12.29.20
Gemini version available ♊︎SystemD: When More is Less (Freedom)
Summary: The sorts of bills people are expected to receive for GNU/Linux support from IBM are reminiscent of ‘old’ IBM; systemd helps lock-in, making avoidance of such support contracts more difficult over time (now that CentOS is more or less going away)
IN relative terms, systemd isn’t mature software. It’s about a decade old, compared to 37 years of GNU and almost 30 years of Linux. But systemd rapidly takes over more and more functions in today’s GNU/Linux systems and it is controlled mostly by IBM, which develops systemd on Microsoft servers.
“But systemd rapidly takes over more and more functions in today’s GNU/Linux systems and it is controlled mostly by IBM, which develops systemd on Microsoft servers.”The video above isn’t intended to be too hostile; it’s just pointing out some simple facts about systemd and highlights some of the main concerns, which are centered around vendor lock-in (for support) rather than technical aspects, including security.
Well, systemd may be working perfectly well in practice (except on some particular systems with unique setups); but should we therefore ignore possible future issues? It’s not like IBM is getting any nicer and less aggressive, as we’ve mentioned in two videos over the past 24 hours [1, 2]. █
Links/pages from the video:
- The NSA Is Looking At Systemd’s KDBUS
- Systemd Had A Pretty Big 2020 With Homed, OOMD Components Merged
- “By today standard it seems that any stupid idea you throw in qualifies as “modernizing”…” Phoronix comment
- Running GNU/Linux With a Top Process Controlled by Microsoft and Far Too Many Lines of Code
- What Former Debian Project Leader (Second to the Late Ian Murdock) Thinks About SystemD in Debian GNU/Linux
- Simpler Systems, Better Systems
- Systemd Has Become (Almost) an Operating System
- Foreclosure by Systemd and IBM
- Pseudo Novelty is Coming Home
- Guest Meme: Systemd and GitHub as Digital Colonisation
- The Systemd Song
- Monopoly (or Vendor Lock-in) is Not Modularity