[notriddle]

If your marriage is ending over a toilet paper roll... it's not actually about the toilet paper roll.

It's the same deal with Debian and systemd. It's not the init system. It's the thing it represents. Having to either adopt systemd or run GNOME in an unsupported configuration seems like a clear-cut choice (which is why systemd is now the Debian default), but having a major upstream force you to significantly rearchitect the distribution seems like a pretty significant loss of control. This is at the same time as other upstreams have gradually ripped control out of the hands of Debian developers in other ways: Firefox, librsvg, and python-cryptography adopting Rust suddenly made it a lot harder to support a bunch of niche CPU architectures. Speaking of Rust, and also Go, they use static linking and have their own library package managers, which both makes it harder for Debian to package and simultaneously easier for users to install a binary directly provided by upstream. And languages that don't have static linking support can always use Docker.

Honesty, I wouldn't want to be a Debian developer right now. Red Hat has tried to reinvent themselves in a world of containers, but since Debian is a volunteer organization and not a corporation, it's a lot harder to pivot (attempting to pivot would probably cause all their existing volunteers to quit, while failing to attract new ones). What sort of future does Debian even have, if they have no decision-making power over the core OS, and all the applications route around them?

[einpoklum]

I would downvote you because:

1. "GNOME in unsupported configuration" is, with due respect, FUD.

2. There was no dichotomous choice to make. Debian could have let you decide whether or not to install systemd. Instead, the project decided to essentially force the use of systemd, necessitating a fork.

3. "suddenly made it a lot harder to support a bunch of niche CPU architectures" <- why is it difficult to offer a different selection of potential default browsers, on those niche platforms or in general?

4. Language-related package manager do make things difficult for an OS distribution, at least somewhat - but that's not particular to Debian.

However - I actually agree with your main point. I'm sure Debian maintainers/developers have it hard.

I really wish Debian would:

1. Admit the Devuan people were right and re-merge the distributions.

2. Recruit, offering a self-training track for aspiring package maintainers.

3. Modernize some of their tooling (as people seem to be complaining about that)

4. Fundraise effectively, to finance the above.

[notriddle]

> 1. "GNOME in unsupported configuration" is, with due respect, FUD.

If GNOME doesn't work with Debian's systemd-shim, are they going to accept patches to fix it? Or will it be up to Debian to maintain those patches?

> 2. There was no dichotomous choice to make.

They didn't make a dichotomous choice. They made systemd the default, but maintained the ability to switch to another init system [1].

[1]: https://packages.debian.org/sid/init-system-helpers

> Debian could have let you decide whether or not to install systemd. Instead, the project decided to essentially force the use of systemd, necessitating a fork.

If this is "essentially forcing" the use of systemd, then what possible choice would have counted as not forcing it other than making sysv the default?

> 4. Language-related package manager do make things difficult for an OS distribution, at least somewhat - but that's not particular to Debian.

You're not wrong, but most Linux distributions either don't have "LTS" releases [2], or they have commercial backing.

[2]: Not having to backport security fixes saves them a lot of hassle.

> 1. Admit the Devuan people were right and re-merge the distributions.

Right about what? Devuan/Debian is hardly a comparable situation to LibreOffice/OpenOffice. It's more like the relationship between Librewolf and Firefox, where a bunch of loud fans are praising the fork to the sky, but most of the developers are still working on the original project and the "fork" is busy rebasing their patches onto each new upstream release.

> 2. Recruit, offering a self-training track for aspiring package maintainers.

That would be great, but are there volunteers lined out the door who want to join the program, and just can't? Or is it boring, frustrating work that few people are interested in?

> 3. Modernize some of their tooling (as people seem to be complaining about that)

I actually agree with this point, but I'm not sure if this is the primary problem, or if it's just a minor issue that distracts from the main problem.

> 4. Fundraise effectively, to finance the above.

There is no Debian Foundation. They would have to have somewhere to send the funds to, before they'd be able to collect it. Obviously, this is almost as contentious as systemd was [3].

[3]: https://lwn.net/Articles/888752/

[einpoklum]

> They made systemd the default, but maintained the ability to switch to another init system [1]

No, they didn't. You can't install debian without systemd. They _said_ they let you switch, but they don't. People did not fork an entire distro just because they didn't like to press "option B" instead of "option A".

> If this is "essentially forcing" the use of systemd, then what possible choice would have counted as not forcing it other than making sysv the default?

1. Not having packages depend on systemd.

2. Bringing up a prompt/dialog during installation to make a choice of whether or not to use it.

> most of the developers are still working on the original project

Because Devuan is just Debian with some tiny changes and a different choice of packages. And of course, the infrastructure of a project - website, forum, IRC, download servers, etc. So of course most developers aren't concerned with that, they just provide/maintain upstream packages.

> Obviously, this is almost as contentious as systemd was

I didn't know about this aspect, thank you.

[notriddle]

> 1. Not having packages depend on systemd.

This implies either (a) refusing packages that depend on systemd, or (b) patching packages. Which brings us right back to the original problem: who's on the hook for making sure it works?

> 2. Bringing up a prompt/dialog during installation to make a choice of whether or not to use it.

https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/12/choices/

... okay, I admit I also need to offer a reason why it's okay for Debian to offer the install options that they do offer, while they also refuse to offer this option, and can't really come up with one. The way that Debian allows you to pick a desktop environment at install time, while not allowing you to pick an init system, is a bit of an arbitrary decision.

But the decision being arbitrary isn't a reason to offer every single theoretically possible option at install time. Debian never allowed you to pick an init system at install time before! Why start now?

[einpoklum]

> who's on the hook for making sure it works?

Well, Devuan people made it work, while also maintaining an entire distro fork. This could easily have been made to work on Debian. The alternative would have been to lean on GNOME, I think.

> every single theoretically possible option at install time

systemd-or-not is not "every single theoretically possible option". It is a highly contentious and political issue. If the systemd proponents would have accepted defaulting to no-systemd, then great, no need for the choice; but realistically, both sides are somewhat adamant, so making the user choose is a reasonable compromise IMHO.

[notriddle]

> systemd-or-not is not "every single theoretically possible option"

Of course not. It's an arbitrary line, because the line has to be drawn somewhere.

> It is a highly contentious and political issue.

Most people don't care one way or the other.

> If the systemd proponents would have accepted defaulting to no-systemd, then great, no need for the choice; but realistically, both sides are somewhat adamant, so making the user choose is a reasonable compromise IMHO.

How is leaking internally-facing political issues into the out-of-the-box experience in any way acceptable?!

It's an almost perfect reflection of exactly the reason Joel On Software hates prompting people up-front with configuration options; by refusing to pick a reasonable default, the small number of people who actually care one way or the other are forcing everyone else to deal with their baggage. First-time Debian users completely lack the context to make such a choice, and anyone who does care knows where to look for information on how to switch over a system after it's installed.