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Shall we fork Debian?

debianfork.org

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Re: Shall we fork Debian?

#11

Post by vacri »

martin_ wrote: post #4

From the article: We are excluded from voting on the issue: only few of us have the time and patience to interact with Debian on a voluntary basis. Using the same argument, forking would seem like a horrible idea if there isn't active maintainers.

I saw that as a giant red warning flag as well. Why would I expect them to maintain a fork and ensure it has full sysv init support, if they don't even have the time to engage in the current process?

It's all a bit overdramatic anyway - there are heaps of Debian forks; they're called 'downstream distros'. Ubuntu is one.

Re: Shall we fork Debian?

#13

Post by snogglethorpe »

martin_ wrote: post #4

From the article: We are excluded from voting on the issue: only few of us have the time and patience to interact with Debian on a voluntary basis. Using the same argument, forking would seem like a horrible idea if there isn't active maintainers.

The anti-systemd-brigade only seems to be a small minority of Debian devs (though they're very loud, and very persistent), so I'm not sure it would have much effect on the project as a whole.

If a fork would reduce the time spent arguing about the init system (which 99% of users don't care about), it could even prove beneficial for Debian.

[It seems unlikely the fork would attract the critical mass of devs/users to succeed on its own though.]

Re: Shall we fork Debian?

#14

Post by fapjacks »

Yes. My spidey sense has been tingling about a Debian fork, given the facts mentioned on the link, consistent problems with at least one of Lennart Poettering's previous projects (pulseaudio), and the strong likelihood that politics played a bigger part in the "adoption" of systemd versus technical merit. If the answer from systemd people is that we have no choice but to use systemd, then I hope that a fork happens, and I will contribute a lot to that project, despite the trite downvotes these affirmative comments get.

Re: Shall we fork Debian?

#15

Post by lovelearning »

While I agree with the concept of supporting multiple init systems, I don't quite understand why they'd want to fork it out into an entirely different distro.

Isn't it possible to do this with patches, similar to how the linux kernel has RT patches?

Re: Shall we fork Debian?

#16

Post by keithpeter »

LukaD wrote: post #8

Go ahead and fork. Just leave me alone while I enjoy using systemd. I think some people are taking this way too personal and overreact. Forking is probably the best way to stop all the whining.

A fork would also mean that Debian (systemd edition) would not have to keep legacy init script support. You could have a 'clean' systemd in around Jessie+1 I imagine.

Re: Shall we fork Debian?

#17

Post by 23david »

snogglethorpe wrote: post #13
martin_ wrote: post #4

From the article: We are excluded from voting on the issue: only few of us have the time and patience to interact with Debian on a voluntary basis. Using the same argument, forking would seem like a horrible idea if there isn't active maintainers.

The anti-systemd-brigade only seems to be a small minority of Debian devs (though they're very loud, and very persistent), so I'm not sure it would have much effect on the project as a whole. If a fork would reduce the time spent arguing about the init system (which 99% of users don't care about), it could even prove beneficial for Debian. [It seems unlikely the fork would attract the critical mass of devs/users to s…

Decoupling systemd is a feature desired by system administrators, who are responsible for installing and managing most debian and debian-based distros.

Re: Shall we fork Debian?

#18

Post by lifeisstillgood »

No. Even the pro-fork advocates (even the above article) see the Jackson / Vernon proposal as a much better idea (choice of init systems with a systemd default)

No. IMHO Debian is less a distro than a democratic experiment - and systemd shows it is working. If you don't like systemd (and I vastly prefer my FreeBSD world) get on board with the democratic process - it is always messy, frustrating, driving you insane slow. That's how you can tell it is working

Don't fork.

Edit: Matthew Vaughn is an actor not a Dev.

Re: Shall we fork Debian?

#19

Post by [deleted] »

vacri wrote: post #11
martin_ wrote: post #4

From the article: We are excluded from voting on the issue: only few of us have the time and patience to interact with Debian on a voluntary basis. Using the same argument, forking would seem like a horrible idea if there isn't active maintainers.

I saw that as a giant red warning flag as well. Why would I expect them to maintain a fork and ensure it has full sysv init support, if they don't even have the time to engage in the current process? It's all a bit overdramatic anyway - there are heaps of Debian forks; they're called 'downstream distros'. Ubuntu is one.

[deleted]

Re: Shall we fork Debian?

#20

Post by justincormack »

stonith wrote: post #9
qznc wrote: post #5

How does forking Debian solve anything? The issue is that Gnome, KDE, and other software requires systemd. You need to fix/maintain their compatibility with other init systems. Then it is easy for Debian user to switch init systems.

You listed two desktop environments, neither of which are of interest to sysadmins. Eg. I run an Openstack cluster and do not care if there are gnome or kde packages available. I don't particularly like systemd and would be happier not having to deal with the compatibility and/or conversion issues for what I perceive as minimal benefit.

The idea of a server based fork of Debian is kind of appealing in some ways, like the Fedora server and cloud projects[1][2] which are quite interesting work, aimed at a (sub)distribution with focus on particular use cases, not the kitchen sink approach.

[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Server/Product_Requirements_Do...

[2] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Cloud/Cloud_PRD?rd=Cloud_PRD

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