Date:	Fri, 15 Aug 2014 12:59:55 +0400
From:	Vlad Glagolev <stealth@...erian.ru>
To:	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: OT: Open letter to the Linux World

This is a problem, which is silently ignored by those who HAS to defend
OSS' freedom. But politics (related to stuff they get a lot of money
from) of companies like RedHat isn't that white and fluffy for users,
because THEY started this chaos of perverting the UNIX philosophy.
I noticed that when they announced a brand new strategy with obfuscation
of kernel patches, so it would be damn hard for their opponents (aka
the rest of the world) to understand what these patches exactly do. [0]

My road with Linux started in good old 2002-2003 with 3-disc RedHat
distro. You know why? Because once my irc-friend told me: "Here's a new
operating system: it's free, open-sourced and primarily -- you can
redraw everything in it (speaking of UI)". I formatted my HDD with
win2k that night. Because it was what I had been looking for --
operating system with a total freedom. And everything you need was only
time and brains. I tried some binary distros and have discovered
they're not for me -- not much freedom enough (I needed to keep my
system clean and small without a ton of dependencies I would never
use). Source-based distros have saved me. I'm talking about those which
aren't known to 99% of Linux community (except Gentoo, ofc.) -- Source
Mage, Lunar, T2. LFS is a bit hard to maintain on >2 machines on a
yearly basis, you know.

Now what do we see? Complete degradation of Linux-like ecosystem. I'm
not talking about Linux kernel itself, because it's going the right way
(mostly because of its head). But I'm talking about those who made
Linux what it is now. About initial developers of userland stuff,
which is (and really was) VERY fragmented. And now we see a couple of
companies (companies, indeed, not people; because yes, Linux is a
really gainful thingy, who would have ever thought like that 15 years
ago?) who wants to defragment it, like what we did with filesystems on
Windows in good old days to make it work faster. Now someone strives to
exactly the same aim -- to rake a lot of money faster than it happens
now.

Have you ever thought what spheres will be affected? Hosting companies,
corporations migrating to Linux from billion m$ contracts (at least we
see this tendency here in Russia, in Germany and across the Europe).
I will quote IgnorantGuru to show you what will happen soon:

"In open source, you can’t lock people out of the code like you can in
Windows. But you can make the system so complex that no one can control
it at a lower level without being a developer with lots of time to
spare. I think ultimately that’s what this is about. And the systemd
tool stack will likely eventually be used for DRM and other restrictive
technologies (just as HAL was)." [1]

"I think it’s safe to say that any spirit of freedom and diversity that
once drove Linux is dead. The new people entering the realm of
development in Linux are just Windows developers looking for a larger
base and more money, or simply corporate whores tearing it apart for
short-sighted, malicious goals (which they themselves understand very
poorly). They care not for any of the principles that made Linux what
it is, or was.

So Linux has been lost because the community has failed to protect it
and help it grow. And this isn’t just about toolkits – the infection
goes deep into the kernel, udev, the init system, and other areas. In
the next few years any remaining GNU Linux users who even know what a
principle is, will need to find a new home." [2]

exhaustively enough, right?

Do you think that everyone will happily run to buy yet another
subscription from RedHat? Then how is it different from Windows?
Because it's open-sourced? To whom? To RedHat employees? Meh.

I'm not against RedHat, I'm against politics they follow. And I feel its
disruptive effect on many people across mailing lists, forums, irc,
etc. -- everything that links people who created tools for
essential existence of this company!

There are a lot of standards that describe UNIX-like arch like POSIX,
FHS, etc. Where are all those distro-builders who refuse to see them?
Busy in race adapting yet another systemd version while reading gdbm
traces of it? Very useful time-spending.

Thank you, Christopher. At least there are people who see this
idiocracy under the right angle.

Because everything depends on human resources, personally I see the only
one way to keep high-quality and yet easily maintained Linux distros
afloat: support distros with strict policies and rules preventing
the worms like systemd from infiltration and gnawing from inside out.
Linux community needs yet another dot-com boom in Linux distros -- like
Ubuntu that changed (or helped to change) the world.

It is time to implement the protocols themselves, not to write a train
of RFCs for them. Otherwise we would have no choice for VRRP.
Because the real enemy is close and.. remember, Adam: everybody lies ©

[0] http://lwn.net/Articles/430098/
[1]
http://igurublog.wordpress.com/2014/02/02/ubuntu-to-dump-nautilus-wants-your-input/
[2] http://igurublog.wordpress.com/2014/01/25/

On Tue, 12 Aug 2014 15:38:12 -0400
Christopher Barry wrote:
> 
> What is intelligence? Not exactly the spook kind, but rather what is
> the definition of intelligence in humans? This is pretty good:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence#Definitions
> 
> By most accounts, the self-appointed and arguably too influential
> creators and thinkers of the day around the 'One Linux' idea fit the
> definition of intelligent people - at least in the technical realm.
> 
> And their messages are pretty compelling:
> * Simplify cross-distro development.
> * Enable faster boot times.
> * Enable an on-demand, event driven architecture, similar to 'Modern'
>   Operating Systems.
> * Bring order and control to subsystems that have had as many different
>   tools as there were distros.
> 
> All seemingly noble goals. All apparently come from a deep desire to
> contribute and make things better.
> 
> Almost anyone could argue that these intelligent people thought hard
> about these issues, and put an enormous amount of effort into a
> solution to these problems. Unfortunately, the solution they came up
> with, as you may have guessed by now, is 'systemd'.
> 
> While not new, it's grotesque impact has finally reached me and I must
> speak to it publicly. 
> 
> So, what is systemd? Well, meet your new God. You may have been praying
> at the alter of simplicity, but your religion is being deprecated. It
> likely already happened without your knowledge during an upgrade of
> your Linux box. systemd is the all knowing, all controlling meta-deity
> that sees all and supervises all. It's the new One Master Process that
> aspires to control everything it can - and it's already doing a lot.
> It's what init would look like if it were a transformer on steroids.
> It's complicated, multi-faceted, opaque, and supremely powerful.
> 
> I had heard about systemd a few years back, when upstart and some other
> init replacements I can't remember were showing up on the scene. And
> while it seemed mildly interesting, I was not in favor of using it, nor
> any of them for that matter. init was working just fine for me. init
> was simple and robust. While configuration had it's distro-specific
> differences, it was often these differences that made one pick the
> distro to use in the first place, and to stay with that distro. The
> tools essentially *were* the distro. I just dist-upgraded to Jessie,
> and voila - PID 1 was suddenly systemd. What a clusterfuck.
> 
> In a 'One Linux' world, what would distros actually be? Deprecated. No
> longer relevant. Archaic shells of their once proud individualism.
> Basically, they're now just a logo and a default desktop background
> image. Because let's face it, there only needs to be One Modern
> 'competitor' to the Windows/Mac ownership of personal computing. A
> unified front to combat the evil empires of Redmond and Cupertino is
> what's needed. The various differences that made up different 'flavors'
> of Linux needed to be corralled and brought into compliance for the war
> to proceed efficiently. Um, what war?
> 
> For me, Linux had already won that war way back in 1994 when I started
> using it. It did it without firing a shot or attempting to be just like
> the other OSes. It won it it by not giving a flying fuck about market
> share. It won it by being exactly NOT them. It won it by being simple
> and understandable and configurable to be exactly how *I* wanted it to
> be. It won it by being a collection of simple modular components that
> could be plugged together at will to do real work. It won it by
> adhering to a deeply considered philosophy of the user being in the
> drivers seat, and being free to run the things she wanted to, without
> layers and layers of frameworks wrapping their tendrils into all manor
> of stuff they should not be touching. It won it without the various
> 'CrapKit' shit that's begun to insinuate itself into the heart of my
> system of late. It won it without being overly complex and unknowable.
> That kind of opacity was was the core of Windows and Mac, and that's
> exactly what I despise about them, and exactly why I chose to use Linux
> in the first goddamn place. systemd is embracing *all* that I hate about
> Windows and Mac, and doing so in the name of 'modernity' and
> 'simplifying' a developer's job.
> 
> So why would very smart people who love and use Linux want to create or
> embrace such a creepy 'Master of All' daemon? Ostensibly, it's for the
> reasons they say, as I mentioned at the top. But partially I think it's
> from a lack of experience. Not a lack as in programming hours, but a
> lack as in time on the Planet. Intelligence alone is not a substitute
> for life experience and, yes I'll say it, wisdom. There's no manual for
> wisdom. Implementing systemd by distros is not a wise move for them over
> the long term. It will, in fact, be their ultimate undoing.
> 
> Partially it's the larger-than-life egos of the people involved. Has
> anyone actually read what Poettering says about things? Wow. This guy
> is obviously convinced he has all the answers for everyone. Traditional
> ideas about simplicity and freedom are quaint, but have no real place
> in a 'modern' OS. Look, he's just smarter than you, so get over it and
> move aside. He knows what's best, and he has it under control. How old
> is this guy anyway? 12 or so? He's a fucking tool (IMHO).
> 
> Partially it's roiling subsurface commercial interests. Look, We can
> make more money selling stuff to Linux users if there were a simpler
> distro agnostic way to do that. Fuck choice, they'll like what they get.
> 
> Partially it may well be nefarious and shadowy in nature. With One Ring
> to rule them all, having access to it sure would be sweet for those
> hell-bent on total information awareness. Trust is not real high on my
> list of things to give out these days.
> 
> Partially it's a belief that the Linux Community must fight against the
> hegemony of Windows and Mac - as if the existence of Linux depends upon
> the vanquishing of alternatives. Those who think Linux should cater to
> idiots and droolers should go back to their Macs and Windoze boxen, and
> stop trying to 'fix' Linux. It wasn't fucking broken!
> 
> Partially - and this is what I cannot abide - it is a blatant disregard
> and disrespect - whether knowingly or not - of the major tenets of
> *NIX. It's a thoughtless discarding of, and a trampling on the values
> that I personally hold to be true and just, and I am not alone here.
> systemd is the exact opposite of what defines *NIX. And I'm not
> blathering on about POSIX compliance either. It's the Philosophy stupid.
> 
> systemd is a coup. It is a subversive interloper designed to destroy
> Linux as we know it, foisted upon us by the snarky
> we-know-better-than-you CamelCase crowd. They just don't get it down
> deep where it matters. systemd is not pointing in a direction that we
> should be going. It does not encourage freedom. It does not encourage
> choice. It does not display transparency. It does not embrace
> simplicity. It seizes control and forces you to cede it. It makes
> applications and major system components depend on it, and they cannot
> function without it. It's gaining speed by luring naive or lazy or just
> plain clueless developers into the fold with the promise of making
> their lives easier. Buying into this way of thinking ignores the
> greater dangers that systemd represents.
> 
> Debian has always held the line against this kind of thing in the past,
> and has always earned my utmost respect and loyalty for their
> integrity. Debian's decision here was as a hand forced. Debian has made
> a grave and cowardly mistake here, and they need a course correction
> immediately. Incorporating systemd was not an intelligent choice, and
> certainly not one very well considered. Debian must reject systemd and
> its ilk, and restore itself to the values that got Linux to this
> point in history, in no small part *led* by Debian. They must loudly and
> publicly divorce themselves from GNOME, however painful and upsetting
> that may seem in the sort term, and focus on the core values of
> simplicity and freedom. Put systemd and it's cabal in non-free where it
> belongs if you must. Let the user decide if that's what
> they want. Enlightenment is an excellent choice for a default desktop
> that does not have the bloated baggage of GNOME. And to the Debian
> Leaders - after 20 years of my loyalty and evangelism, you really let
> me and all of us down. You need to grow a fucking pair and do the right
> thing here and now.
> 
> Kick these fucking carpetbaggers to the curb!
> 
> Gnome. The Linux Foundation. freedesktop.org, and others. These are all
> groups with agendas. These are not those who believe in freedom. They
> believe in control and standardization. They believe in sameness. Who
> are these people anyway? Who are these self-appointed keepers of the
> Linux flame? (subliminal malware reference intended). What are their
> true agendas? Who funds these people? Why do they so aggressively want
> to change the core of Linux away from it's true philosophy? Let them go
> off and create their own 'competitor' to Windows and Mac. If they did,
> it would be the same opaque, backdoored, user-tracking bullshit that
> Windows and Mac have become. They DO NOT speak for me, and you should
> not passively allow them to speak for you either.
> 
> systemd is a trojan. systemd is a medusa. systemd is Substance D.
> systemd is scary - not just because it's tools suck, or because it's
> a massive fucking hairball - but because architecturally it has way
> too much concentrated power. We all need to collectively expel it from
> our midst because it will own Linux, and by extension us and our
> freedoms. systemd will *be* Linux. Sit idly by and ignore this fact at
> all of our collective peril.
> 
> OneLinux == zero-choice
> 
> 
> --
> Regards,
> Christopher Barry
> 
> Random geeky fortune:
> BOFH excuse #202:
> 
> kernel panic: write-only-memory (/dev/wom0) capacity exceeded.

--
Vlad Glagolev
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