Debian Is Back To Discussing Init Systems, Freedom of Choice

[edbarx]

svchost and Windows give me the shivers! Sorry, I didn't imagine the problem with systemd was that serious regarding server stability. My criticism was about keeping the current functionality of GNU/Linux rich and diverse as it currently is. This means, to the list of my arguments against the introduction of systemd, one can add that added by tomazzi.

Thanks goes to tomazzi for expositing this to me. It is very nice to learn.

Oh, what a chill, even though, the temperature is aound 26C here, svchost!

timbgo, it looks like grsecurity would soon become a necessity, rather than a luxury.

[timbgo]

timbgo, it looks like grsecurity would soon become a necessity, rather than a luxury.

See [1]. If anyone wants real freedom, then she/he must have privacy, else she/he is controlled (because surveillance is about control; control is the objective of surveillance; an example, in some respect, being my country's current regime getting the Surveillance Engine to delete my 500 videos strong Youtube account) at the turn of March to April 2014 [2])...

[If anyone wants real freedom, then she/he must have privacy,] and you don't have any privacy if you don't secure your system. And entrusting your system's security to a spy agency's program, the NSA's SELinux is...

[And entrusting your system's security to ... NSA]... Well it speaks for itself.

-----
[1] I don't want to sound clever; I really respect you guys, and you edbarx speak reason and work for the cause, and so does buntunub and most of the others; generally I feel honored to participate here, but I need to point out my thought here; I've slowly arrived at that conclusion since SELinux broke my system back some maybe four years ago (in Gentoo); which gave me almost a premonition and a gut feeling, and sure put me on the path to seek truth about the purpose of that program and generally of what I install in my box. I slowly came to realization that those are the sole options, right! The sole options: Grsecurity/Pax, and also, but those came later (SELinux is around for long now, and so is Grsec), [and also] no-poetteringware...

[2] And thank you again for supporting me there, edbarx

[robert3242]

As I see things this has absolutely nothing to do with "freedom of choice," and those who claim it does either have no concept of what that phrase actually means, or else are deliberately trying to obfuscate the issue. See: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... 93#p557270.

[tomazzi]

As I see things this has absolutely nothing to do with "freedom of choice," and those who claim it does either have no concept of what that phrase actually means, or else are deliberately trying to obfuscate the issue. See: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... 93#p557270.

This is not only about freedom of joice, but freedom is the key principle in Free Software.

Yes, it's true that Debian has the right to decide what init system to use, but:
1. before systemd, Debian offered alternative init systems as ready to use binary packages, which are now becoming useless because increasing number of other key packages can't be used without systemd. So the principle of freedom of choice has been violated.
2. before systemd, every init system used by Debian was PORTABLE: Debian is not Univerasal Operating System anymore.
3. Not only the user's right to have such freedom is violated - Debian itself have lost its own right to change the init system in the future - unless this GR wins.

If this GR will not be accepted, then Debian will be sentenced to live with systemd forever, effectively under leadership of RedHat.
This also shows, that GPL has a serious flaw - it can protect individual software projects, but influential distro made of GPLed software still can handcuff its users.

This is really sad - It looks like RMS was right when he said that we're heading for a total disaster...

Regards.

[golinux]

As I see things this has absolutely nothing to do with "freedom of choice," and those who claim it does either have no concept of what that phrase actually means, or else are deliberately trying to obfuscate the issue. See: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... 93#p557270.

This is not only about freedom of joice, but freedom is the key principle in Free Software.

Yes, it's true that Debian has the right to decide what init system to use, but:
1. before systemd, Debian offered alternative init systems as ready to use binary packages, which are now becoming useless because increasing number of other key packages can't be used without systemd. So the principle of freedom of choice has been violated.
2. before systemd, every init system used by Debian was PORTABLE: Debian is not Univerasal Operating System anymore.
3. Not only the user's right to have such freedom is violated - Debian itself have lost its own right to change the init system in the future - unless this GR wins.

If this GR will not be accepted, then Debian will be sentenced to live with systemd forever, effectively under leadership of RedHat.
This also shows, that GPL has a serious flaw - it can protect individual software projects, but influential distro made of GPLed software still can handcuff its users.

This is really sad - It looks like RMS was right when he said that we're heading for a total disaster...

Regards.

Well said tomazzi.

[oswaldkelso]

A good post here for the unenlightened.
http://judecnelson.blogspot.com.br/2014 ... acies.html

Tomazzi

The GPL may have flaws but it's is the nearest thing we have to ensure our software freedom. But It has to be used as intended or it can be corrupted. Like lightdm and upstart. Canonical do this by making some projects subject to their Canonical contributor licence agreement

http://www.ubuntu.com/legal/contributors

They become joint copyright holders and can therefore can make the software non-free. (i suspect this is so they can do deals on Ubuntu phone etc)
systemd started off as GPLv2 but was changed to lgpl. In short the copyright holders still have a lot of power over free software. This is why I like to see copyright assigned to FSF as I trust them to a greater degree.

GNU can only do so much and then it needs projects to move on in their licensing to a later license that is designed to try and protect users as more ways to undermine our freedom are found. This is the main reason that each new version of the GPL is more and more complex.

Anyway even if systemd didn't swallow everything in it's path I would try and avoid it as all Poettering seems to talk about is vendor this and vendor that. Nothing about users.

[tomazzi]

oswaldkelso:
As I see it, You have focused on licensing, but that's not really a problem - yes I've mentioned a GPL, but the problem is definitelly far more broad.
1. I do understand why Ubuntu has its own licensing terms - this is a commercial distro, owned by a single person, who has the final word - and this is ok - users should be able to do what they want - so if they are choosing ubuntu, then they are responsible for what they've choosed.

but:
2. Debian claims to be an "Universal Operating System" and it has a "Social Contract" - and obviously with the choose of systemd it breaks its own declarations - it's not Universal now and the Social Contract is not honored anymore...

GNU can only do so much and then it needs projects to move on in their licensing to a later license that is designed to try and protect users as more ways to undermine our freedom are found. This is the main reason that each new version of the GPL is more and more complex.

I am a programmer. I do release some of my programs under GPL. Please don't try to explain me what GPL means - I understand it.

edit:
To prevent looking like I'm trying to force my POV:
GPL has 3 major versions - and this is only because over the years several possibilities of by-passing the license have been discovered.

[oswaldkelso]

tomazzi

Maybe I wasn't clear. The point I was making was it's not the GPL's fault, it can be the copyright holders. That's why I used Canonical and the FSF as examples of how we need more than the GPL we need to have trust in the copyright holders. systend maybe free-software but I don't trust the copyright holder.

My little explanation was not just for your benefit but rather the uninitiated.

[tomazzi]

That's why I used Canonical and the FSF as examples of how we need more than the GPL we need to have trust in the copyright holders. systend maybe free-software but I don't trust the copyright holder.

OK, I've re-readed Your post more carefully and yes, I agree with You.
And since Debian has no influence on the behaviour of copyright holders, then it only means that this GR is even more important.

Regards.

[timbgo]

...
3. Not only the user's right to have such freedom is violated - Debian itself have lost its own right to change the init system in the future - unless this GR wins.
...

Which GR proposal?

Haven't found the two or more hours to read what went on since I posted my résumé further above with all the three proposals (and I suppose there'are still only three), I've been struggling to keep up... But I presume you are talking Ian's proposal.

Because after having read steveL's reasoning on Gentoo Forums (that is the guy whom I owe having found about MirDebian WTF that made my Debian finally workable for me --link to my new Tip in the top of the same post of mine with the résumé further above), this reasoning:

( this quoted below post on Gentoo Forums and my post there in regard )

Debian is already dead, the head just hasn't informed the body so it's flopping around like a chicken with its head cut off.

I found that a laughable idea at first, but having read that thread, I'm forced to concur.

even then, if this alleged pressure has been strong enough to make every non-kooky distribution adopt systemd then it should be obvious that resisting it would be futile for us as well.

Such spine, it's amazing isn't it? If only we could be half as resolute.. /s.

Essentially he's saying "we should just capitulate to political pressure".

Daniel Kahn Gillmor gets sidetracked into his runit-based tools, apparently ignoring the exception for tools designed to work closely with a particular init-system. He later uses that as justification for supporting a much weaker GR, which has me staggered by this beauty:

All software that currently supports being run under sysvinit should continue to support sysvinit unless there is no technically feasible way to do so.

I just can't get my head round this idea of a daemon "supporting" an init-manager (or even more laughably, a particular init-process). It sounds totally wrong-headed to me; it reads like nonsense, and just makes me doubt the basic competence of anyone even presenting such a notion.

I can see where he's coming from in terms of wanting everyone "just to get along" so "let's just write up what people are saying", but this is the "leader" of the project?

Here's how to support sysvrc (which is what they're actually talking about) or any other daemon-manager: act as if they don't exist. A good one shouldn't need anything more from you than the ability to accept cli-switches when you're run. The same ones you've always put in to your daemons, depending on what they do.

Don't add any code which relies on a daemon-manager as that would be insane. Do nothing, instead, and add less bloat to your software.

Just make sure you don't insist on double-forking; at least provide a switch to do less, so we can manage the process directly via the kernel.

By all means support operation under xinetd: it's useful, and means we can "socket-activate" you if we want. Again, it simply means an option to do less: the parent process will pass you the listening socket, or spawn-per-request for the very simple cases.

As for debilian, I agree they're heading for the exit unless they wake up to the corporate 5th-columnists in their midst. I find it hard to believe that those career "developers" from other distros really are that stupid, for all their sheeple conformity. They're very good at the politicking, I'll give them that. (And would never, ever want people like that on a distro I were involved with; not that we get much option.)

The arguments to replace the init system were dishonest (We need dependency booting because booting is slow) in the beginning, and the arguments got replaced with completely different feature argumentation now.
..
Now - after a comparatively short time we are already in the position that degradation of the OSes capabilities when not using systemd is acceptable to some/most/all? of our developers.

After having read that, I strongly urge anyone reading this to lobby for, and any and all Debian Developers to please vote for, Ian Jackson's GR proposal!

[tomazzi]

Which GR proposal?

Ian's of course:

This GR seeks to preserve the freedom of our users now to select an
init system of their choice, and the project's freedom to select a
different init system in the future.

Especially due to what was expressed in the above sentence.

I think that there's no need to explain what would happen if systemd changes its licensing terms or when it'll start to require a specific DE to work.
Impossible?

Regards.

[timbgo]

Which GR proposal?

Ian's of course:

This GR seeks to preserve the freedom of our users now to select an
init system of their choice, and the project's freedom to select a
different init system in the future.

Especially due to what was expressed in the above sentence.

I think that there's no need to explain what would happen if systemd changes its licensing terms or when it'll start to require a specific DE to work.
Impossible?

Regards.

I feel as if I'll be losing something dear to me, if Ian Jackson's GR is not accepted. The abomination would happen if your connational's GR is accepted (Luca Falavigna)... as my Gentooers said in unseemly parables (for the parachuters in this topic: it's in the links in my posts above; and allow me to say that they hurt me, too, those comparisons, but the points they represent are potentially valid, so I had to post that talk of Debian on Gentoo, above)... And that would be the real death of Debian.

You are a DD? What are the prospects? I know this is not much use, my asking you, but I'm shivering on the inside.

I really do feel angst thinking about this. See here too.

[timbgo]

I will see if I can improve the readability of the text below, and correct the typoes, fill in the the names more clearly (such as the DPL, the top Debian guy, writing that message below)... yet. So this post is yet to improve. But I kind of find it urgent... And the most important information is very visible. It's Sunday soon to start in the most important country where the internet is controled from... The dead hours in the whole of week... Only "extremists" don't do something else but stick to their Debians in these hours of the week... I hope this text survives.
Spread the word! you who understand how important this is!
======= cut off from this line to top if verifying hashes =======
One of the important messages from our Devs.

It is the last before they have apparently withdrawn to discuss the issues in private.

And that means, they will decide our, the Debian users' fate, without our, the Debian users, who Debian exists for, ability to influence it in any way, without the Debian audience to be able to follow what they will be discussing, in private.

I tried to present it as forum-friendly as I could, but is it complex in the original form as well.

The most important thing, and that will be the greatest reason, and to that guy (in whose fashion I wouldn't hesitate to "betray" for a second, which this vote has, if it indeed does, win us back the ability to have, be it not default (the default it the freaking systemd), a surveillance-free-by-possibility --extremely rare in any niche in the whole world of computing nowadays-- Debian built on *nix time honored traditions.

Ian thank you! Dear fellow Debianers, try to lobby, try to spread the word about these events that are taking place. Try to defend Ian Jackson, try to talk reason to our Developers.

Read, in stark red, the move that might, only might still make for the victory of reason over betrayal in Debian

GR option text on ballots

Hi,

First, two points about this subthread:

• it started as a private discussion (From Neil, to Ian and myself). Ian
  "leaked" it to debian-vote@. Ian, I hope that this is just a mistake,
  and that he will make sure to refrain from leaking private discussions
  to a public list without authorization. I don't particularly mind in
  that case, but I don't think that it's a practice that should be
  considered acceptable.
• I originally honestly thought that Ian's proposal was about supporting
  all alternative init systems. That's why I suggested this summary for
  his proposal. I apologize for misunderstanding his proposal at the
  time.

On 21/10/14 at 09:33 +0100, Neil McGovern wrote:

[[ Only three quotes allowed within each other, restarting quoting, but dropping all three levels ]]

On Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 08:14:44AM +0200, Didier 'OdyX' Raboud wrote:

Le lundi, 20 octobre 2014, 12.17:14 Neil McGovern a écrit :

Ian's: make each package support all alternative init systems

This is actively misleading in a least four ways:

Yup, I wouldn't count that as neutral either. How about:

Your two proposals don't seem to match "Ian's" to which you're
responding:

Packages should continue to run under sysvinit unless technically
unfeasible

Ian's doesn't mention sysvinit at all; this would be highly misleading.

Packages may require a specific init system if technically required

[[ Only three quotes allowed within each other, restarting quoting, but re-adding all dropped levels ]]

That's not at all the core of "Ian's" proposal in my reading.

That's because they're descriptions for Lucas' amendment.

Not according to the quoting in <20141020111714.GA18936@halon.org.uk?

Anyway, I stand by what I wrote in <20141017202805.GA10561@xanadu.blop.info>
(before Ian moved the discussion to -vote@):

I consider that an appropriate summary for my proposal is:
support for alternative init systems is desirable but not mandatory

I trust that Kurt and Neil will find something better if they feel it's
needed to ensure that the various summaries have homogeneous style in
terms of wording.

Lucas

Obviously, there is no link under: 20141017202805.GA10561 [at] xanadu.blop.info above, it was not public.
======= cut off from this line to end if verifying hashes =======
File corresponding to this post: Deb_141025_DDs_back_discussing_init.txt,
has Publictimestamp # 1245428
--
publictimestamp.org/ptb/PTB-21948 sha256 2014-10-26 00:01:47
BD8DF4893CFF47CC406B139843C3E34EFC4BB04A3CBCAED654C13592E4D4134C

[golinux]

I really do feel angst thinking about this.

You are not alone. I am pretty stressed out (and a little panicked) that my beloved Debian might be going the way of the dodo.

[timbgo]

...feel angst ... about this.

You are not alone. I am pretty stressed out (and a little panicked) that my beloved Debian might be going the way of the dodo.

Let's see if working days show more people, and maybe some come up with ideas how to try and still maybe prevent the looming disaster... (I can't find it, but Randicus somewhere said, that neither crying, no shouting, nor screaming, nor pleading, nothing helps --can't remember his words, can only paraphrase..)

On another note, the previous to this post of mine is based on the message that contains gross errors by the secretary Neil McGovern, I spent hours thinking how to readably present it. and haven't devised a way. Loosing breath.

On another note, cheap propaganda by systemd promoter is again underway, in the same fashion as before.
The readers can read here first:

How to avoid stealth installation of systemd?
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... 90#p553379

where they can straight go for the name Marco d'Itri, and notice that the brilliant Marco gives us the graph there as argument.

Then pls. take notice a little further below that he was told by Steve Langasek:

Please stop using graphs showing how various teams have forced systemd onto
users' systems as if it is somehow a democratic endorsement of the outcome.

OK?

But the brilliant Marco just never learns. There he goes again, feeding our brains again as he wishes us to think, with those same results of stealth-forced imposition of systemd upon us users as if it were all users' delight to use systemd by own choice, and not imposition, now, six weeks on:

Re: Tentative summary of the amendments
https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/20 ... 00392.html

[tomazzi]

You are a DD?

No, unfortunatelly no... (as I've trusted Debian up to now, I didn't feel the need to go trough a complicated path settled by Debian to become a developer).
But I'm using Debian as a stable base system to do my work - and that's why I'm pissed off when I hear about systemd.
Systemd is technically a crap - the authors have lost the feeling about where they should go - and this is visible trough the facts, like non-traceable corruption of binary logs or a critical bugs marked as "won't fix". This is not how Debian works. This is not how Debian should work.

I'm risking to be banned, but I feel that it must be said finally: authors of systemd are arrogant morons - they are ignoring the bugs, and what's worse: they are using inefficient, ancient methods for detecting faults, which can be easily used to damage/take control of/infect the system - even windows' service manager is more secure. Ban me, if this is post violates this forums philosophy - but those morons are so dangerous, than I can sacrifice my account here if this will help peoples to wake up...

Next poroblem is, that there is a whole strategy behind adopting of systemd - "upstream" (which means corporate crap) is opting to have a single DE to work with. Corporations are hiring morons (ban me). Those morons are not understanding that the security of Linux kernel and the open source software comes from the diversification. If we'll have unified binary image of a system then viruses will flood the Linux world - and then those corporate morons will have to significantly increase maintenance costs due to a anti-virus software licenses.

Regards.

[timbgo]

+1
They won't ban you for that. They first have to expell fine people like Ian Jackson, Steve Langasek, Thorsten mirabilos Glaser and other from their midsts. And I hope they can't do that just so easily.
Pls., everybody who is still sane, let's put up more of a resistance...
Just... What can we do? I can't think of any anything other than: everybody sane, try and spread the word, and try and gain support for time-honored tested Unixness and sanity of Debian as it still exist and is being windozed by corporate tools like Poettering and others.!

Everybody sane, try and spread the word, and try and gain support!

[timbgo]

I once wrote in a few places how I certainly supported Christian Marillat (see http://deb-multimedia.org over Stefano Zachiroli, the previous [D]ebian [P]roject [L]eader.

I certainly support Ian Jackson and Steve Langasek over the current DPL Lucas Nussbaum.

What a sly fox the current DPL is! And how coded his writing! I have to add Correcting my POV #2 to:

< same topic you're reading >
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... 15#p557203

Why?

Because:

Re: GR option text on ballots
https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/20 ... 00199.html

[[ Terribly busy elsewhere, so not trying to shorten this for readability from non-related points. Pls. see the text marked red in bottom. ]]

Lucas Nussbaum writes ("Re: GR option text on ballots"):

I'd like to propose:

I would like to reiterate my view that these summaries should be
positive, and written by the proponent of each version, so long as
they are not misleading.

IMO summary lines should certainly not be written by opponents of the
proposed option. Please would you as Secretary confirm that you will
seek to use a summary text that both I (as proponent) and you are
happy with.

If think the Secretary should invite Lucas to come up with a snappy
and positive summary of his proposal.


If the Secretary feels we have to have a neutral rather than a
positive phrasing I would request that we use the following summary
line for my proposal:

Packages may not require a specific init system

That is a straightforward abbreviation of the core text of the
proposal. (`Packages' replaces `software' because that seems to be
the most common scenario in which the rule is engaged, and leads to a
more comprehensible summary.) If there is room for a slightly longer
text then:

Packages may not (in general) require a specific init system

is better because it acknowledges that there are exceptions.


> Ian's: make each package support all alternative init systems

This is actively misleading in a least four ways:

* The difference between `all alternatives' and `at least one
alternative';

* The implication that this involves all packages (rather than the
subset which need to interact with init systems);

* The implication that there is work which needs to be done, when in
fact what is required is that the support which currently does
exist must not be removed.

* And, the implication that this is a mandate for someone to do work,
rather than a technical criterion. Of course no-one is required to
do any work. Contributors are always free to fail to maintain
their packages to the many and detailed standards required for
inclusion in Debian.

I would be very displeased if the Secretary chooses to use a text for
my proposal which was suggested by my opponent, and which I think
contains coded criticisms of my proposal.


For the same reason I don't think it is appropriate for me to suggest
a summary of Lucas's version.


Thanks,
Ian.

Can you people get it, now through more analysis of this topic and of the https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2014/10/
that deliberate deluding of the Debian community was the purpose of the "other" proposal which I thought the DPL's proposal was?

No, it was not meant to be understood by slow to understand like me and many of others not privy to what really goes on in Debian decider classes as "another proposal" which I thought it was, but as a modified reworded for some whatever, easier common acceptance, but same proposal, only different version than Ian's proposal.

And it opens the gates to ruining Debian instead!

There's a fight, a civilized fight where the victims will be us users, and where the profit of some kind, corruption of some kind is on the side of those who want to ruin us users for their corporate masters and corruptors...

There's a fight, under the radar of common Debianers, going on in higher Debian echalons, and I certainly know who I would so much wish to win this fight! Ian, Steve and their humane, because they care for us users, DDs.

Spread the word, everybody who has the common good at heart!

If I don't correct, right next within minutes, with a link to here, every occurence of first Correcting my POV with a Correcting my POV #2 in the:

< same topic you're reading >
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... 15#p557203

it means something prevented me to do it.

[n_hologram]

So has anything come out of this proposal yet?

[golinux]

So has anything come out of this proposal yet?

The freeze is tomorrow so a decision needs to be made by then . . . unless they postpone the freeze (unlikely).