. and thats narcissism.

once youve established why systemd is a perfect campaign for monopolies to hurt software freedom-- once youve read about the halloween documents and microsoft using eee as a weapon against all competition, then you have some choices:

1. you can get into the technical / freedom problems caused by systemd. there are other non-related problems such as the github purchase that show that microsoft is still doing a REALLY GOOD job at fighting software freedom like the threat that it is to their business model. no one here actually thinks that this has changed. all thats changed is that theyve moved their troops onto our soil (i dont mean with systemd. i mean with github.)

2. you can write to the fsf and ask them to reconsider endorsing systemd. if you can get them to realise that systemd is part of an eee campaign, they will resist it more. thats a pretty big "if" though. theyre leaning on "its free software, an thats good enough for anybody." but this is not true.

3. you can stop waste your time arguing with narcissists. theyre tough to spot (because most people think narcissism is just an inflated self, when its really a complete objectification of all other humans from the narcissists perspective and a complete pathological unwillingness to admit ones own real imperfections) but you can argue with them for years, and it doesnt change. go for a decade-- it doesnt change. because youre the only person actually arguing. they are just stating and restating that theyre right.

4. you can look for solutions

5. you can avoid software that is designed like systemd is. that means most of the garbage from freedesktop.org for that matter.

systemd isnt going to be the last thing thats like systemd. its one campaign (albeit the one that probably hurts us the most so far.)

and there should be a name for serious threats to free software that the fsf doesnt consider threats-- threats that fly under their radar.

i call these threats "redix."

redix doesnt exist as an alternative to posix, redix changes posix from the inside and leaves you with only redix.

why redix? it could be red hat, it could be redmond. but posix (even without perfect compliance) has helped to hold the ecosystem together for this long, and the lie of the corporation is this:

"if we take this over, it will get better support. customers will get better support."

yeah, i used to use a thing called central point anti virus. microsoft purchased it and it became microsoft anti virus.

big companies buy stuff, use it and then when they drop support, its gone.

systemd is just lost ground. but its the fsf you have to convince, not the systemd fanbase, if you want better resistance to systemd. the systemd fanbase just likes being on the side thats "winning." to them, that will always be the big companies. and red hat is definitely one of the crown jewels of open source. so is systemd.

despite being a "work of opinion," this post is also released as cc0/public domain per this license/waiver: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

its a shame the fsf doesn't say anything on the matter.

sadly, theres a very good reason the fsf doesnt say anything on the matter-- they dont consider it a problem. even i think it would be unreasonable to expect the fsf to speak out on what they consider a non-issue.

to the best of my knowledge there is no precident for the fsf changing an opinion/stance (except in the very early formative days, switching from non-commercial sharing to freedom requires commercial reuse-- which i think was a good move probably for the same reasons they did) based on community feedback.

all the same, one of the things my tiny organisation promotes is letter writing campaigns to the fsf regarding:

1. considering the idea that eee is actually possible to do with free software, and systemd is a prominent example of this.

i understand the obvious counter-argument: no matter how these projects are sabotaged, the license allows people to step up and "fix it." so theres "no freedom problem." however, my thesis is that the free license is only a tool against non-free, and that in practice there are bounds to what it can accomplish.

in other words, a free license guards against most efforts to make software non-free. in theory its a perfect safeguard. in practice, it is a lot harder (not impossible) to make eee work against even copylefted software.

convincing the fsf of that is going to take a lot of patient, eloquent arguments to get rms (or others) to take it seriously. this is not limited to systemd, though all other examples (so far) are minor in comparison.

the idea that a free license is an excellent (but not flawless) tool for fighting non-free software is not new:

it didnt stop open source from co-opting free software.

it didnt stop tivo from practicing tivoisation (the gpl 2 was attacked and fighting tivoisation effectively required an update to the license. this proves that the gpl is a very good tool, but less than 100% effective. legal code really is code, and code isnt perfect and vulnerabilities can be found and exploited.)

imo it takes a lot of time to prove that any version of the gpl has a weakness. the monopolies are dedicated to finding and exploiting those vulnerabilities.

the rarity with which this happens proves that free licenses (the gpl especially) are an effective tool-- just not 100% effective.

so its not actually a first-time thing that free software (even gpl-licensed software) is attacked and made less free.

the fsf shouldnt need that proven for the first time. but it wont be easy to ever convince them that the design of software and attitude of developers can hurt freedom just as much as tivoisation-- because it goes against decades of (mostly accurate and correct) rhetoric from the fsf.

but i think there is benefit in making the effort to convince them. i also think systemd wont be the last time this happens-- another reason to convince the fsf now.

a ploy this diabolical deserves a name, i call it "redix." but redix is really just a new example of eee, so just call it eee if you prefer.

i believe eee is alive and well, and working hard. maybe the fsf believes it can only happen with software under non-free or permissive licenses, but i believe systemd is eee. the obvious counter-argument is "but it hasnt gotten to the third e yet."

yes it has. it has extinguished choice and freedom in the distros that use it. but thats even harder to prove than the other points, so dont bother with that point, youll never prove it.

2. the "works of opinion" argument is arbitrary and an unintentional attack on free culture. id encourage people to try to convince the fsf of this too. it wont work, but thats no reason not to try. really.

they record talks at libreplanet where theres mostly works of opinion, it goes under a free culture license (as it should.) if someone writes a talk and publishes it on a website, it goes under a noderivs license, as it shouldnt.

thats another thread though, so if you want to talk about this point i hope youll make a thread for it. i will gladly participate in it. cheers.

those are the two things i think letter campaigns to the fsf would help with.

I know I'm late to the party, but when I read this:

it really felt like a slap in Arch's face

You wrote that senetnce as if Gentoo used rpm which it doesn't...

One of those other inits is not so widely known GNU shepherd used in GuixSD. I was wondering if any of you ever tried it and could share their thoughts. Does it work well? boot fast? How does it compare to OpenRC in terms of having service files for less common programs provided?