Thomas Goirand <[email protected]> writes: > Sun, 19 Jan 2014 13:42:40 +0200, Russ Allbery
>> Hopefully, logind will continue to work without systemd and people will >> volunteer to maintain the necessary packaging for that configuration, >> and none of this will be a problem. > I really wish you were right Russ. Because that's not what upstream is > doing (since systemd 205, it's not the case), and Debian package > maintainers have stated this as an argument in the favor of systemd. > I would very much like the tech ctte to express itself on this topic on > the final statement (whatever default init system is chosen). Here's the problem with doing that: what, exactly, do you think the TC can say, given our powers and given the hard rule in Debian that no one is going to be forced to do work they don't want to do? Here are some possibilities that would arguably be within the remit of the Technical Committee: * The lack of a logind that works without systemd as PID 1 is an RC bug in systemd, so systemd will be removed from the archive if it doesn't provide this feature. This is just silly to say, since removing it from the archive doesn't provide a logind that works without systemd, so this doesn't achieve anything useful. * NMUs to revert systemd to version 205 or earlier are permitted if the systemd maintainers try to upload a newer version where logind doesn't work without systemd. This is clearly not a defensible solution. We can't hold the package indefinitely at a back revision and lose security support, etc. It might make some sense if the hard dependency of logind on systemd were a bug that would be fixed in a later version, but that doesn't appear to be how upstream views the issue. * NMUs to fork logind to work without systemd are permitted and the systemd maintainers may not revert them. *Assuming* there is some irreconcilable conflict between the systemd maintainers and the people who want to do this work (and I don't think that's a correct assumption), I don't understand why we would take this approach as opposed to packaging a non-systemd implementation of logind separately with the required Conflicts and so on, so that the individual maintainers can work on things that they care about without having constant tension over NMUs. * The systemd maintainers are required to cooperate with people who are doing the work to make logind work without systemd so that they aren't prevented from maintaining those packages. I see no reason why the TC should say this given that there's no sign that the systemd maintainers would not do this voluntarily. Obviously, *right now*, there are reasons to wait to see how this whole discussion will resolve since that's going to significantly change the priorities and shape of this work, but I see no reason to believe people wouldn't be able to work this out in some reasonable way without the TC involvement if people are available to do this work. I don't see the point in the TC saying any of those things, and I think some of them are actively destructive. Furthermore, I think all of them are very ethically questionable. If I were the systemd maintainers, most of these statements would strike me as heavy-handed extortion: an attempt of the TC to work around section 2.1.1 of the constitution and force me to do work by holding something else I care about hostage unless I do that work. -- Russ Allbery ([email protected]) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/> -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected] Archive: http://lists.debian.org/[email protected]
