[systemd-devel] I wonder… why systemd provokes this amount of polarity and resistance

[Martin Steigerwald]

Hi Lennart,

Am Mittwoch, 1. Oktober 2014, 23:33:43 schrieb Lennart Poettering:
> On Sun, 21.09.14 15:31, Martin Steigerwald (Martin at lichtvoll.de) wrote:
> > I just have one question. In the light of
> 
> [...]

Heck, I started a thread here and then didn´t manage to take time to carefully 
read it and reply here and there as I see fit. But I challenged people on 
debian-user mailing list to constructively voice their concerns upstream, and 
even pointed them to this mailing list. As far as I saw *no one* of the 
posters in debian-user took up on that challenge. Which I view as a pity. 
Cause now actually you invited constructive feedback. I wonder whether I may 
forward your answer to debian-user so they see your statement of inviting 
constructive feedback.

> > in the light of the ongoing discussions on linux-kernel, debian-devel,
> > debian- user and other mailing lists more than some dozens threads
> > meanwhile:
> > 
> > Did you ever ask yourself why your project provokes that amount of
> > resistance and polarity? Did you ever ask yourself whether this really is
> > just resistance against anything new from people who just do not like
> > "new" or whether it contains *valuable* and *important* feedback?
> 
> That's already two questions...
> 
> But anyway. Let me turn your question around: we swapped out one of
> the most central pieces of Linux systems, one of the pieces that is
> probably the most core of what administrators interface with every
> day. How could this change ever have gone *without* any noise?

Yet… I think it is not just noise.

> Administrators probably are a generally more conservative bunch,
> anything that interferes with their day-to-day workflow that they are
> used to is a distraction. That's quite understandable. In fact, I used
> to be an admin myself a long time ago, and I still administer a couple
> of machines. I have similar feelings when I update them, and in
> particular when some component I don't want to spend the time to relearn
> changes I end up being annoyed (dovecot config file changes!).

Oh, I know this one. I moved all the gazillion config files away and told it to 
use my old single file config. And for my setup using a ton of config files just 
adds immensively to my maintenance overheard, when I can write down the 
configuration in a page of text.

> Moreover, init systems are just an auxiliary tool to run
> things. Nobody starts a computer up to run systemd on it. People start
> up a computer to run a web app or database server software on
> it. Because of that, systemd is just a tool to make something else
> work, and the focus is always on that other thing, and any time spent
> on systemd or relearning it feels like wasted time to many. I totally
> and absolutely understand these feelings.

Well I do see advantages. I am one of the early adopters of systemd. And I 
would need to hold hands before my eyes to not see the advantages. But I can 
also resonate with some of the concerns.

> However, I also believe that the change we are making is for the good,
> and even though it might not be obvious to many immediately, it brings
> major benefits when administering machines, and they massively
> outweigh the disadvantage of changing things. And apparently I am not
> entirely alone with this, as the folks who make technical decision for
> the various distributions ended up deciding in favour of systemd in
> most cases.

Why do you believe so? What key points make you believe so?

Here the feedback I read over and over again is that you and RedHat basically 
forced the systemd decision onto other distributions. While I do not see how 
you actually can be powerful enough to do that, as we live in a free will 
zone. I do see tendencies that more and more stuff *depends* on systemd cause 
it needs features only available there.

On of the most talked on things on debian-user is the logind thing. GNOME 
actually depends on it, as far as I know. While KDE in Debian still uses 
ConsoleKit, as it seems to me when looking at the process list and finding:

/usr/bin/ck-launch-session /usr/bin/dbus-launch --exit-with-session 
/usr/bin/startkde

Dependencies like this actually create some force to adopt systemd.

Now I know ConsoleKit isn´t developed anymore, but also I never got why a 
logind implementation needs to depend on systemd base package in such a way 
that at least in Debian systemd package has to be installed if someone wants 
to use GNOME.

Also some parts of KDE seem to depend on systemd meanwhile in Debian – 
basically udisks related parts and Network-Manager:

merkaba:~> LANG=C apt-get purge systemd
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer 
required:
  amor analitza-common blinken cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra
  filelight kaccessible kalgebra kalgebra-common kalzium
  kalzium-data kanagram kbruch kcharselect kcolorchooser
  kde-config-cron kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeadmin
  kdeartwork kdeartwork-style kdeartwork-theme-window
  kdeartwork-wallpapers kdeedu kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegraphics
  kdegraphics-mobipocket kdegraphics-strigi-analyzer
  kdegraphics-thumbnailers kdemultimedia kdenetwork
  kdenetwork-filesharing kdetoys kdeutils kdf kgamma kgeography
  kgeography-data kgpg khangman kig kiten klettres
  klettres-data kmag kmousetool kmplot kolourpaint4 kppp krdc
  kremotecontrol krfb kruler ksaneplugin kscd kstars
  kstars-data ksystemlog kteatime ktimer ktouch ktouch-data
  kturtle ktux kuser kwordquiz libanalitza5abi1
  libanalitzagui5abi1 libanalitzaplot5abi1 libgnuinet-java
  libgnumail-java libgtk-vnc-1.0-0 libidl0 libkdeedu-data
  libkeduvocdocument4 libkiten4abi1 liborbit2
  libsystemd-id128-0:i386 libsystemd-journal0:i386
  libsystemd-login0 marble pairs parley parley-data
  plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba print-manager python-gconf
  python-gnome2 python-gtk-vnc python-ipy python-pyorbit
  qtdeclarative4-kqtquickcharts-1 rocs step
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  colord* gvfs* gvfs-backends* gvfs-daemons* hplip* hplip-gui*
  kde-full* kde-plasma-desktop* kde-plasma-netbook*
  kde-standard* libpam-systemd* network-manager* packagekit*
  packagekit-tools* plasma-nm* plasma-widget-networkmanagement*
  policykit-1* policykit-1-gnome* polkit-kde-1*
  printer-driver-postscript-hp* systemd* udisks2*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 22 to remove and 129 not upgraded.
After this operation, 37.4 MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]


And I wonder why exactly is this an *advantage* or in what way is this a 
disadvantage that makes a bigger advantage possible?

But business does network management, device management have to depend on 
something that started as I perceived it, as a init system replacement.

Much of the feedback is related to that. Many would appreciate something like 
systemd if it just did *services* stuff. That is also what seemed to have 
motivated the dev behind the use less d fork.

> Yes, we knew exactly we'd be getting a lot of heat for all this. We
> have been getting it from the day on we announced the project. And I
> am pretty sure it will continue this way for a while still.
> 
> (What I didn't expect though is how awful the Linux community can
> actually be. That people collect Bitcoins to hire a hitman on me, that
> people start petitions to make me stop working, and all that other
> really hateful, personal stuff is really apalling. I guess I have a
> thick skin, because I don't care too much, but jeezus christ, it's
> really disgusting sometimes.)

I am sad about this kind of feedback. Not only do I think its inapprobiate. 
Not only do I have compassion with you that as I imagine it is not easy to be 
on the receiving side of personal attacks like this, but I also think that 
people choosing that way of communication do not help at all to facilitate 
change.

I personally wouldn´t expect you do read through such kind of feedback. I 
think I personally would try my best to ignore it *completely*. Anyone who 
wants to facilitate change needs to understand that accusing someone in person 
is a powerful way of sabotaging to facitilitate change. I never seen attacking 
another one in person every created any beneficial result. That could only be 
achieved if at least one person in that communication steps out of this way of 
communication. As… it seems you did if you read the feedback between the lines 
of hate.

I´d even by fine with people expressing anger. I am angry at that and that and 
that. But personal attacks like the recent troll postings on several 
mailinglists are off limits for me.

> I monitor the feedback posted on the Internet regularly. I browse
> reddit and the debian and gentoo mailing list archives sometimes, and
> try to distill the useful bits out of all the noise and hate dumped
> there. This actually used to be very productive for quite some time,
[…]
> The current increase noised level around systemd adoption I attribute
> to three things: the fact that RHEL7 is out now, the fact that due to
> the adoption of systemd as default by Debian and Ubuntu the folks who
> ignored the discussion so far now are faced with this change, and also
> to a big part to certain "columnists" who in the interest of
> generating traffic to their sites try to create a hubbub out of very
> little.
> 
> Anyway, long story short: we knew what we did, and yeah, I read
> feedback, even if it is written in a hateful style, and we learn from
> it.

Well, I for myself have been concerned and surprised by *such an mount* of 
uproar. Not even GNOME 3 triggered anywhere near that amount of threads and 
mails.

And I worry regarding various attempts to replace systemd functionality (by 
systembsd services) and by use less d or using different inits. I think quite 
some of them are based on solid technical arguments. I wonder whether systemd 
might be missing out on something here.

And I worry about a deep split between people who are into the UNIX mantra to 
do one thing and do it well… and highly integration people, systemd upstream 
and adopters. Actually I do see vadility in the UNIX mantra. In the KISS 
principle. It has a point to it.

> > For now I use systemd. I like quite some features. But on the other hand I
> > am vary about it myself. I look at a 45 KiB binary for /sbin/init as PID1
> > and a 1,3 MiB binary in systemd 215 and wonder myself. I see systemd
> > --user
> > processes running and wonder:
> Well, note that systemd used for user services actually saves you
> resources, as the systemd binary only needs to be mapped into memory
> once and then is shared between all user instances and the system
> instance.

But what about the argument of stability? Arguably a 1,3 MiB binary have more 
chances for bugs and security problems. What happens if PID 1 crashes? I heard 
about that systemd would in some circumstances have the chance to get 
restarted.

And… with two binaries and a library or so… wouldn´t the result – i.e. the 
memory footprint – the same? Except some per process data area all would be 
mapped once.

> > Is it really all just nay-sayers for the sake of nay-saying?
> 
> No, it's not that simple.
> 
> > Or do they – at least partly – provide *valuable* and *important*
> > feedback.
> 
> Well, some is valuable and important, but much certainly isn't. The
> 200nd complaint that systemd was "monolithic" or so is something I am
> genuinely not interested in anymore, for example...

Why do you think there is no point or vadility in it?

systemd does a lot. And an 1,3 MiB binary is a hug binary size for something 
that started out as managing services and sessions via control cgroups.

> I will continue to scan reddit and the mailing list archives for stuff
> I find, but of course, I always prefer if people would contact us
> directly and constructively with feature or change requests, instead
> of requiring me to follow these forums...
> 
> Let me stress this: constructive feedback is *always* welcome!

Well… I may post much more in this thread. As I find time I will read through 
it… yet I invitated anyone on debian-user to voice their concern there… as 
long as no one does, I for myself try to refrain from discussions there… cause 
its pointless. If its just venting frustration endlessly and repeating the 
same arguments over and over and over and over again… I´d rather – despite my 
mixed feelings and also technical doubts about systemd – I give it a chance 
nonetheless to see how it actually works out in practice. While repeating each 
and any bug I find with scrutiny. For me systemd still have to prove itself. I 
didn´t see any PID 1 crash so far. But I will watch it carefully for any 
erratic behaviour.

Actually I did a step to point and the concerns and raise user voices here, if 
users do not chime in and just think you wouldn´t be receptive to constructive 
feedback… well… some may argue they provided constructive feedback and got 
ignored… well… I pointed at various ways to handle systemd adoption in Debian. 
Users can also decide to help test the alternatives. Unlike other distros 
Debian still supports them.

Ciao,
-- 
Martin 'Helios' Steigerwald - http://www.Lichtvoll.de
GPG: 03B0 0D6C 0040 0710 4AFA  B82F 991B EAAC A599 84C7