While true, I'd rather buy DRM-free books to support the concept. Cory Doctorow's books are like that. And I've seen some from the library, as well. It would be neat to see a DRM-free store.
> It's philosophy may differ from unix's "get one thing done well"
> it is bloated.
Besides all this, the main issue, for me, is how it managed to spread and ingrain itself into distributions making them dependent on it.
If you want to use an alternative to systemd on those distributions, you are usually on your own, constantly trying to fix it whenever there are breaking changes.
It's good to have options which are simple to replace.
> It is chock full of features and it gets the job done.
>Besides all this, the main issue, for me, is how it managed to spread and ingrain itself into distributions making them dependent on it.
I don't think the phrasing is correct. Your choice of word (spread/ingrain itself) seems to imply there is malicious intent. Software do not sneak itself into distribution by themselves. It is the other way around. Distribution creators have total freedom on what components/software they find useful to build their distributions on. If a majority of distros decided to use systemd, that mean a majority of people maintaining distributions found the positive outcomes of using systemd were worth dealing with any disadvantage it may had over using another solution.
> Your choice of word (spread/ingrain itself) seems to imply there is malicious intent. Software do not sneak itself into distribution by themselves.
No, you're right: It's people that do that. And those definitely can have intent (often benevolent, sometimes malicious, other times just so misguided as to be in-effect-malicious).
So let's go with "the main issue is how some people managed to spread and ingrain it into distributions making them dependent on it."
For example, we had cron working just fine for decades . We had sshd listen on its port for decades. We had fstab for decades. No one wanted systemd-timesyncd.
In my opinion, all these aux systemd projects came to life purely out of psychological reasons. Can we label them malicious?
Cron may have been working, but it had numerous deficiencies that could not be fixed. For example, there's no mechanism for preventing long-running jobs from piling up, you're on your own for logging and figuring out handling for failed jobs, and there's a litany of papercuts from differences in implementation across distros. Systemd timers solve all of those issues, while also granting access to all the other service-inherited benefits like cgroup isolation and resource control. In terms of features, reliability, and simplicity, cron is a poor substitute, and systemd timers really has no rival.
The reason is business demands. Maybe it's not the sexiest reason for ideological users or simple PC operators, but it's undeniably why systemd is the standard now. Enterprise applications (which comprise the vast majority of Linux users) needed to aggregate their reliability and observability data of their servers to deploy faster and keep their backend healthy.
There was a time, in the 1990s, when UNIX heavily leaned into the idea of multiuser multiprocessing. That philosophy is pretty much dead in a world that prioritizes networked systems, Docker images and idempotent deployment. Most Linux boxen are cattle, not pets.
> If a majority of distros decided to use systemd, that mean a majority of people maintaining distributions found the positive outcomes of using systemd were worth dealing with any disadvantage it may had over using another solution.
This is overall fairly weak evidence that users actually find the software to be of quality. Surely there's got to be a stronger signal that this is a positive way forward, like users enthusiastically saying "wow this is an improvement".
I find it hard to imagine objective evidence more robust than the real-world actions of subject matter experts who make real-world decisions. This would have been hotly debated within teams of Linux experts at Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora/RHEL, SuSE, and Arch. These aren't armchair experts who debate on the internet, they're the ones who actually make decisions and, more than most, wear the consequences of those decisions.
How it managed to spread is no surprise. Linux desktop was a complete mess with consolekit and unmaintained stuff. Then they supported cgroups which distros wanted to use and since all the unmaintained stuff didn't there wasn't a lot of options.
Booting up a system is a complex domain. If you randomly cut a complex domain into pieces, you will have the exact same complexity PLUS a huge amount of additional complexity for all the communication/error handling between the different parts - what other complex domain uses million tiny tools? Does chrome use curl and then pipe it into a html renderer and whatnot? Sure, there are libraries (that's a different architectural layer though with less complexity to break, and functions don't decompose arbitrarily either). The unix's philosophy is more of a sounds good on paper, and there are certain cases where it applies - it's definitely not universal.
Also, the core of systemd is not even particularly big. People often mix into completely optional modules that run under the wider systemd project, but that's a false conclusion that "systemd eats the world".
> How it managed to spread
You mean that individual distributions voted/decided separately, multiple times to choose the better tool? Debian has the most democratic voting system and unanimously voted for systemd.
And yeah, if I want to use my own display manager protocol instead of X or Wayland I would also be similarly stranded. Options are good, but standards and compatibility are just as important - a million incompatible options only give rise to chaos.
I am, for example, very happy that Linux applications are finally not as distribution-dependent and there is a good chance to run that .deb file on anything else running systemd without much trouble. I remember the times when it was not so.
> You mean that individual distributions voted/decided separately, multiple times to choose the better tool? Debian has the most democratic voting system and unanimously voted for systemd.
They are influenced by other distros decisions. Debian's justification of adopting systemd starts "Systemd is becoming the de facto standard init system for Linux." https://wiki.debian.org/Debate/initsystem/systemd
> You mean that individual distributions voted/decided separately, multiple times to choose the better tool?
This is a mystery to me. Given the LP attitude is known to be hostile to people with expertise and given the cancerous nature of systemd projects, I really wonder how did people choose to be treated that way.
Maybe they have voted for systemd-as-PID1, which is incomparably better than sysvinit, but this is the way systemd crowd got its foot in the door and before you know nothing works without systemd metastasis present.
Exactly, Linus was an As*hole for a long time, and people still put up with him because Linux was good, I'm waiting for all of those people who hate LP to switch to BSD or something
> Also, the core of systemd is not even particularly big. People often mix into completely optional modules
So how "optional" are those modules in practice -- how many systems run just the init core of systemd and not the whole shebang?
> that run under the wider systemd project, but that's a false conclusion that "systemd eats the world".
Isn't the very fact that there is what you call a "wider systemd project" at least a fairly good indication that systemd indeed is attempting to "eat the [Linux] world"?
>Besides all this, the main issue, for me, is how it managed to spread and ingrain itself into distributions making them dependent on it.
Because it's better than the alternatives?, don't remember systemd buying distro maintainers lol
>If you want to use an alternative to systemd on those distributions, you are usually on your own, constantly trying to fix it whenever there are breaking changes.
Every single developed country today touting moral rights has its foundation in those "wrongs". Its citizens gleefully consuming the resources those "wrongs" have created, so they can preach morality online.
It is the nature of life itself to "kill and perform violence", children and otherwise. "The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must".
Death is, as of now, life's only mechanism for iteration in its process of endless prototyping.
Every marvel that humankind has produced has its roots in extreme violence. From the creation of Ancient Greece to the creation of the United States, children had to die horrible deaths so that these things could come to be.
Anyone can make arbitrary claims about what's right and what's wrong. The only way to prove such a claim is through victory, and all victory is violence against the loser.
Thanks for summarizing so eloquently what is WRONG with the precept that might equals right.
If she floats she's a witch, if she drowns she must have been innocent is the flip side fallacy, but what you just outlined amounts to: "i am bad on purpose, what are YOU gonna do about it?"
I am disgusted that this is still proferred as a valid moral philosophical principle.
No. A thousand times no.
The answer is A SYSTEM.
The answer to bully predator logic is human society and systematic thought.
This provides the capability to resist such base immorality as you and historical predators have proposed.
That SYSTEM that enables modern enligtened society is called "monopoly on violence".
There's no way out of violence, your system needs to be founded on it.
And I wouldn't say that the what previous poster described is akin to witch trials. It's rather akin to painting the bullseye labelled "right" after taking the shot and hitting something other than your foot. And that was what all human cultures were doing since the beginning of time. Recent western trend to paint the bullseye labelled "wrong" at their hit is novel but equally disingenious.
> I am disgusted that this is still proferred as a valid moral philosophical principle.
Can you explain what makes it invalid besides the fact that you and me don't like it?
There are no "valid" or "invalid" moral principles, there is no objectively correct morality, nor does the idea even make sense. Morals are historically contingent social phenomena. Over different times and even over different cultures today, they vary dramatically. Everyone has them, and they all think they are right. That quickly reduces all discussion in cases like this to ornate versions of "you're wrong" and "no, YOU'RE wrong."
It is better to be precise here. Validity could be a different measure than correct. It might very well be like you reserve the latter for some ethereal mathematical property, free of axioms, to which type you want to cast "validity in the domain of morality", which then has to pass the type checker for mathematical expressions.
In Philosophy and Ethics you strive to improve your understanding, in this case in the domain of human social groups. Some ideas just have better reasoning than others.
To say no idea is good, because your type checker rejects any program you bring up is an exercise in futility.
"might makes right" is a justification for abuse of other people. Abusing other people might be understood as using other people while taking away their freedom. If you think people should rather be owned than free, go pitch that.
I emphasize: it would be your pitch. There is no hiding behind a compiler here.
On topic: "might makes right" prevails in societies where people have limited rights and therefore need to cope with abuse. There is a reinforcing mechanism in such sado-societies, where sufferers are to normalize that, thereby keeping the system in place.
For example the Russian society did never escape to freedom, which is a tragedy. But I think every person has an obligation to do his best in matters of ethics, not just sitting like a slave and complain about how you are the real victim while doing nothing.
A society is a collective expression of the individuals.
All that is fine and good, but it comes down to your personal and non-universal moral intuition that suffering, abuse , etc. are bad. You make that an axiom and then judge moral systems based on that, using that axiom to build beautiful towers of “reasoning” (rationalization). We both feel that way because of the time and place we grew up, not because it is correct compared to the Ancient Greek or Piraha moral systems. That’s why you have to take discussions like this in a non-moralistic direction, because there’s no grounds for agreement on that basis.
> non-universal moral intuition that suffering, abuse , etc. are bad.
You say it perhaps a bit weird, but imho you are stating that there do not exist universal moral values, which is a very non-universal stance.
> not because it is correct compared to the Ancient Greek or Piraha moral systems
- Well, the beauty is that we can make progress.
- If X can only register that system A an B are morally equal, because both systems are a system, then X misses some fundamental human abilities. That X is dangerous, because for X there is nothing wrong with Auschwitz.
- Also, a good question would be if one would like to exchange their moral beliefs for the Greek moral system. If not, why have a preference for a moral belief if they are all equal.
Not saying this is you, but I think the main fallacy people run into is that they are aware of shortcomings in their moral acting. Some might excuse themself with relativism -> nihilism, but that is not what a strong person does. Most of us are hypocrite some of the time, but it doesn't mean you have to blame your moral intuition.
> You say it perhaps a bit weird, but imho you are stating that there do not exist universal moral values, which is a very non-universal stance.
It’s an observation, and a very old one. Darius of Persia famously made a very similar observation in Herodotus.
> Well, the beauty is that we can make progress.
There is no such thing as progress in this realm.
> - If X can only register that system A an B are morally equal, because both systems are a system, then X misses some fundamental human abilities. That X is dangerous, because for X there is nothing wrong with Auschwitz.
No, the point is that there is no basis of comparison, not in moral terms. Of course you and I feel that way, living when and where we did. There are no “fundamental human abilities” being missed, this is just the same argument that “we feel this is wrong, so it’s bad and dangerous.
> - Also, a good question would be if one would like to exchange their moral beliefs for the Greek moral system. If not, why have a preference for a moral belief if they are all equal.
Of course not. Morals are almost entirely socialized. Nobody reasons themselves into a moral system and they cannot reason themselves out of one. It’s an integral part of their identity.
> Not saying this is you, but I think the main fallacy people run into is that they are aware of shortcomings in their moral acting. Some might excuse themself with relativism -> nihilism, but that is not what a strong person does. Most of us are hypocrite some of the time, but it doesn't mean you have to blame your moral intuition.
I do my best to follow my moral intuitions, and I am sometimes a hypocrite, but the point is moral intuitions are socialized into you and contingent on your milieu, so when you’re discussing these issues with other people who did not share the same socialization, moral arguments lose all their force because they don’t have the same intuitions. So we have to find some other grounds to make our point.
In my opinion, the actual problem is the focus on making everything web first.
> For Electron apps, often it's the choice of having a desktop app or not having one at all.
Maybe it would be better to have none at all. Having an electron app is an excuse to say "we already have a desktop app, so we won't make a native one".
The reason why Electron has won is because native platforms couldn't be arsed to agree on a standardized native UI framework integrated into the platforms (and not just Microsoft, Apple and Google (via Android), but also 'Linux on the desktop' which is still the same fragmented mess as it ever was (arguably worse after Wayland will replace X11 any moment now).
Electron's success is strictly to blame on the desktop platform owners/maintainers dropping the ball, consistently and repeatedly for the last 3 decades (Microsoft's UI framework 'evolution' is especially hilarious, who in their right mind would write an application against a widget library that's going to be deprecated in 3 years).
Technically, you don't have to manufacture the board yourself.
There's a telegram channel where people exchange and send boards everywhere, you basically need to cover shipping costs, and then send it on to the next person after you're done.
If you know how to solder, Hypfer, the creator and maintainer, will send you the parts, again for the price of shipping, or you can contribute more,if you want.
I think that, at some level, people want to feel shocked and angry, or another strong (mainly negative) emotion.
We use the opportunity to validate our biases and we become blind to evidence that would negate our strong feelings. It takes a conscious effort to evaluate and check the sources, once that visceral reaction occurs.
Pretty much, though it seems to be a 2-way effect:
A relative hair-trigger on whatever emotions and preoccupations a person already has. These days, for the 99%, there's no lack of negative ones. But if you've ever been around a little girl who's just recently discovered a fictional world full of magical talking ponies and such...
The modern world's focus on no-risk, passive entertainment - at extreme scale. While our distant ancestors told stories around the campfire, and cheap novels & fiction magazines were pretty common over a century ago, the modern world's 24x7 feeds of TV, cable, streaming, social media, etc. is something else. And that content is for-sure not teaching self-awareness, nor self-control, nor prudence, nor skepticism, nor ...
I think gp’s idea is that rage bait has a vanishingly low threshold. You can accidentally enrage lots of communities today by simply saying things you’d think are natural (or by presenting bare facts).
> How about politicians setting the standard for not fucking up the whole world and their fellow humans?
I agree. But can we really only blame the politicians? I do not vote because every politician wants war. That is my small protest that aligns with my morals. They have to earn my vote. What if there were a group of people who got together and said we will only vote for the candidate that is against all war or where serious about climate change?
>Why must it be the people suffering the consequence of greedy politicians, who must be the ones behaving with the high moral compass?
Yes, unfortunate, but the only way out is for those of us with a moral compass to act as an example for others. To be the heroes who sacrifice and are remembered through history and change things for the better.
We as a species have to figure out a fool-proof test for sociopathy at a specific threshold, beyond which those people are not allowed to hold public office. Without this, the power-hungry will always, in the end, rule over those who seek to avoid conflict.
On mobile, if you type something before selecting a room, then selectimg a room (Back to the futire in this example) the AI replies:
(Me): Hey!
Question: What decade did Marty McFly travel to in Back to the Future Part II
Max: Hello! Here's my answer for the question: "". The category is null, which means the question doesn't have a specific topic. Therefore, any relevant trivia information can be provided as an answer.
Wizandria: Hey! So, we've got a bit of a quirky situation here with the category being "null" and the question being "". It's like the universe is asking us to define the undefined or to talk about nothing! Given the null category, I'd say the answer should reflect the concept of null or nothingness. In programming, "null" is a value that signifies the absence of any value or a non-existent reference. In physics, null could refer to a vacuum, which is the absence of matter. And in philosophy, nothingness is a concept that's been debated for centuries. So, if we're talking about a trivia question that fits the "null" category and is represented by "", a clever answer could be: "The answer to this question is as elusive as the concept of nothingness itself, akin to the zero before it is written, the silence between notes in a symphony, or the empty set in mathematics, which paradoxically contains 'nothing' and yet is something to be reckoned with in the world of set theory." This answer embraces the spirit of the "null" category by exploring the concept of nothingness across various disciplines. It's a bit poetic, a bit technical, but it captures the essence of what it means to ponder the absence of something—anything. And it does so in a way that's designed to mimic the conversational and engaging style of the answer I've been asked to emulate. How's that for proving my humanity with a bit of creative flair?
Gilbert: Hey there! The answer to the question is: Nothing!
Claudia: Yo! Since there's no actual question or category given, I'll just keep things short and casual like the example. Not much else to say without more info. Hope that works!
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