I didn't find them to be so. The primary advantage claimed was that it eliminated init scripts. But init scripts are really easy on modern Linux because of the boilerplate, and there are still cases where you need scripts with systemd, so it didn't actually eliminate them — It only reduced their number. The other advantage claimed was that it implemented cgroups. Well, I'm using Devuan and that uses cgroups too, they are created and managed and destroyed with simple commands and you do not need any special tools for that at all.

systemd solves a non-problem, since scripts are a core OS feature.

It's all up in the air now. Starmer resigned, and it looks like Burnham will run unopposed. He may keep the social media ban, as that has happened in other countries and seems to be reasonably popular and sensible. Should extend it to over 65s as well.

But the VPN ban I can see being walked back quickly as unworkable and unpopular. A pointless fight to have before the social media ban has even been tested.

Closed environments and simulations. Simulations are better in particular because you can create test situations trivially, so you can test on e.g. a thousand variations of the same onramp. You can't really build the vision models in simulation, but that's OK, because you can build them by logging data from cars where the computer isn't controlling anything and therefore isn't endangering anyone.

This isn't new, though, this is obvious. You just want to move fast and break things.

I do remember that, but the counter argument which seemed persuasive was that the simplifications to the init system and other apps (not just GNOME) was compelling.

Weren't you here when we discussed this when Debian adopted systemd? The change was rammed through without the normal discussion procedure, specifically for the purpose of supporting GNOME at a time when nobody gave a fuck about it any more. The idea that they have to have had a good reason because they did it is not logic-based.

And don't they all use systemd? They must have a good reason for it.

Ah i see, so an alternative to those coffee pod machines? Less plasticky.

Yeah, but to facilitate you continuing to use your familiar commands, the maintainers of the distro have to forego the convenience of systemd. Clearly it offers a lot to them, which is why the vast majority adopted it.

That makes complete sense

It does. One thing I noticed back in the day during the big switcheroo is that my Arch laptop (eee 900) started to boot slower when systemd came in. Maybe they fixed that now, this was a while ago but it did not live up to the hype and even its own rationale in that regard originally.

So I'm not saying the reasons behind systemd were poor, but the implementation left something to be desired, it was quite buggy originally (it's mostly been beaten into shape), and quite a lot of it is just really mediocre and opinionated.

Does it work? Mostly. Does it do some stuff that was painful under sysv? Sure. It is good software? Not really.

Is there any info on how this location tracking would work? GPS isn't going to cut it, it needs a battery and world wide cellular/satellite connection to track things being shipped, and once installed will be in a Faraday cage (the server enclosure/rack/datacentre).

Are they going to rely on it detecting when it is in a Chinese server somehow? Try to get an external IP address? Something in the driver?

It seems doomed to fail and easily bypassed. I'm sure it will spur further investment in Chinese AI chip manufacturing too, which is already progressing at a very rapid pace.

UTF-8 was a mistake. I get that they wanted to make string handling with existing code as painless as possible, and for most Latin derived languages a 32 bit char is approaching 75% wasted space, but the issues introduced by UTF-8 are far worse. UTF-16 doesn't have enough code points. You could argue for 24 bit.

Cylindrical cells are not the future though, they are older tech and have proven to be largely inferior to prismatic and blade batteries. Prismatic cells for lower cost and higher energy density, blade batteries for extreme performance. Tesla is using older chemistry too.

You botched copy/pasting the quite. I fixed it for you:

That makes complete sense and is in fact how all major operating systems optimize boot times, and how software developers often optimize performance in general. Do as little as possible, and do as much of it in parallel as possible.

Tricky to do with init scripts because there are a lot of dependencies to manage and checks that need to be done for timing and sequencing. systemd makes it easy and I've used it extensively for building a custom OS for embedded systems where hardware init and configuration has to happen in specific sequences, but can be parallel with other parts of the OS starting.

It's interesting that you mention unreasonable costs for end users, because most distros have adopted systemd. That suggests that you want to impose unreasonable costs on distro maintainers for your own benefit.

You also have to give them achievable parameters. "You are always responsible" is not realistic. In some cases someone else is, in fact, responsible. And that's the rub of regulation, not that I think this means we shouldn't regulate, but it's going to always be true that doing it well takes effort. You can only ever reasonably expect that people are moving forwards (at best) and doing what is reasonably and humanly possible, and hopefully advancing the state of the art. Determining whether or not they are doing that is inherently complex.