relaunchd: a portable clone of launchd

[Dan Partelly]

Copying the linux way of doing things should not be a goal of the BSDs. It is enough that unfortunately we are forced
into Linuxisms  and associated wrappers to support  modern GPUs.  Understandable , given how few ppl work on BSDs,
and how little code contributions do the BSDs receive from the massive enterprises they power (with 
some notable exceptions) Let me use this opportunity to thank Juniper for the glorified printf system 
they contributed to FreeBSD . 

Can the BSDs go forward with rc systems alone ? Sure they can , at least for the time beeing, and we will 
continue to use them. But innovation is desirable. 

Systemd might be a terrible implementation or not (I dont know, I dont use it)   but the ideas behind it are sane. 

rc systems are indeed robust, but they should be ancient history. They are nothing but glorified autoexec.bat systems.
Modern OSes need sophisticated dynamic service management systems, fault management, transactional OS
 configuration databases, centralised event systems supporting kernel sources. 


This is the problem domain things like sytemd and dbus are tring to solve. They might doit the wrong way, I personally think
the direction Solaris took to solve some of those problems is the way to go, but at least they are trying to do something, and 
they clearly explored the problem space.


Meanwhile here, some engineers are trying to change the FreeBSD OS configuration to a new DSL, but without any consideration for
issues of centralising OS databases and add innovation like transactions and full concurrency safety. 

YOu gotta ask yourself, since it is only a language change, why even doit ????? It adds no technical innovations, the new 
systems are  not well enough thought  out to support technical innovation added incrementally later. So why are they doing it ?
To change the DSL only ? By now all BSDs user are familiar with all adhoc databases  the OS offer. We are familiar (experts, even) with 
the language they use.  Changing this language , when no technical innovation is present, is , in my opinion, ill-advised. 

It is change for the sake of change, it is change because “someone wrote the code”, not because it solves any real problem , or is a well
 thought out engineering solution.  I really hope someone from the developers wakes up and vetoes those changes for the sake of change,
like Junipers libxo, and attemtps to change the DSLs for the sake of changing the DSL.



> On 08 Jan 2016, at 17:20, Peter Beckman <beckman at angryox.com> wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 7 Jan 2016, Dmitry Sivachenko wrote:
> 
>> 
>>> On 07 Jan 2016, at 05:12, Mark Heily <mark at heily.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> On Sat, Jan 2, 2016 at 8:42 AM, Jonathan de Boyne Pollard
>>> <J.deBoynePollard-newsgroups at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> I recommend, to anyone going down this route, looking towards finishing
>>>> systembsd, especially instead of inventing a wholly new suite of protocols.
>>>> 
>>>> * https://uglyman.kremlin.cc/gitweb/gitweb.cgi?p=systembsd.git
>>>> *
>>>> http://homepage.ntlworld.com./jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/debian-systemd-packaging-hoo-hah.html
>>>> * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10176275
>>>> 
>>>> The reason is that finishing systemdbsd will make happy all of the people
>>>> who want the desktop environments whose design is driven largely by Linux to
>>>> work on FreeBSD/PC-BSD.  The desktop environments that they'd like to use
>>>> have been or are being modified to work with these daemons, over this D-Bus
>>>> protocol.
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> I strongly disagree with your recommendation to adopt DBus and systemd
>>> as core components of FreeBSD.
>>> 
>>> From a practical perspective, the proposal has a low probability of
>>> success. Systemd is written for Linux and is largely driven by a
>>> commercial Linux vendor. It is a rapidly moving target, with no sense
>>> of scope or boundaries. It eagerly consumes the latest and greatest
>>> innovations in the Linux kernel, with open disdain for portability.
>>> 
>>> From a philosophical perspective, I don't agree with the direction
>>> that systemd is taking Linux. It's one of the reasons I switched to
>>> BSD after many years in the Linux camp. To quote Spock, "Logic clearly
>>> dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few". In
>>> case of FreeBSD, this means that the needs of the desktop users should
>>> not outweigh the needs of the server/jail/embedded/appliance users. My
>>> concern with systemd and DBus is that these tools are highly
>>> desktop-centric, and introduce a large degree of unwanted change,
>>> complexity, and risk to everyone else.
>> 
>> 
>> I totally agree.
>> 
>> systemd is an ugly beast, solving simple problem in complex way.
>> 
>> After using FreeBSD's rc system for years, I think that switching to something systemd-related would be huge mistake.
>> No reason to clone everything that happens in Linux world.
> 
> Utterly and strongly agreed.
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Peter Beckman                                                  Internet Guy
> beckman at angryox.com <mailto:beckman at angryox.com>                                 http://www.angryox.com/ <http://www.angryox.com/>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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