Not directly an answer, and while I'd like Slackware to stay with the current init system, I think this might have won over some people: http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/why.html

Quite a funny statement, systemd was definitely started on the desktop and the most used Linux based mobile OS, Android, doesn't use it. You might want to elaborate on that.

Anyways, your whole argument comes down to: Don't invent an OS for the masses, they can't fix it when it breaks, so they don't deserve an OS that fits their needs.
The funny thing is, something like the changes in the Linux world nowadays happened already with other things. Like, for example, the car industry. In the early days of the automobile the driver also had to be the technician, while nowadays most people that drive a car do not know how to fix it. And that is a good thing, why should people have to learn that? There are a number of well paid technicians there to do that for them.

But I would like to know how this (or your rant that desktop environments dare to automate things for their users) is related to systemd, I see no link.

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And you can't stop the progress...

So, as I already said (you may have missed that), systemd exists only for the one reason that Lennart Poettering and Kay Sievers did not want to submit their code to Upstart under Canonical's CLA, something that I would fully agree with. Would you like to explain Canonical's part in your conspiracy theory about Red Hat wanting to control the Linux world?

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If Slackware would become a BSD-like Unix combined with the good hardware support of the Linux kernel, I'm perfectly fine with that.

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There are over a hundred distros not using systemd at this time. And the Slackware not being a "Linux anymore" is a strange comment, as long as Slackware uses the Linux kernel it is as much Linux as any other distro, and since its the oldest distro still going imho Slackware is "THE" Linux distro!

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I've read that before and besides the fact that it is going on 5 years old, when systemd was barely a wet dream LP had, it is written by the man himself and still is only a contrived bullet point wishlist. Why can't any ADOPTER say what it is that is so compelling, what systemd does for him and his system that he cannot do now with less complexity?

Example - I just watched an interview with Jos of OpenSuse and all he would say is "Systemd is the future". He never says why or to what advantage, just that it is and I see this over and over and it stinks.

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I'm not exact with the timeline but didn't systemd start out as a pet project and THEN become a paid for by RedHat project? Is it not at least possible that RedHat saw an opportunity much like Microsoft did when IBM assumed they owned CP/M? or Steve Jobs did upon visiting PARC? Isn't there considerable precedent for exactly this sort of opportunism?

Someone else pointed out 2 important things here

1) A corporation is not of one mind and can be both humanitarian and evil at the same time

2) Corporations need to show stockholders a solid, well-defined future path with little room for variables

and despite Software's unique ability to "have one's cake, sell it and still have it, too" isn't business still all about ownership? and therefore doesn't it behoove corporations to "lock it up"?

Why is this so far-fetched then?

I'm perfectly fine with your concept too, but it will not easily be achievable if the good hardware support starts to rely on udev, and if the desktop environments start to rely on logind. But it's not all bad news. The BSD people and the non-Linux Debian people have every incentive to create workrounds for logind.

Meanwhile, Slackware 14.1 is what it is -- the 2014 LQ distro poll-winner and runner-up. I have it. You have it. The mirrors have it. "They" can't take it away from us. It works now and (with security fixes) it'll still work next year. So there's at least a year, maybe two, maybe *twenty*, before Slackware-next needs a roadmap that includes the new Linux plumbing. The goblin horde is not yet at the drawbridge and Mr Volkerding is not yet a prisoner in Isengard. The future will bring both unforeseen problems and unforeseen solutions. People should chill. Let the slack times roll.

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If being "labeled" is bad and staying true to UNIX principles turns Slackware into "Soaring Eagle" or "Wandering Bear", I'll stick with Slackware and it's old fogey ways while the elders tell stories of times many moons ago through the harsh winters of greater times when the great GNU walked the lands, and Great Elder Patrick brought peace to the tribe, the lands green with grass, the water flowed freely, and SUS and POSIX were considered sacred... Praise Bob.

I don't care much about the desktop environments, because I doubt their long-term survival anyway. I see the majority of these upstream developers move to the mobile platforms in the future and trying out their GUI ideas and concepts there. Most desktop developers already abandoned BSD, because it is not a "hot topic" for them anymore. They will do the same with the Linux desktop, when it becomes uninteresting. What counts is that didn't harm BSD much, because it's mainly funded for being a great server, storage or network appliance.

I wouldn't harm to keep stuff working, which we already have. Even if someone calls that "a thing from the past".

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On a lighter note, I understand that you're talking about this Indian Reservation, but if it will be like this Indian Reservation, I'll be okay with that as long as it applies to Slackware.

PS: Total hater of the reservation system in India, producing a lot of douche bags on top.

Regards.

I would recommend to look at who actually contributes to systemd. If you say that it is a paid for project from Red Hat you also have to say that it is a paid for project for Suse/Attachmate, and you have to say that it is a not-paid for project by Debian, Arch, ... .
There are many contributors, systemd is not a Red Hat only project, it is LGPL, so it can be forked anytime. What do you think would happen if Red Hat, for whatever reasons, tries to force decisions that only benefit Red Hat, but none of the other contributors (that is what people try to say when they state that Red Hat wants the control to extinguish competitors), into the project? Look at LibreOffice, it was forked from OpenOffice merely because people suspected that there might be problems with how Oracle handles open source projects.

It's not paid for by Red Hat, but I do believe it does have some level of sponsorship which is entirely different. Projects under LGPL and GPL can get sponsorships for things like repository space, website hosting, and other "contributions" to the project.

It's a borderline ethical practice really, but it's legal and doesn't break the license(s) or rules of FOSS.

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Congrats ReaperX7, I think your unending complaining about Systemd might eventually have some effect. You are slowly but surely changing people's perception of the situation. For example, very often you make me wish I was in the pro-Systemd camp.

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