On Mon, Dec 30, 2013 at 7:20 PM, Russ Allbery wrote: > Michael Gilbert <[email protected]> writes: >> On Mon, Dec 30, 2013 at 5:51 PM, Russ Allbery wrote: > >>> I believe that we have enough information to make an informed choice >>> already, and that the sides are fairly well-defined and hardened in >>> their opinions. That means that this dispute falls under section 6.1.2 >>> of the constitution: > >> I entirely concur that the social problem resides rightly within the >> jurisdiction of the TC. With that said, however, it is worth >> considering whether the role of the TC may be more effective if directed >> at the root (the social), rather than the branches (the technical >> choice), of the problem. The key, I think, is for the TC to provide a >> reasonable path for those currently identifying with any of the hardened >> camps to redirect their negative energy away from argument and toward >> something more positive: technical work and actual code. > > Well, I think it's worth pointing out that my transition plan looks > somewhat similar to your plan, as far as the jessie release. (Then it > starts diverging.)
The key differences are that it is more succinct, roles and requirements are defined, no init system is outright rejected, and the default is selected on demonstrable merit. > Part of my goal in writing up that plan was, as you > say, to try to provide a means for people who are committed to one system > or the other to continue to work on what they're passionate about even if > it's not chosen as the default init system. Unfortunately at least two camps will be entirely dejected by any TC mandate here. > Whether they do so or not is up to them, of course, as it should be. > > However, I don't want to understate the amount of effort required to > integrate with the init system across the distribution. I'm less > pessimistic than Steve, but he's not wrong that the choice of a default > init system will have sweeping consequences for what will work and what > won't. This will particularly be the case if that init system supports > capabilities beyond the sysvinit set. > > I do think it would be possible to maintain package compatibility with > both systemd and upstart. That was something I was curious about and > therefore explicitly tested as part of my evaluation, and was able to do > so to my satisfaction. That said, I tackled a fairly simple daemon, and > something like NFS support would require people with deep knowledge of > each supported init system to maintain that support. > > I don't think it's a good idea to ask everyone to pursue all paths in > parallel. I think Debian does a bit too much of that right now. We > should pick a winner that we believe is technically superior and focus the > mandatory, archive-wide effort on it. We should then *not get in the way* > of people who also want to pursue alternative paths, but not assume that > they will necessarily be successful, and not require that everyone get > involved in that effort beyond the level of integrating patches that we > currently expect for, say, the Hurd port. I don > But, anyway, I don't think our positions are really that different. The > main difference is that I think we should pick a default init system for > jessie now, and you feel like we should do effectively an archive-wide > bake-off and then go with whatever one achieves the best integration. And Debian ends up with not only apple pie, but pumpkin and blueberry pies, and of in a corner there will be others thinking about cinnamon-spiced apple and blueberry-raspberry and other never-before-seen flavors. What a wonderful bake-off that would be :) Think about how it would go over if the directors of that metaphorical bake-off forced all the participants to produce the exact same pie. No one would really want to participate, and winning would be entirely meaningless. It wouldn't be a bake-off at all. It would be more like a mass-production assembly line. Best wishes, Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected] Archive: http://lists.debian.org/CANTw=mnl4j+zmojjp5qxkufy3hglvcuq59yzb5uxgj+hene...@mail.gmail.com
