Systemd BirthDate Merge: Conflicts of Interest • Hacker News Board

Re: Systemd BirthDate Merge: Conflicts of Interest

#21

Post by withinboredom » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 4:11 PM UTC

righthand wrote: post #19

withinboredom wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because someone added a new user field? Does that need governance?

When your software is the core piece of tech in almost all mainline Linux distros, yes it does require governance. However you may like someone being an authoritarian regardless of the “it’s only a user field no big deal” view and the next thing they change without governance for everyone you will be fine with also, even if you disagree. Again it’s not about the field.

If this is the “straw that broke the camel’s back” as they say… it seems it is more about the field than anything else. It’s a strange hill to die on… there are much larger changes happening on a daily basis… or is this like a bike shedding effect, where it’s such a small trivial and pointless change that it is worth fighting over? Something everyone can understand.

I dunno. The only reason I’m even on the mailing list was to report a bug several years ago…

Re: Systemd BirthDate Merge: Conflicts of Interest

#22

Post by npongratz » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 5:10 PM UTC

jmclnx wrote: post #11

From the wayback machine, I could not get into the link: https://web.archive.org/web/20260403141132/https://tboteproj...

Mirror here: https://isoc-sig.freifunk.net/systemd/systemd%20birthDate%20...

(confirmed still up at the time of writing this post.)

Re: Systemd BirthDate Merge: Conflicts of Interest

#23

Post by tzs » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 2:14 AM UTC

The site this is on seems to be a bit questionable [1].

[1] https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/1064706/ba8e449d224f5067/

Re: Systemd BirthDate Merge: Conflicts of Interest

#24

Post by righthand » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 5:22 AM UTC

withinboredom wrote: post #21

righthand wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When your software is the core piece of tech in almost all mainline Linux distros, yes it does require governance. However you may like someone being an authoritarian regardless of the “it’s only a user field no big deal” view and the next thing they change without governance for everyone you will be fine with also, even if you disagree. Again it’s not about the field.

If this is the “straw that broke the camel’s back” as they say… it seems it is more about the field than anything else. It’s a strange hill to die on… there are much larger changes happening on a daily basis… or is this like a bike shedding effect, where it’s such a small trivial and pointless change that it is worth fighting over? Something everyone can understand. I dunno. The only reason I’m even on the mailing li…

I think it’s about raising visibility of an issue. What type of code change the issue is tied to is irrelevant. However it helps that the code change has some already existing political momentum.

What other arguments are we going to try and whittle the governance issue down to “its just the code change who cares!”?

Re: Systemd BirthDate Merge: Conflicts of Interest

#25

Post by righthand » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 5:25 AM UTC

variaga wrote: post #18

righthand wrote: post #2

Why doesn’t someone fork systemd and start reworking/taking out all the icky parts as well as destroying Poettering’s control over it? Debian’s forced accepting of Systemd is finally rearing it’s ugly head. I am glad I switched to Devuan earlier this year.

>Why doesn’t someone fork systemd Why don't you? It's open source. No one is stopping you. Your ideas on how init systems should work are obviously superior, so you'll easily win over a majority of developers, right?

I don’t care about majority developers. Just that Poettering’s will not be forced upon me. I just may fork or look at helping establish a better suite of tools in the future.

Also I never said my ideas were superior. Maybe go for a walk instead of getting upset someone thinks Systemd needs to die.