"John clearly states that he believes the problems are distinct from systemd. While many here may not necessarily agree, I do agree that various aspects of the system have become, if not complex, at least more opaque than in the past.”
You're right. I think the problems, and frankly systemd as well, stem from the fact that the community has changed. I've been working with computers and writing code for a very long time, over 25 years, so I think that I am somewhat qualified to make that statement. There was a time when the “lingua franca” of the community was C. If you were going to be part of the community, it was expected that you would become proficient with it. Since everyone understood C, no part of Unix was opaque, from the kernel to userspace. Things have changed. Now, people use anything from Python to C#, with a minority using C regularly. Most are kernel developers. Suddenly, everything not written in the favorite language of the day becomes opaque. I'm not trying to start a flame war by saying this, but I think at least 1/3rd of the problems people have with systemd is the fact it is written in C. If it was written in Python, I have my doubts that it would have created such a stink. There are large, complex pieces of system software written in Python scattered all over the Linux community and no one treats that as an apocalypse, even when they cause huge stability problems. “I think what has bothered me the most over the past few years is the churn and what sometimes seems to be adoption and then replacement of a technology without explanation” This is symptomatic of the way Linux is developed in distributions. Rather than agreeing to common standards, each goes their own way. This is not a bad thing – not at all – but it tends to be disruptive from time to time. “Okay, but when did the community abandon some level of desire for stability?” All the time. A prime example would be Ubuntu. Ubuntu uses Debian Unstable, and forces a refresh every 6 months, stable or no. “I'm also loathe to throwaway my 18+ years of Linux and GNU experience for *BSD at this time.” You can always try Gentoo as a bridge experience between the Linux you are used to and the BSDs.
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