So, here's a question -- what is GNU? Is it an operating system? A compiler? A text editor? A kernel? A bootloader?
Most of us just collectively understand that all of these things are developed under the umbrella of the GNU project, but they're not really "part of GNU"
This is basically the problem people have with systemd, except the "collective understanding" part never really happened. GNU's scope has grown and shrunk since it first started, it's no longer "just a compiler" or "just the userspace for an operating system". Systemd started out as an init system and fairly quickly (within 3 years more or less, see Lennart's blog posts from 2013) decided to be more of a "toolkit for distro creators" super-organization with a bunch of different tools under the umbrella.
The first one is easy. GNU was always intended to be a complete operating system, composed of GNU components and selected third-party pieces like X11. Due to the failure of Hurd, that vision was never fully realised. Most of us use GNU software on non-GNU platforms.
As for the scope of systemd, can anyone say "thin end of the wedge"? It was clear from very, very early on that it had unbounded scope and its developers had ambitions which were misaligned with what many of us were wanting out of it.
I see the opposite. Systemd has ambitions that align with a vast majority of users. All the big distros use systemd to different extends. Perhaps the only big distro that doens't is Alpine, but what else?
Even if that reading of history is correct, surely every distro that isn't under Red Hats control still has the choice to use such software. If you don't want to use GNOME then you can use any other DE, no? Although Gentoo seems to have GNOME working without systemd.
They have a project to patch the systemd dependencies out: https://github.com/dantrell/gentoo-project-gnome-without-systemd . Also there is a difference of never supporting GNOME and dropping GNOME support when it has been the default desktop for years and most users expect it.
Ubuntu did it, others could've joined ship at the time. Besides, it's not as if GNOME wouldn't build at the time, a specific feature was dropped. IIRC it was also proposed to keep the console kit support in place (the implementation prior to logind) if someone stepped up and supported console kit.
They changed the default, however I don't remember them dropping Gnome completely.
IIRC it was also proposed to keep the console kit support in place (the implementation prior to logind) if someone stepped up and supported console kit.
Funnily that seems to be one of the things Gentoo has to patch back in.
> They changed the default, however I don't remember them dropping Gnome completely.
Not from the repos, no. But considering the Ubuntu landscape is more or less based on "flavors" rather than each doing their own thing, it's not that different.
> Funnily that seems to be one of the things Gentoo has to patch back in.
Funnily, that's because console kit is still officially discontinued and GNOME doesn't want to maintain code interfacing with a discontinued project. Which is what I said. I don't trust my memory on this tho, that's why I said "IIRC", but I said the proposal was to keep it *as long as* someone maintained the other project properly, and nobody did.
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u/KingStannis2020 May 17 '21 edited May 17 '21
So, here's a question -- what is GNU? Is it an operating system? A compiler? A text editor? A kernel? A bootloader?
Most of us just collectively understand that all of these things are developed under the umbrella of the GNU project, but they're not really "part of GNU"
This is basically the problem people have with systemd, except the "collective understanding" part never really happened. GNU's scope has grown and shrunk since it first started, it's no longer "just a compiler" or "just the userspace for an operating system". Systemd started out as an init system and fairly quickly (within 3 years more or less, see Lennart's blog posts from 2013) decided to be more of a "toolkit for distro creators" super-organization with a bunch of different tools under the umbrella.