On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 6:24 PM, Laurent Bercot <[email protected] > wrote:
> On 22/04/2015 02:58, Buck Evan wrote: > >> I brought up the bazaar because you criticized systemd as neglecting "The >> > bazaar approach that has made the free software ecosystem what it is >> today;", which made me think s6 would embrace the bazaar in contrast. >> http://skarnet.org/software/s6/systemd.html >> > > Hm. I can see how it is misleading. > > I actually do not support bazaar as a *development model for a project*. > I believe that quality software can only be written by keeping a tight grip > on what goes in, with a clear vision about the scope and design of the > project, > and that can only be achieved with very small teams. Free software > following > the bazaar development model is notoriously bad at quality control. > > However, I also believe that a project scope should be limited, and I very > much support the blossoming of as many small-scope projects as can be, and > total freedom about the interfaces and communication points between all > those > projects. That is what I call the bazaar approach that has made the free > software ecosystem what it is today: everybody can write software that > interacts > with other software on their machine, in the way they choose. I support > bazaar > as an *application creation model for an existing system*. To me, that is > what > free software is about. > > systemd, unsurprisingly, gets both levels wrong. It has a large developer > base so no coherent vision and bad quality control, *and* it has an > insanely > large scope and tries to enforce the use of its own interfaces for new > software development, essentially proprietarizing it. Thanks you for your detailed explanation! It's not an opinion I've seen articulated before. Maybe it should go up on skarnet somewhere. It sounds quite a bit like the Apple model. While it's not the usual choice, I can't see that it's objectively wrong. Cheers.
