I think we all know how that works out.

I am one of Poettering's favorite targets. I am one of those "UNIX grey beards" that Poettering has such deep contempt for.

Since Poettering is such an arrogant ass about it, I know where he stands. Poettering has made no secret of hating the UNIX way of doing things, and adoring the Microsoft way of doing things. So great, I know that LInux is being controlled by a Linux hater.

In fact, Poettering pisses me off the most when he pretends to be nice by saying that Red Hat listens to Linux user. What a total load of crap. I much prefer honesty to niceness. Same goes for Linus, and Theo de Raadt, among others.

Nobody is going to happy with other people are doing all the time. If you think somebody is being jerk, but you just bite your tongue to be nice; are you just being phoney?

Red Hat is likely to destroy Linux as we know it. That is something even Microsoft could not do.

I am a bit surprised that so many Linux do not understand how systemd is a scam that Red Hat is using to monopolize Linux.

Why would gimp do that?

For those who might not know: a lot of RNs earn over $100K a year.

I know, that is nothing especially extraordinary these days. But it's a fairly decent salary, even for a college graduate.

Men are hugely under-represented in the nursing field. Why isn't everybody having a hissy fit about that?

Poettering hates Linux. He is hardly even shy about it. He speaks glowingly of Microsoft, and is dismissive of stuff like POSIX, or the UNIX philosophy. He constantly expresses contempt for "UNIX grey beards." Poettering clearly loves the idea of one company setting the standard for everybody else to follow, just as he loves the idea of a giant proprietary goo ball that does everything.

Usually, I have no problem with Linux haters, because they have no effect on me, or Linux. But Poettering is dictating the future of Linux.

Why doesn't Poettering go work for Microsoft, and make everybody happier?

Why is the role of systemd constantly expanding?

If systemd is supposed to just be an init replacement, then why all the crap like binary logging? Why all the hardwired requirements?

From "SystemD Abomination"
Subject Vested interest in control. RedHat and SystemD
Date Mon, 17 Nov 2014 04:40:08 +0100

  by beaverdownunder:

It should be obvious to anyone that RedHat has a vested interest in making the vast majority of Linux distributions dependent on technology it controls. Linux is its bread-and-butter.

It appears RedHat has realised that, through systemd, it can readily provide preferential support for its own projects, and place roadblocks up for projects it does not control, thus extending its influence broadly and quickly. By using tenuous dependencies amongst its own projects it can speed adoption even faster.

Once it has significant influence, and the maintainers of competing projects have drifted away either out of frustration or because they are starved of oxygen, RedHat knows that they can effectively take Linux closed-source by restricting access to documentation and fighting changes that are not in their own best interests.

At this point, they can market themselves as the only rational choice for corporate Linux support -- and this would be perfectly reasonable because they would have effective control of the ecosystem.

Linux (as in a full OS implementation) is an extremely complex beast and you can't just "fork it" and start your own 'distro' from scratch anymore -- you would have to leverage a small army to do it, then keep that army to maintain it. It's just not practical.

At the same time, Linux has matured to the point of attaining some measure of corporate credibility, and from RedHat's point of view, it no longer needs its 'open source' roots to remain viable. RedHat also, understandably, fears potential competition.

Through systemd and subsequent takeovers of other ecosystem components, RedHat can leverage its own position while stifling potential competition -- this is a best-case scenario for any corporation. It will have an advantage in the marketplace, potential customers will recognise that advantage, and buy its products and support contracts.

I hope you can understand why many see this as an extremely compelling case. Arguing that RedHat has 'ethics' and would 'never do such a thing' is immature and silly -- RedHat is a corporation, it exists to profit from its opportunities, just like any other company. To attempt to argue that it would not do so is contrary to what we can assume is its default state.

It's no 'conspiracy theory' to assume that a corporation will behave like a corporation; arguing that it is just makes one look like a naive child. systemd is one large step toward RedHat gaining the ability to reap what it has sewn -- for its benefit and not necessarily ours.

https://lkml.org/lkml/2014/11/16/301

Let's be honest: Linus is known to have something of an ego.

My guess is: Linus is not speaking up because Linus does not the world to know how powerless he has become.

Red Hat is the 800 pound gorilla.

Also worth noting that systemd has morphed into something that is *way* beyond what it was originally sold as.

If you remember, systemd was supposed to just be an init replacement. And if you did not like systemd, you could remove it and go back to init. All that changed - after the adoption.

Does Devuan have a chance?

Systemd is clearly Red Hat's attempt to monopolize Linux. And I am afraid it will work.

What we are seeing now is only the beginning. Within a few months, about 95% of all Linux installs will be running systemd. Once that happens, Linux will be completely at the mercy of RH/Poettering.

Red Hat is going step-by-step from Microsoft's playbook. Even the propaganda is the same: "users demanded it" "the only people who don't like it are a handful of Luddites" "the decision has already been made, why are you fighting it."

> It remains to be seen if anyone truly cares enough to bother.

You mean like Devuan?
https://devuan.org/

It will be interesting to see if Devuan gets any traction.

It is entirely wrong to assume that acceptance of something means that it's better, or that users like it. Microsoft pushes stuff that users hate all the time: ribbon, metro interface, DRM, WGA, OOXML. Microsoft can get away with this because Microsoft is the dominate player. The exact same is true of Red Hat. Debian did not accept systemd because Debian loved systemd, Debian accepted systemd because Debian felt that it was inevitable.

This is also why there are not a lot of popular forks. People figure forking is a waste of time because Red Hat has all the power.

Could libreoffice, gimp, etc. be made to be indirectly dependent of systemd?

For example, what if Red Hat dictates that only recent versions of Gnome will work as the DE - systemd will reject any other DE.

To run libreoffice, you will need some sort of WM/DE, and since only one is available, you will have to use Gnome, which means you will also have to use systemd.

Because other distributions have been pressured into accepting systemd.

Red Hat is the 800 pound Gorilla in Linux. Red Hat forces systemd acceptance the exact same way that Microsoft forces OOXML acceptance, or DRM acceptance. And then justifies their actions with the same propaganda "because users demanded it."