[mdlug] Big brother gives M$ a 10 out of 10

[LAP]

> On May 23, 2024, at 12:25, Steve Litt <slitt at troubleshooters.com> wrote:
> 
>
> I’m curious, how does systemd threaten that OS model?
>

Let me first state that I am passionately against systemd
and all of its allies (e.g. freedesktop.org), but I believe
that my antagonism is rooted in reality and not in irrational
bias.  Keep this in mind when considering the following.  

Systemd is still very much a work in progress but the project
definitely has a goal which is stated in a talk given by
Poettering some 10 years ago.  Everyone should read his simple
manifesto:

http://0pointer.de/public/gnomeasia2014.pdf

The goal of systemd is to become the one-and-only interface
between user space and the kernel.  IOW, in the future, the
only way for application software to interact with the system
will be through systemd.  Nothing else will be available or
permitted.

Poettering refers to the current state of Linux as being
a "bag of bits."  This is definitely a serious condemnation but
it is Poettering's basis for his desire to transform Linux into
a "competitive" OS -- in purely his image, of course.

But being a "bag of bits" is actually the great strength of
GNU/Linux because it really means that there are always many
different ways of doing most anything.  Linux offers a plethora
of virtual terminals, graphical toolkits, scripting shells,
init systems, etc., etc.  This great bounty, however, is upsetting
to the vision of unity that systemd aims to impose.

>From the beginning I have rejected systemd.  It is present on none
of my GNU/Linux machines.  But it is getting more and more difficult
to avoid and the great threat is that it may impossible to avoid
in the future.

As an example, since I build my own machines from components, I know
exactly what hardware is present in my system and consequently I can
create a convenient set of static device nodes.  There is no need to
probe hardware at each boot (indeed, it would be a stupid exercise).
However, freedesktop.org, which is actually a part of the systemd
movement, introduced libinput as the one-and-only input driver for
X Window.  Libinput does not recognize static device nodes.  Rather
it uses udevd (from systemd)to probe hardware and then create device
nodes "on the fly." 
 
The consequence of this summary imposition was that I had to reconfigure
everything that I had done in the past, and which still worked very
effictively, just to accommodate this progressive whim.

Furthermore, libinput has given me many headaches regarding my pointing
devices, and such headaches never occured with the previous X Window
input drivers.

Fortunately, I was able to still avoid systemd by utilizing eudev:

https://github.com/eudev-project/eudev

However, it is doubtful if this project can keep accommodating the
changes that systemd udev will bring in the future.

Thus, if it is not plain already, the threat of systemd is that it will
destroy Linux diversity and institute a completely monolithic set of
utilities under the control of one organization.

Others will certainly disagree, and there are obviously a lot of
these others as most GNU/Linux distros have adopted systemd.

The crux of the matter is that systemd should be a fork and not
an imposition.  There should be a divergence of methodologies
and not a convergence.  In this way choice would be preserved
and not eliminated.

We need to have a "RedHat Associated Linux," using systemd, and a
"Free Linux" which maintains the wonderful "bag of bits" status.

If one reads the manifesto, Poettering mentions a "competitive"
OS goal for Linux.  I would hope that everyone can see that what
this really means is that Linux must become more like Microsoft
Windows.  Indeed most of the goals of systemd are a direct copy
or elaboration of Microsoft capabilities.

I do not use the common DEs such as GNOME or KDE, but from what
I gather, these DEs are not much more than MS Windows GUI clones.

In conclusion, systemd is still a work in progress.  Unfortunately,
a lot of users falsely believe that systemd is merely an alternative
init system, but this is way off the mark.  Systemd is a movement
to comprehensively restructure Linux and as a result destroy the Unix
way of doing things.

It could very well be that the future of GNU/Linux, as a free
and open alternative OS, will be FreeBSD.