[modular-debian] Re: Installing an Alternative Init?

From: Steve Litt <slitt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: modular-debian@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 15:06:01 -0500
Hi Miles,

I'm copying you in case you're not on modular-debian, and obviously
have redirected my response to modular-debian. The rest of my response
is at the bottom...

On Sat, 15 Nov 2014 21:41:23 -0500
Miles Fidelman <mfidelman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> As much as I dislike systemd, I'm not sure that it's a vendor
> conspiracy to "control the Linux ecosystem."  Yes, redhat pays
> Lennart Poettering's salary (among others).  But... I'm hard pressed
> to see how turning a collection of free distros into functional
> equivalent's of redhat, or increasing the resources applied to free
> distros, is really to their benefit.  If anything, it would seem to
> dilute the competitive advantage of paid RHEL.

I see an absolute benefit to Red Hat for jamming systemd into all the
important Linux distros. Allow me to explain...

The GPL means Red Hat can't make much money from selling Linux itself.
So they sell service, training, and system integration.

The trouble was, of course, that any company could hire you (Miles
Fidelman), or most of the people on modular-debian, to completely
administer their Linux systems. Linux was a logically crafted
collection of snap-together components with a few very simple types of
snaps, with which a guy with Miles' skills could integrate any system,
troubleshoot any system, and learn without formal training. 

Contrastingly, with Linux universally entangled by and encumbered
by systemd, integrating and troubleshooting become less logic and more
secret incantations. Those incantations are difficult to do, not
especially logical, hard to document, and hard to learn. A difficult
Linux, with few undifficult Linux competitors, makes Red Hat training
and consulting much more of a necessity than before. Red Hat has
everything to gain.

You mentioned a bunch of Red Hat clones not being a competitive
advantage to Red Hat. That would make sense if what they were selling
were their distro. But what they're really selling is consulting,
integration and training, which all become much more necessary with a
systemd entangled Linux. Indeed, if there were major Wheezy like
alternatives, nobody in their right mind would choose the Red Hat
distro: They'd choose Wheezy and hire Miles Fidelman or someone similar
to admin their systems. But in a world of nothing but Red Hat clones,
where every distro requires training, integration and consulting of the
systemd invented at Red Hat, they might as well get Red Hat training,
integration and consulting, and the easiest way to get that is by
buying genuine Red Hat Linux.

Here's an analogy article I wrote on the subject:

http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/systemd/primer.htm

I'm going to stop just short of donning the tinfoil hat, and won't
state that Red Hat ruined Linux for profit. After all, I wasn't privy
to their high level strategy meetings. What I *will* say is that if Red
Hat had chosen not to ruin Linux for profit, they wouldn't have been
fulfilling their fiduciary responsibilities to their stockholders.

SteveT

Steve Litt                *  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance
[modular-debian] Re: Installing an Alternative Init?

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