Fwd: Re: upstart beyond Ubuntu 12.04

[Olav Vitters <olav vitters nl>]

FYI

In case you don't enjoy discussing on LWN as much as I do:
Announcement was that Ubuntu stays with upstart. Initial impression that
it was forever and political, but not so black/white fortunately. Want
to know the future plans. I don't care about low level stuff other than
it should just work, dislike differences between distributions and
wondering if we're killing FreeBSD/OpenBSD.

My goal is less difference between distributions btw (especially for low
level stuff).
-- 
Regards,
Olav

--- Begin Message ---

• From: Olav Vitters <olav vitters nl>
• To: Steve Langasek <steve langasek ubuntu com>, ubuntu-devel lists ubuntu com
• Subject: Re: upstart beyond Ubuntu 12.04
• Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2012 10:32:23 +0200

 [ removed upstart-devel as I am not subscribed + don't want to start a
   upstart vs systemd thread ]

On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 10:23:45PM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote:
> At UDS-O in Budapest a year ago, there was much discussion about the future
> of the plumbing stack in Ubuntu; with buzz about systemd and about GNOME
> changing to depend on it, many asked if Ubuntu would stick with upstart or
> switch to systemd.  The decision at the time was to stick with upstart
> through 12.04, and revisit the question after that.

Some new functionality indeed depends on it (GDM multi seat). Other than
that the idea is more about interfaces, though that might cause
difficulties (e.g. if not communicated well what is depended upon like
the timezone stuff).

> A switch to systemd would mean a whole new round of distribution integration
> bugs to keep us occupied between now and 14.04.
[..]
> Sticking with upstart presents its own set of challenges; if other
> distributions adopt native systemd units for starting services, we will be
> less able to share work with those distributions.  That would be
> unfortunate, but compared with destabilizing the core of Ubuntu for several
> cycles while we shake out a new set of bugs, this certainly seems the lesser
> evil.

Nod.

> The Ubuntu Foundations team has committed to supporting upstart going
> forward beyond 12.04, and working to ensure it meets the needs of Ubuntu and
> flavors on desktops, servers and beyond.  I look forward to talking with
> folks at UDS next month about this topic.

I'm interested to know if:
- Upstart will stay forever
- Upstart vs systemd will be decided again in e.g. 6 months time or a
  multiple of that
- What would make systemd acceptable?
- If decided that systemd is possibly ok, what help is needed (e.g.
  expertise, knowledge in Debian, etc)?

To be clear: I don't really care about systemd vs upstart. My slight
preference for systemd as it could allow to remove some GNOME code (in
gnome-session) and because Mageia uses it.

-- 
Regards,
Olav (not an Ubuntu developer)

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