Before anything else, I would like to say that I admit systemd has brought great change to GNU/Linux. sysvinit wasn’t the best, and custom scripts for every distro is a pain I’d rather not have.

With that said, Poettering now works for Microsoft, systemd has basically taken over all of the common/popular distributions (if this is about the argument of “systemd making it easier for developers”, disclaimer: I don’t know. I’m not a developer), and this has led to a rampant monopolisation of the init system.

Memes aside, this has very real consequences. If you don’t want another CentOS-style “oof, sorry, off to testing” debacle happening with your init system, might want to look at the more “advanced” distributions that let you choose the init system.

I am well aware that systemd works well for the most part, and that gamers and most other people likely don’t care - which is fine, at least for now. I do expect to see a massive turnover in sentiment if something ever happens to systemd (not that I’d like for that to happen, but no trusting RedHat anymore), but I suppose we’ll get to it when we do.

My sentiments are well enunciated in this recent post on the Devuan forum: https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=5826

Cheers!

  • woelkchen@lemmy.world
    192·
    1 year ago

    Poettering now works for Microsoft

    systemd has no copyright assignment or CLA. Poettering could work for Putin and systemd as proper Free Software project would not be affected that much.

    this has led to a rampant monopolisation of the init system.

    https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

    That's literally the opposite of a monopoly. You can make a fork of systemd now and call it lemmyd.

    • winterayars@sh.itjust.works
      53·
      1 year ago

      Yeah as far as i know Red Hat is still the primary developer… for what that's worth. But I'd worry more about them than Poettering.