Agreed. Still easier to read than a program that modifies itself during execution

Actually yes it does when the technical and ideological principles are in opposition to each other. Holds lots of water if one had been paying attention. There is two paradigms at play here and expect purists of both sides to be adamant of keeping pure principles.

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A truly modular operating system (where things are designed to be easily swapped out for others) suits the paradigm of portability (the opposite of lock-in) and user freedom, which is the GNU operating system was 1. designed that way and 2. created in the first place.

The point about the kernel being monolithic is a common distraction, because virtually all successful kernels are monolithic-- if you look at the kernel by itself. GNU is an operating system that works well with alternative kernels. So inside the kernel, Linux is monolithic but the OS itself is modular enough to swap kernels out. Windows isn't like that.

Windows is designed to suit the needs of the company that makes it-- a company that has documents which in detail explain how to create lock-in and reduce user migration. For a monopoly, this makes perfect sense. For a free software operating system designed to increase freedom, it makes none.

Microsoft (to some degree along with other monopolies that have taken a page from its book-- including Oracle) has a continuous (not just historical, unless you confuse marketing with reality) policy of trying to buy out, aggressive partner (control) and destroy every significant competitor.

The tactics it uses have for 20 years included getting close to their enemies and using proxy companies to destroy them.

The tactics used by systemd-- for those who are interested-- bear every similarity to the tactics Microsoft uses to destroy competitors.

If they have changed, their tactics should change along with their rhetoric and marketing.

The tactics have not changed. Those who care about freedom aren't falling for it-- they understand that design (examples: http://techrights.org/wiki/index.php...hreat_Database) is being used to increase lock-in. Rhetoric from systemd developers and proponents echos this in their intentions and ambitions.

Whether you argue that systemd is "monolithic" or "modular" it is deliberately designed to create more lock-in.

Marketing-wise, the first thing you do to sell (literally/commercially or metaphorically) something like that is to say it will "unify" (euphemistically, shut out alternatives) platforms and then deny what that really means, to stifle critics.

They just said that it will reduce the number of differences, that it is designed to do that-- then they will say it doesn't do that, so that they control the criticism about their intentions.

This is a common tactic used by politicians, clinical narcissists and public relations firms to control public image.

It is defended by people who care more about the benefits of a more Windows-like system, and less about the threat of lock-in and corporate control.

Above all, jake is right-- this will not be "resolved" because the two goals are diametrically opposed.

One is user and community first-- the other is corporate first.

You can absolutely have something that works well for both communities and corporations! But you can't have something that puts both of those first, when the latter includes monopolies with real and actual plans to control and dominate users. You can't put both of those things first. Freedom or Monopoly, one has to be on top. You can often figure out what the intentions are pretty easily from the design.

No good program designer should have trouble determining whether a project is better suited to control by the developers first, or avoiding lock-in for users first. But not all program designers are well-intentioned. Some are quite happy to exploit the privilege and profits created by lock-in.

Those developers are going to push the common farce that we should judge things "purely based on technical merit" when that is a way of reframing things to suit them exclusively.

"Technical merit" includes the politics best served by one design over another, but when these people say "purely based on technical merit" they mean "excluding technical aspects that have political implications."

This is very much like when oil companies want to reframe their actions to avoid environmental concerns, and focus more exclusively on the benefits (profits, not environmental costs) to them. For them, that's a perfectly reasonable way to frame the discussion-- one that by definition avoids speaking of the very problems raised by their critics. But it's extremely dishonest and even destructive to let them reframe it that way.

That's also how the original post frames "intelligent assessment." This entire thread is based on a self-serving circular argument from the beginning. It associates its loaded question with intelligence, and opposing views (critique) with a lack thereof.

Thanks anyway, but this assessment is a fair bit more honest than the question. You can decide for yourself if it's intelligent or not, you're going to anyway.

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In my experience, systemd has issues with graphical user sessions when coming out of a suspend or a hibernation. That has happened to me with OpenSUSE years ago, and months ago tried Leap too. Maybe it is OpenSUSE's implementation but that behaviour always felt hacky and too much sophisticated to me.

Now Im using Mageia for about 1 month in my laptop, and it has worked almost flawlessly. But just an hour before this post the graphical display manager locked me out. The logs mentioned something about "the session disconected" or something... systemD thing.

This is unacceptable to me. I have 100+ open tabs, web servers running and debugging sessions... I dont want to get locked out of my own laptop and reboot and loss all of that state.

If I ever get locked out again I will boot my slackware partition to never use systemd again

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Just how do you imagine these monopolies can destroy Linux? One benefit of systemd is that in reaction to it Gentoo developed eudev. The very nature of the Linux communitiy still follows the analogy of the Bazaar vs/ The Cathedral. As long as there are capable people desiring FOSS, Linux will continue. In fact when Cathedral and Bazaar was written Linux had less that 0.1% of Desktops, 0 Smartphones, 0 Embeddeds, 0 Super Computers, and 0 Enterprise servers. I'm sure you'll agree those percentages have increased, right? There is no one place to attack and destroy. Those you note as victims compete on the same field as Microsoft. Sco had a better chance of destroying Linux (tho even if that lawsuit had succeeded I seriously doubt that would have been The End) and it failed.

It makes sense you see this as War, but it quite simply is not and can not.

Incidentally since your posts are devolving into pure Anti Microsoft Rant they are blatantly Off Topic and I've already asked you politely to stop ranting here and either contribute actual experience with systemd, or go make your own thread. A word to the wise is sufficient.

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Another loaded question. Geez man, how do I "imagine?"

I didn't write the halloween documents, I wasn't even using GNU/Linux when they were written. Did I imagine their plans to systematically destroy FLOSS? They were already well documented before I'd ever heard of them. So how do you "imagine" that I "imagine" it?

Oh whatever, since you prefer to steer the conversation away from a connection I made which multiple people have endorsed (maybe look back through the thread if you think I "imagined" that as well) I'll go make my "own thread" about Microsoft AND other monopolies and systemd, and other things like it. I already have a collective term for that problem: Redix. You big baby. But I will answer this one:

That was addressed in the late 1990s, in this internal memo: http://web.archive.org/web/200008150...alloween1.html (note it was hosted on the OSI website.)

ESR commentary:

I think ESR is quibbling, but I have quoted as much as I have for context.

Microsoft was hip to what they would need to do to fight "Open Source" 20 years ago, it is not relevant (to our debate) that "There is no one place to attack and destroy."

Although ESR and I share a dislike of people equating FLOSS with Communism, it too has "no one place to attack and destroy." That doesn't mean that there is no way to systematically undermine it. So consider this question you just raised very thoroughly (and even historically) dismissed.

Not to mention that systemd itself (just to help you steer the conversation "back" to what we were already talking about) is a project with publicly noted aims of "standardising" distros, and that every distro that adopts it gets its code from the same Microsoft-owned servers...

So just to recap!

1. systemd has "nothing" to do with who hosts it

2. how can Microsoft attack free software, "There is no one place to attack and destroy"

3. systemd and Github puts more and more CORE free software "in one place to attack and destroy."

But THAT's "off-topic." OK friend, cheers then!

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While I wasn't planning to respond to another argument about systemd...

When I first started using Linux, systemd didn't even exist. AFAIK, the first init system in the first distro I ever used was SYSVINIT. Did I know much about init system's back then? No. Did I ever have any issue at all with any? No. To cut a long story short, I DO remember when I was using openSUSE (don't remember which version of it) it's developers moved to systemd. Did it ever crash my system? No. Did my system ever refuse to start because of systemd? Not that I remember. Has it ever refused to start any other distro I've ever used? Not that I know of. Did I, or do I normally directly interact with the init system (any init system)? No. The closest I probably come to that would be disabling/enabling services, and not much else as far as the init system is concerned.

Am I a fan of systemd? No. Am I a "hater" of it? No. Do I like it's binary based logs? No. I can understand some of the arguments against it, but what I've noticed time and time again in any "debate" about it, is that; they generally boil down to philosophy, more precisely, "it doesn't do things the UNIX way". I guess the first point there would be; define "the UNIX way". The second point I'd make would be; while yes, Linux is a "Unix-like system", it isn't UNIX itself, so why does it have to "do everything the UNIX way"? I've not heard or seen much that gives any good answer to that in any systemd "debate" I've seen (here or elsewhere).

I'd also make the point that, if systemd was going to lead to Linux's "doom", then it would have already happened - it hasn't. If systemd was as bad as some claim, no Enterprise in their right mind would want a bar of anything that uses it - so I very much doubt Red Hat for one would still be in business - let alone would there be much if any mission critical systems using RHEL, etc. So the hard numbers from the server market that we can obtain don't support the idea that systemd is bound to cripple your system. That said, and to me; Linux is about choice (or at least should be), and it therefore should be the user's choice as to which "bits and pieces" they wish to use - not someone else dictating to them. So I disagree with GNOME's developers adding code for systemd to GNOME, and effectively removing the user's choice - it's not "the UNIX way", anymore than it's "the Linux way." So I for one refuse to use GNOME because of that, as well as other reasons, but that's right up there as one of the main reasons - they are dead wrong for doing that, so it's my choice to say thanks, but no thanks, and I'll vote with my feet.

As far as Slackware's concerned; I think it would be a very bad move on PV's part to ever make systemd the default init system for Slackware, and I think he's smart enough not to make that mistake - but I don't think there would be anything wrong with merely offering it as an option IF the user would like to use systemd instead. I don't think that's because of the merits or otherwise of systemd, but it would most certainly have everything to do with the fact that; from what I've seen and read, a lot of Slackware users aren't great fans of systemd, and prefer the way things currently are. So it's all about the politics, and also, I think it would be a valid argument to say something to the effect of; "systemd doesn't really fit into Slackware's philosophy".

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Slackware’s init system is one of the big things that sets Slackware apart from most other Linux distributions these days. If Slackware ever did switch to systemd, then Slackware would lose one of its unique aspects that draws people to it. Someone wanting a stable distro with systemd might as well run Debian Stable instead, while someone look for an alternative systemd-free distro might be drawn instead to GuixSD. How would Slackware compete for attention if it became a systemd distro?

I really like slackware. A lot.
Some times I have to use Ubuntu because some software I need
requires systemd. Were it not for that, I would never use Ubuntu. Ever.

If I could run all of the Linux software on Slackware without systemd that would be great.

So, I am waiting for some way to run all of the Linux software on Slackware.

<deleted>

@ Freemedia2018 - From my POV dividing human behavior into just 2 camps, "with me or agin me" , is a hugely overly simplistic POV, but you have every right to have such a POV. I choose to not respond to all of your last post since it, too, is so full of Off Topic conflation but I do want to at least give you the respect of a response that does address views on "the evil of systemd".

You quoted an interesting internal document and emboldened the last line like this :

I would have emboldened this "compete against" which is not necessarily the same as "destroy". That systemd did manage to be so widely adopted AND not universally AND that we are having this discussion almost a decade later is very strong evidence that FOSS, and yes "FLOSS", too, cannot be destroyed. If there is just one person writing code for himself and his friends, FLOSS lives on. That there is a means in place for distribution to where "friends" takes on global meaning is even more relevant and important today than it was when GNU was first created.

The reason I used "imagine" is that from my POV you are "tilting at windmills". Systemd may very well be a threat to your philosophy, but it is no threat (nor is Microsoft, Apple, or IBM, etc etc) to the basic existence of Linux, let alone FLOSS. It is far too late and diffuse to "extinguish" by it's very nature.. Web Browsers are better poised for such controls but that', like much of what concerns you, is for another thread. Please don't be offended. I'm not opposing you, just some of your conclusions and adherence to Forum guidelines..

That was... five years ago... the golden moments of GNU/Linux revolution.
Today I lost appetite in computing because of silly restlessness. If all the world go into systemd today it wouldn't last long until a new major player announces "Let us move to this new system_W (or how ever they call it)

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This straw man is getting REALLY old. You continue to paint this as ME making this about "with ME or against ME." I've cited quite a few reasons why:

1. it's not my own conclusion, it was already well documented years before I ever entered the conversation.

2. what is documented is other people making it with them or against them, and having clear, detailed policies to make that happen.

If you're going to keep trying to make that about me, you can count on a reply. I'm just the messenger. I'm not the person who came up with any of it, so the way you keep putting it on me is ridiculous. I'm not the one calling it a "Jihad" -- That's what Bill Gates calls it. So if I mention that he calls it that, how do you make it out to be just "my" perspective? Ridiculous.

I've noticed an exodus over the last 8-10 years as well. Corporate Linux has driven out most of the indie projects, if not deliberately then at least by adding to the burden of maintenance. The funny thing is, they'll have some blog or article out next week celebrating something new in Gnome which IceWM or FVWM had 20+ years ago. Which, indeed, Gnome itself had 10 years ago.

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Did you build BLFS too? I've built LFS using Slackware as my host twice, but I never ventured into BLFS. Although the LFS site has a "regular" and systemd BLFS, I fear that the non-systemd build is harder/won't work as well, precisely because of the tentacles you mention above. My perception is that more an more applications and utilities require systemd.