[Sorry again, resending it via the proper mail gateway - hopefully 
correctly configured now]


Yasha, your involvement is impressive, your fearless attitude of stating 
clearly what you dislike.  That's all good.

But, are you doing it in the right channels?  What do you try to solve 
by ranting over systemd and CentOS/RHEL 8, here on this list? Even SL7 
and RHEL 7 has been hit by your arguments.  How can we get going forward 
from here?  SL does not define the real path forward for how SL evolved 
as a distribution (it's building on CentOS/RHEL). CentOS neither (it's 
building on RHEL/Fedora).  You're basically preaching to a choir behind 
a gas station along a busy and noisy highway, where it's only you and a 
few of you with the same opinion.  But it mostly stops here.

I've checked the complete Fedora devel [1] and users list [2]. I don't 
see you posting anything there.  That's where the direction of 
RHEL/CentOS and SL has been decided, years before it hits RHEL.  I've 
checked the systemd mailing list [3] going back to to January 2017. Same 
result, I did not find your input there either.

You've also talked about jumping the ship in favour of Ubuntu. What is 
holding you back here?

I understand passion.  I understand wanting to improve things.  But just 
ranting over and over for years, in the wrong places, does not give any 
results at all.

All of Fedora, systemd ... it's all open source.  It's all open and 
public discussions.  It would be highly appreciated if you spent your 
energy trying to make a difference - not just complaints about what is 
wrong everywhere else.

[1] 
<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__lists.fedoraproject.org_archives_list_devel-40lists.fedoraproject.org_&d=DwICaQ&c=gRgGjJ3BkIsb5y6s49QqsA&r=gd8BzeSQcySVxr0gDWSEbN-P-pgDXkdyCtaMqdCgPPdW1cyL5RIpaIYrCn8C5x2A&m=MbLPubu3xro3KY42MbNHRi2JVUXoSxzgR3HV4SPKVbQ&s=Yy74zKpM9UOmCpcfjGKNPoEicgesfTJn31uHAV8Pzko&e= >
[2] 
<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__lists.fedoraproject.org_archives_list_users-40lists.fedoraproject.org_&d=DwICaQ&c=gRgGjJ3BkIsb5y6s49QqsA&r=gd8BzeSQcySVxr0gDWSEbN-P-pgDXkdyCtaMqdCgPPdW1cyL5RIpaIYrCn8C5x2A&m=MbLPubu3xro3KY42MbNHRi2JVUXoSxzgR3HV4SPKVbQ&s=rnS83qRzcyAnYRwrcaW2Kylf6gPhv_n_XnpLmxItSa4&e= >
[3] <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__lists.freedesktop.org_archives_systemd-2Ddevel_&d=DwICaQ&c=gRgGjJ3BkIsb5y6s49QqsA&r=gd8BzeSQcySVxr0gDWSEbN-P-pgDXkdyCtaMqdCgPPdW1cyL5RIpaIYrCn8C5x2A&m=MbLPubu3xro3KY42MbNHRi2JVUXoSxzgR3HV4SPKVbQ&s=ZN9yYZPguqBDVcyjg_GL6Ifll7Q1F4QBMngSVnhjFEY&e= >


On 25/01/2021 18:04, Yasha Karant wrote:
> SystemD as it currently stands is too delicate and too
> vulnerable to compromise, either within itself or in terms of the
> processes/subsystems it "controls", despite the large scale deployment
> of SystemD.

This is your opinion.  These arguments has been discussed plenty of 
times in several distributions before they embraced systemd.  It's 
beating a dead horse.  And still, the majority of Linux distributions 
chosen to move forward with systemd.

And Debian, with all it's own delicious political discussion model, is 
even discussing dropping init systems NOT being systemd.
Source: <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__lwn.net_Articles_804254_&d=DwICaQ&c=gRgGjJ3BkIsb5y6s49QqsA&r=gd8BzeSQcySVxr0gDWSEbN-P-pgDXkdyCtaMqdCgPPdW1cyL5RIpaIYrCn8C5x2A&m=MbLPubu3xro3KY42MbNHRi2JVUXoSxzgR3HV4SPKVbQ&s=u8TGGYvH6fnIBJMhus5mA7XR5hIC7jnjW1f84c28WAk&e= >

It's about time to accept that systemd has become the preferred system 
management solution for the biggest and most popular Linux distributions.

If there are things you dislike about systemd.  Talk to the systemd 
developers, get involved, bring good and strong arguments how to make 
systemd better.  Contribute with solutions how to improve.

> The reason behind this is in part driven by the monolithic
> design (and implementation) of the Linux kernel, and the symptom is
> continued SystemD intrusiveness and bloat throughout much (all?) of the
> Linux distros that have deployment at scale.

This FUD should be put down once and for all now.  It has been debated 
over and over again.  And it is rooted in a great misunderstanding of 
the source code repository systemd uses.

Do you consider FreeBSD bloated?  All the source code of FreeBSD is in a 
single git repostory: <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__github.com_freebsd_freebsd-2Dsrc&d=DwICaQ&c=gRgGjJ3BkIsb5y6s49QqsA&r=gd8BzeSQcySVxr0gDWSEbN-P-pgDXkdyCtaMqdCgPPdW1cyL5RIpaIYrCn8C5x2A&m=MbLPubu3xro3KY42MbNHRi2JVUXoSxzgR3HV4SPKVbQ&s=dg40LOVV-G73iqiqNTnsHfWVp5jm-BtTkV8MLx-kbQQ&e= >  It even 
includes the full source code of OpenSSL, OpenSSH, FreeBSD kernel, libc, 
etc.  Does that make FreeBSD bloated?

Systemd uses a similar strategy.  Distributions build just the 
components they want from systemd from a single git source repository:
<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__github.com_systemd_systemd_&d=DwICaQ&c=gRgGjJ3BkIsb5y6s49QqsA&r=gd8BzeSQcySVxr0gDWSEbN-P-pgDXkdyCtaMqdCgPPdW1cyL5RIpaIYrCn8C5x2A&m=MbLPubu3xro3KY42MbNHRi2JVUXoSxzgR3HV4SPKVbQ&s=Wv9XojsSyR8CaHMiREFN0eHPBP7qTuXoSxTkOTTAQ6c&e= >  The reason: Because it is easier 
to REUSE code across the various components built for the systemd 
environment.  I hope I don't need to explain the advantages (especially 
within security aspects) of reusing shared code.

You don't need to use chronyd, systemd-resolved, systemd-networkd, 
systemd-timers, systemd-journald, sd-dbus, etc, etc, etc.  You can 
mostly use all the external alternatives you want and combinations as 
you want.  Systemd is almost like a candy store, but to use any of these 
"sub projects", you need the main systemd daemon in most cases.  But you 
probably wouldn't go to a candy store if you wanted a pizza.

BUT most distributions has CHOSEN to ship a lot of these components from 
the systemd project.  Try to guess why ... Could it simply be because it 
gives the package maintainers and software developers an easy way to 
integrate applications?  Could it be because it gives users across a 
broad set of Linux distributions a fully unified way how to manage a 
system?  Could it be because it works reasonably well together and gives 
a better overall user experience for a large enough critical mass?

There has been many alternatives before systemd.  But systemd is about 
10 years(!) old now and is the ONLY alternative which managed to get a 
really strong foothold across a majority of larger Linux distributions. 
  That's not by pure luck and misfortune alone.

I've been involved in OpenVPN since late 2009, doing lots development 
and maintenance, being the Fedora package maintainer for OpenVPN for 
quite some time.  I've been involved in implementing systemd support in 
OpenVPN, together with several others in the community.  And to be 
honest, to write and maintain these systemd unit files is a pure joy 
compared to the horrors if the various init scripts.  Now all systemd 
distributions can ship our systemd files which gives a predictable and 
standardized way to manage OpenVPN on a lot of Linux distributions.  It 
has helped a lot of sysadmins figure out issues with their OpenVPN 
setups quicker, because the tooling systemd provides for debugging makes 
it easier to isolate issues.  Those in the community involved in support 
has mostly just a single set of tools to related to, against most Linux 
distributions.

Could systemd be better?  Yes, it could.  Is it completely broken and 
useless?  Not at all.  If it was that bad, nobody would use it.  But 
systemd is currently good enough for a large critical mass of users and 
developers.  You need to first accept that fact.


So I encourage you:  Instead of ranting here; Become active in systemd 
and help set the path forward with your input.  Try to shift systemd 
more in the direction you would like, discuss why you think it's better 
and listen carefully to the counter arguments with systemd folks. 
Propose solutions and argument why you think that solution is better. If 
your feedback and involvement are appreciated and accepted, you will not 
only change the path forward for a single Linux distribution, but for 
millions of Linux users across the whole world across multiple Linux 
distributions.  Getting a change into systemd will have a tremendous 
ripple effect.

That's how you start changing the world.  And that's why the systemd 
project started and has grown over 10 years ago, and how it has come to 
where it is now.

If you continue standing behind your favourite gas station ranting about 
systemd amongst your own small choir ... nothing will change at all. And 
if you start pointing at all distributions not adopting systemd, I just 
say: Fine, go ahead, switch to one of them and you'll hopefully be 
happy. But I can also point you at Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, RHEL, CentOS, 
SL, SUSE, openSUSE, Arch, CoreOS, Linux Mint ... and I've probably 
forgotten quite some more.


Thanks.


David Sommerseth