If We Move Everything to Devuan...
IRC, Git, Apache and so on
What "goes without saying" often "goes unsaid". So let's remind people who are less greybearded (our site is 20) that we began with CentOS in 2006, then moved to Alpine (for some of the site) in 2018, then moved to Debian in 2023.
Is it only us noticing how quiet Debian has been lately? There are still over 1,000 registered Debian Developers, but that does not indicate how many are still active. Debian has had a new DPL for over a week now (April 19th until 29th). Not a word from the DPL (that we can find), no actions (which are notable), nothing basically. As if the goal is to quietly deprecate this role or hope that silence will keep things calm in relative terms.
Tomorrow we plan to upgrade to the latest Debian, as planned for some time (postponed to improve our backups); failing that, we might install Devuan instead.
Going back to around 2019 (maybe even earlier), we've long wanted to explore systemd-free distros that are not tainted* by GAFAMisms (Debian not only adopts IBM's every piece; it also takes sponsorship money from GAFAM and has quietly outsourced hosting to GAFAM, notably the "G").
We wrote a great deal about it around half a decade ago.
Downtime tomorrow is very much expected (especially for IRC). Don't be alarmed. We expect that some code will need to be changed. We don't have spare machines for exact clones and emulated upgrades (testing), but since we're not a "commercial" site downtime isn't the end of the world. We'll get this done right**, not fast.
Many sincere words of gratitude to our community that helps with the process. Without communities, we'd be nothing. █
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* On systemd, earlier this month: Microsoft Uses April Fools to 'Joke' About Inserting "Age Verification" (Surveillance) Into Linux
** Hypocrisy is the easier and cheaper way. We don't choose the easier and cheaper ways. We do what we believe to be right.