OK I'll try this. Traditionally Init services were about starting processes. They didn't have capacities for keeping processes running. Which meant that for processes that need to be kept running and for which there was a real possibility of failure (most of them) the init had to start a process management system which then started the functional process. This has been the status for years. With systemd there is a process maintenance component standard in the init system. Which means that processes not only start but are capable of being kept in a stable state easily and automatically. Process management stops being something system admins work hard at and instead becomes something that happens out of the box.

I'd want to have the option, but for the default behavior to be that it stays down. I feel like unfortunately, unless you've lived a charmed life where you only have to work with software that's high quality, you will probably run across some server running some piece of crap software that can be a bit crashy. Yes, I've run across software like that on Linux servers too. And personally, ideally, I like to have the easy ability to control what happens when something crashes. Should the server ignore the whole thing and keep chugging along? Should it attempt a restart? Should it wait 10 minutes, and then attempt a restart? If the attempted restart fails, should it make a second attempt? At what point should it notify me?

I like when I can have control over that kind of thing, if possible, and I'd like to have that control be easy and reliable.

Well no, he's right. It's just a tautology-- reliable servers don't crash. It's kind of like, "No daughter of mine is going to get pregnant out of wedlock!" I can say that as long as I'm willing to disown any that get pregnant out of wedlock. If she gets pregnant, then she's no longer my daughter.

So reliable servers don't just crash, but unfortunately a large percentage of the servers out there that, for one reason or another, aren't 100% reliable. I sure wish I had software that would work well on those.

I agree with this part of your post, at least, and have been making the same argument for years. If the companies providing the infrastructure were not making money from selling content, and were only serving as "dumb pipes", then their business incentive would be in pushing customers toward higher-bandwidth (and therefore more expensive) connections. In that business model, companies that can provide content to saturate slow connections become very important, and so it seems likely that they would be falling all over themselves to provide a better connection to Netflix.

Instead, the Infrastructure providers have no incentive to increase content availability, because any piece of available content becomes competition for the content that they are trying to sell. That's a bad system. Unless you have an effective regulatory system, the ISPs will find ways to push towards a walled garden AOL-style internet, charging for access outside of the walled garden.

However, I don't think this is an example of "net neutrality" missing the mark. Net neutrality is a concept, and divorcing infrastructure providers from content providers is one way in which net neutrality could be promoted.

They also have a monopoly on sales of computers licensed to run the OS X operating system, which means jack squat to antitrust law because there are other PCs out there, just like there are other phones out there.

OSX would apply equally. It is illegal to use your power in one domain over a customer to restrict their actions in an unrelated domain. If Apple were to use its control over OS X to try and restrict their customer's choice of cars that would still be illegal. Having a monopoly obviously makes it worse and shifts the burden but it doesn't change the underlying offense.

I get that. But humans right now are numerous in almost every habitat on the planet. A gradual falloff isn't remotely like extinction. Extinction becomes a real possibility at something like 1000 humans. That's 28 halvings or 56 generations or around 1400 years of contraction. That's a very long time to suppose that a trend continues. Especially given the trend is self correcting as resources become more abundant as the number of humans decreases.

satisfies the political, economic, and technological realities of today.

Nonsense. They most certainly have. Gradually shift to green. What we spent on the Iraq war would have been more than enough to fund America's switch to primarily being on wind power.

There are about 7.25b people. There were about 1b people in 1800 and I don't think anyone would consider the population to be going extinct then. Right now in the lowest reproducing countries the rate is 1.3 children per female. That induces halving in population per 2 generations. Or about 6 generations so even if we were to have the lowest rate in the planet we would be in 200 years about where we were 200 years ago. At that point resources would be abundant.

Apple doesn't have a monopoly in mobile app sales.

They do have a monopoly on app sales for Apple devices.

. Ford doesn't get sued for changing Ford motors to be incompatible with aftermarket stuff,

That's still cars. If Ford were to expand into coffee shops and create a custom cup holder that would only work with Ford coffee shops coffee cups (not available anywhere else) that might very well be restraint of trade because they would be using their car position to create unfair competition for coffee.

CurrentC is a coalition of different retailers, Wal-Mart is only one of them. Don't make it out like this is another evil scheme of Wal-Mart's design.

Walmart organized MCX and leads it. http://www.forbes.com/sites/la... I don't know where you are getting the "evil" part but it most certainly is WalMart's design.

1. I'm too busy to sit around thinking up additional words to throw in so I can score "mod" points

2. The people I like on Slashdot are too busy to read a bunch of additional words I only threw in so I can score "mod" points

3. It's not in my nature to waste words, or to waste time

Actually this particular councilman represents an extremely high-rent district--Manhattan's upper east side. I doubt there are many wealthier neighborhoods in the world. He's not doing this to 'score points', he's doing it to do the right thing.

Well said

Let me fix that for you:

Time and again history has shown the way to have a healthy middle class is to alleviate poverty on a grand scale.