This is what Stallman had to say about systemd. Really?!?

[TonyVanDam]

Excuse me if this is old news for some of you.

For all current and former Debian users that really wanted to know what Richard M. Stallman finally had to say about the controversial systemd, his following exact quotes are as followed:

On systemd

The systemd init software has rocked the Linux community, causing forks of popular distributions and sparking heated debate.

Stallman, however, has long stood apart from the world of open-source and Linux – he regards “open-source” as a weak form of openness, and insists on referring to Linux as GNU/Linux. Thus, it wasn’t a surprise that, when asked whether he had an opinion on the systemd controversy, he replied with a flat “no, I don’t.”

“I’ve never seen it, I’ve never used a system that had it; I know it’s free software, so ethically speaking, it’s not an issue – it’s just a convenience question.”

SOURCE:
http://www.networkworld.com/article/290 ... l#comments

In other words, Stallman never has to deal with systemd because he's still using gNewSense. But I still would like to know if he will still be using gNewSense whenever a future version is systemd infested like the current Debian (beginning with Jessie) is.

[NkfzGx3ok]

You can tell someone has never used Emacs when they think RMS would hate systemd

On a more serious note RMS cares about Free (As in Freedom, not Beer) software, systemd is just that. Stallman wont be "infested" because it is not closed proprietary software. It seems like you have may have some confusion on the licensing of the systemd project. Also I don't think he would care about running systemd, he has never actually installed GNU/Linux himself and always has someone from a Linux User Group do it for him because he has no need to waste time on such mundane tasks, as you can see him talking about here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umQL37AC_YM

[somebodyelse]

It's important to keep issues separate:
- systemd may have problems but these are not software freedom problems since it is licensed under the LGPL
- the LGPL v2.1 may have problems but it is considered a legitimate free software license by the FSF
- Debian may have problems but it has never had an obligation not to integrate a specific free software component on account of issues that don't relate to software freedom (as defined by Debian/FSF)

Integrating systemd into Debian may be a technical mistake (or it may not) but it is not immoral or against Debian's own ethics/rules for conduct.

[Randicus]

The fact that Stallman has been silent about systemd clearly shows that he not opposed to it. Why are some people still waiting for him to lead a crusade against it?

The problem surrounding Stallman and Torvalds is most Linux users see them as gods that only speak divine truth. Stallman does not care what is put into an OS, as long as the code is made freely available. As long as the code is technically free he is happy. Whether or not users have real choice is irrelevant.

Also I don't think he would care about running systemd, he has never actually installed GNU/Linux himself and always has someone from a Linux User Group do it for him because he has no need to waste time on such mundane tasks

Priceless. The messiah of software freedom has never installed a Linux system! Fills me with the utmost confidence.

[dilberts_left_nut]

Stallman does not care what is put into an OS, as long as the code is made freely available. As long as the code is technically free he is happy. Whether or not users have real choice is irrelevant.

Whether or not users have real choice is the whole point.
As long as the code is free you have all the choice you need - you can do with it whatever you want.

[keithpeter]

Hello All

http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/

Read a bit of this to see where Richard Stallman is coming from. There is a .pdf and a bookreader version floating around as well. All appropriately licenced of course.

Ask any hardened sysadmin about programmers and if the sysadmin would trust a programmer with root access or to install their own tool chain. Then stand well back.

[dasein]

Given that one of the explicit design goals/features of systemd is to ease the insertion of binary blobs into the OS, I confess to being a tiny bit surprised. (But only a tiny bit.)

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Given that one of the explicit design goals/features of systemd is to ease the insertion of binary blobs into the OS

Please elaborate on this (with citations).

[somebodyelse]

Doesn't the LGPL make it easier for the software concerned to interact with non-free software? Isn't that the issue rather than "binary blobs"?

But anyway, RMS' values (in spite of his inability to install gNewSense/Trisquel - haha what a noob) have long been the cornerstone of Debian's own values. At one point, Debian was even sponsored by the FSF. Therefore it makes sense that Debian's approach reflects RMS' logic. It is software licensed under a free licence, therefore it is ok.

I installed gNewSense yesterday. It made me miss Squeeze (on which it is based). So nice just to have Gnome 2 + Shiki Colors. "Mummy, why did Gnome 2 have to go away?"

[edbarx]

Unfortunately, but fortunately for those who adopt them, underhand tactics, were used in the past, are used at present, and will continue to be used in the future. Anyone above the age of reason can understand that. By this I am not claiming systemd falls into this category, but for the sake of discussion, one cannot expect all people to behave responsibly, and to refrain from using contorted ways to achieve their goals. The problem with the latter is, they never want to incriminate themselves.

[keithpeter]

I installed gNewSense yesterday. It made me miss Squeeze (on which it is based). So nice just to have Gnome 2 + Shiki Colors. "Mummy, why did Gnome 2 have to go away?"

It has to be said that my own computing needs are so basic that just about any distro from Debian Etch / Ubuntu 6.06 (the first LTS) upwards would be fine.

Gnome 2: Any of the RHEL version 6 clones (CentOS / Scientific Linux / Springdale Linux / Oracle Linux) will give you Gnome 2.3x with updates until 2020. Add the epel and nux-desktop repositories and you have quite a nice system. Just no mono based applications (no shotwell &c).

gNewSense: Version 4 is based on Wheezy as the gNewSense project tracks Debian. There is an alpha netinstall available on the InterWebs, read mailing list before an install. Runs fine on an X60 with 1.5Gb RAM so RHS may well be rocking to Gnome 3 soon. Wouldn't it be fun if he turned out to *really like it*

[tomazzi]

Please elaborate on this (with citations).

I think it was about so-called "userspace firmware loader", which was (fortunately) removed from systemd in v217, after a long fight...

(...) in spite of his inability to install gNewSense/Trisquel - haha what a noob (...)

That's not what He said.
Maybe You should search for a written version of this interview - and then read it carefully...

Regards.

[somebodyelse]

^It was a joke Of course I was misrepresenting his position.

[reinob]

Please elaborate on this (with citations).

I think it was about so-called "userspace firmware loader", which was (fortunately) removed from systemd in v217, after a long fight...

The kernel couldn't itself load firmware until like 3.7, so before that it had to be userspace (udev). This has nothing to do with systemd (other than the fact that udev is part of the systemd project).

Since jessie has 3.16 systemd/udev removed the userspace firmware loading.

Still @dasein's point that

Given that one of the explicit design goals/features of systemd is to ease the insertion of binary blobs into the OS, I confess to being a tiny bit surprised. (But only a tiny bit.)

has not been answered. Unless he was referring to firmware loading, in which case the comment was a clear attempt at trolling :)

[tomazzi]

(...)
The kernel couldn't itself load firmware until like 3.7, so before that it had to be userspace (udev). This has nothing to do with systemd (other than the fact that udev is part of the systemd project).

Actually, this is not correct, it should be:
"The kernel couldn't itself dynamically load firmware until like 3.7, so before that it had to be userspace, using hotplug *or* udev (...) which is part of systemd"

This is an obvious technical limitation - the firmware located in a filesystem can be only accessed *after* the filesystem is mounted, that is, in the userspace

Regards.

[millpond]

On my 8.1 system it seems like I have both systemd and sysvinit installed.

I have no clue as to what systemd is *supposed* to do.
Things seem to run fine from init.d .

systemadm yields a toially blank gui screen. Apparently a *good* thing.

Is systemd likely doing anything?

It looks like so far I have a *choice* here, and may go off grid sticking with Jessie if systemd becomes more invasive.

If fail2ban is an indication of systemd apps, then I want no part of it. A binary logfile on an intrusion detector???? Idiocy.

What I like about sysvinit is the total freedom it gives over daemons (at least in 'user space'!).

I can script them on or off, or even yank them out of the boot chain. I want no part of anything that complicates this process.

So while all this stuff is new, so dar it seems there is still choice. When that diminishes, I will need to fork away from the main distro.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

What I like about sysvinit is the total freedom it gives over daemons (at least in 'user space'!).

You can view all .services, .sockets & .targets in systemd with:

Code: Select all

ls -lR /etc/systemd/system

Use this to stop any of them:

Code: Select all

# systemctl disable <name of .service>

Some need to be masked *cough*avahi*cough*:

Code: Select all

# systemctl mask <name of .service>

You can even `apt-get source` and use the `./configure` options to remove any functionality you don't like.

More information on running jessie without systemd here:
https://wiki.debian.org/FAQsFromDebianUser#systemd

[somebodyelse]

Let's not make this a general systemd thread. Stallman's opinion is interesting because he has made software freedom his life's mission and some critics of systemd claim systemd is a danger to those freedoms.

Personally, if you feel systemd is a danger to software freedom, it might be a good idea to compile a level-headed report on it (without emotional/polarising words like "abomination") and address it specifically to him.

Still, isn't the history of Linux (sic) what it is because frankly RMS hasn't got a clue about this low-level system stuff?

In other words, he may be a good guardian of software freedom in terms of the parameters he has set. But he is no longer a young man and is probably not the best person to fully comprehend how the freedom of the users of computers/devices can be compromised in the age of accelerating changes we are living in.

[edbarx]

In other words, he may be a good guardian of software freedom in terms of the parameters he has set. But he is no longer a young man and is probably not the best person to fully comprehend how the freedom of the users of computers/devices can be compromised in the age of accelerating changes we are living in.

Therefore, discredit him as his ideas are obsolete...

It is an unfounded assumption the claim that being old also implies one's ideas are necessarily obsolete. It is also a taken for granted, the conviction that old people cannot understand the world around them, and cannot therefore, properly respond to its newer necessities.

Younger people necessarily have less experience which makes them more prone to repeat the mistakes of their predecessors. Therefore, the optimum, if it exists, doesn't belong to being young or old, but it rather belongs to a position, where one is determined to learn from the past mistakes of others, while at the same time, evaluates the situation to change strategy accordingly.

Both mental aptitude and experience are necessary, other than that, it would be a path full of failures.

[somebodyelse]

That's not what I meant. I just meant that as with so many other things, it is the youth of today who will find the solutions of the software freedom problems of tomorrow.

Systemd may have software freedom problems that he doesn't spot because they don't break his rules for software freedom. His rules may not be the only rules for software freedom.

As we age, our minds become less open to new things and less flexible. This is known and scientifically established. I meant no disrespect to him. Only that he is very good at defending the problem in terms of the parameters he has set. He may be less able to reimagine those parameters as the issue changes over time.