Re: Boycott Systemd

On 22 September 2014 07:13, Frank Peters <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Sun, 21 Sep 2014 14:22:38 -0500
> Canek Peláez Valdés <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 2:20 PM, Barry Schwartz
>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>> > The words ‘Red Hat’ have put a chill down my spine for nearly 20
>> > years.
>>
>> I know, right? A company that actually pays money to developers so
>> they could work on Free Software.
>>
>
> Check out page 18 of the 2014 GNOME Asia talk:
> http://0pointer.de/public/gnomeasia2014.pdf
>
> "Our objectives:
>
> Turing Linux from a bag of bits into a competitive General Purpose
> Operating System.
>
> Building the Internet's Next Generation OS.
>
> Unifying pointless differences between distributions."
>
> Can it be any clearer that the Gnome (RedHat) folks desire to
> usurp total control of the Linux ecosystem to serve their own
> ends?  RedHat needs Linux to make a profit and it will mold
> Linux to better attain this end.
>
> Is Linux currently just a "bag of bits."  A lot of people
> would take serious issue with this inane comment, but according
> to the Gnome (RedHat) folks they are here to save us all
> from the terrible shortcomings of Linux (whether we want it or
> not).
>
> Notice the remark about the "pointless differences between
> distributions."  This is nothing more than a disguised condemnation
> of the diversity, variety, and choice which has always been the
> strongest feature of the Linux world.

Let's make ten different electric sockets, twenty different way to
calculate version number for softwares, thirty software licenses, and
don't forget to make at least five mutually-incompatible APIs for
every browser features that all do roughly the same thing differently.
Oh, and everyone had to write their dates in Month-Year-Day, period.
Is your life any better from having this kind of "diversity"?

Encouraging pointless differences is not supporting diversity. In
contrary, encouraging pointless differences *kills* diversity.
Diversity is a mean to the end of producing better software system, it
isn't an end of itself. If having less diversity means that I can take
my software, bring it to another totally different system, and it
works just as well as it was, then so be it.