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

[Tom Gundersen]

Hi Martin,

If you were to phrase your complaints/questions in terms of technical
issues, we could probably have a much more useful debate. What is
clear is that the systemd project will not do or change anything
merely based on some bystanders gut feeling (which is basically what
you have argued from).

If you are concerned about portability, go ahead, follow the advice
given here, start the port and once you hit issues come back and ask
questions. Until someone does this, I think we should consider the
whole portability issue closed.

Same for modularity, make a fork (in the sense Colin used) of the
parts of systemd you want to use in isolation, and come back when you
run into problems (there surely will be some, but maybe you can still
do the things you want).

On Wed, Oct 22, 2014 at 2:13 AM, Martin Steigerwald <Martin at lichtvoll.de> wrote:
> I will make an effort to reply to your mail and then most likely unsubscribe,
> cause for me I feel like being in an hostile environment.

When you ignore technical answers, and more than insinuate that we use
the same vile practices as Microsoft once did (despite you claiming
you don't mean to accuse anyone, the way it comes out is a quite
strong accusation), you should expect some less than friendly
responses. That said, I think Lennart and Colin both went after your
arguments not your person (if you bother reading carefully what they
wrote).

> No. I am concerned about both. The functionality that is stuffed inside PID 1
> which is more than 1,3 MiB and also sports user session functionality. And
> what is coupled inside on project, more or less tight.

I already answered the issue with user sessions (and so have others),
I'm disappointed that you would bring it up again without seeming to
have read our replies. As to the size of PID1, why don't you go and
study why this is so? The code is there, there are tools to study the
binary. Then hopefully you would either agree that the size is
unproblematic, or you would come up with some constructive
suggestions/patches to change things.

>> It also increases the test matrix. If logind v300 has to work with
>> libsystemd v300 and all future versions then the testing side of things
>> increases in complexity *massively*. Again this causes problems that
>> translate to time and effort of developers that could better be
>> allocated to building a better overall set of building blocks.
>
> I do think that the easiest way to do something is not necessarily the best.

If you think there is a better way to do things, go ahead, do it.
Vaguely complaining that we should have done this or that differently
is not going to change any minds. It is worth noting (again) that the
way we manage our repository does not mean that others could not make
replacements for parts of systemd, the stuff is very modular. But
don't take my word for it, start coding and when you run into problems
come back with questions.

You are probably not getting out of this discussion what you hoped for
(I assume). Sorry about that. If you come back with bug reports,
feature requests or patches, you will have a much easier time
influencing things.

Cheers,

Tom