Systemd Creator Lands at Microsoft

The world needs a better way to monetize open source.

It'd be nice if Microsoft finally incorporated systemd support into WSL in a first-class way. At the moment, if you want to run a distro with its normal init system and service manager, you have to run the whole thing inside a user namespace so that systemd can be PID 1.

I meant the hippies that eventually became high ranks in finances/tech (in terms of pay and Buicks per garage ratio).

As someone who thinks PulseAudio is conceptually flawed, I don't really get the way old linuxers hate on systemd. I mean ok, from a user perspective certain common things in systemd could have been friendlier, but I always got the things I needed to work and it is clearly a powerful system. While I don't really like the way Poettering handles projects, I think nobody who does open source software deserves that kind of hatered for a piece of software they have written.

Usually if you don't like a piece of software, you just don't use it. And this is the core of the problem: If I got the critics correctly the problem has more to do with the way this has been "forced" onto the community. Most criticism on the substance has been just bias colored by this aspect or people being like "I was used to the old system, now I need to learn something new".

The latter is of course a totally valid point. If you want people to change their habits, you need to give them a clear reason why and — more important — they need to want to change that habit themselves.

The same greybeard friend of mine who still complains on systemd happily adopted pipewire. Why? Because he saw a clear benefit in doing so and nobody forced this onto him.

Critica might argue Pöttering now going to Microsoft is proof that he always has been the devil, I'd argue it is proof that a certain kind of culture can drive people out of open source. I could imagine a different kind of universe in which the communications between the systemd devs and the rest of the community had been different and we would not only have gotten a better systemd, but maybe also a Pöttering who would not go to MS.

The saddest thing about the whole affair is that it has a stifeling effect on new devs. Who would dare to write another systemd after that? Certainly not me.

Yes, they tread different paths. RedHat sells support (RedHat Enterprise Linux), develops enterprise ready software and gives unbranded, not supported versions to the community to play with and use it.

GitLab sells SaaS, provides a free self-installable community supported version, and accepts contributions from community.

They're pivoting to a more closed model, which I don't like, but it's still possible to get the community version, the code and play with it.

All in all I think many possible different ways to monetize an free and open source project. They work differently than we get used to over the last century, but it's possible.