Fwd: Re: Bug#727708: init system coupling etc.

[Olav Vitters <olav vitters nl>]

FYI

There is a discussion going on within Debian that could possibly result
in them demanding us to work on any init system. If not, we should
provide alternative implementations. This under threat of GNOME being
removed from Debian.

I've tried to make clear we're not init system developers. Expecting us
to be is ill advised. Better to make it really clear up before such
confusion goes any further.

I spoke on behalf of myself. Comments welcome.

-- 
Regards,
Olav

--- Begin Message ---

• From: Olav Vitters <olav vitters nl>
• To: 727708 bugs debian org
• Subject: Re: Bug#727708: init system coupling etc.
• Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2014 14:46:13 +0100

On Fri, Feb 14, 2014 at 03:31:41PM +0100, Josselin Mouette wrote:

Le vendredi 14 février 2014 à 13:50 +0000, Ian Jackson a écrit : 

Josselin Mouette writes ("Bug#727708: init system coupling etc."):

In all cases, it is unacceptable to put the burden of implementing
logind on non-systemd systems on maintainers of packages that just need
the logind interfaces. If it is not available, software such as gdm3
will depend, directly or indirectly, on systemd as PID 1, and that will
be all.

Firstly, I think the scenario where the required integration work is
not done is unlikely.  But in that scenario, we have two choices:
 (a) Effectively, drop all init systems other than systemd
 (b) Effectively, drop GNOME

From my personal view, GNOME should not block any work to make GNOME

work properly on other init systems. I'd love something which implements
the various systemd APIs, but then on *BSD and so on.

GNOME developers have worked and work on various infrastructure projects
as well. Various of these are freedesktop.org projects. Hereby sometimes
causing confusion. E.g. ConsoleKit and UPower are/were not driven by
GNOME; these are freedesktop.org projects.

GNOME is totally open to anyone providing alternative implantations for
systemd APIs, though IMO we're not a party in that. I'd love if someone
would write something that works on *BSD. Note that there are a few
GNOME developers people who've installed FreeBSD for the first time ever
just to improve the *BSD experience (within the scope of GNOME).

In case there is a distribution policy that prevents GNOME from being
packaged then we'll work with the distribution to integrate the
distributions work. Provided that the patches are reasonable.

If distribution policy is more demanding than what the distribution can
cope with itself, then there is no problem making a reasonable request
in how we can assist. In case of init system development, I suggest
first asking init system developers for assistance. However, if all
fails then seems unfortunate if GNOME is dropped. I don't any sudden
change in the scope of GNOME (meaning: we are not init system developers
and we should limit ourselves to ensure APIs could have an alternative
implementation).

You can have (c) GNOME depends on systemd.

And
(d) have other init systems do the maintenance for alternative
implementations. Have upstream and/or package maintainers be reasonable
in integrating that work.

Same for KDE and Xfce, BTW, since they are going in the same direction.

Agreed, various things are freedesktop.org projects.

-- 
Regards,
Olav (all comments my own POV, not on behalf of GNOME)

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