systemd and changes

[Matthew Miller]

On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 09:33:26PM +0200, Lennart Poettering wrote:
> Well, maybe we should discuss this when we actually ran into a real
> problem instead of just "seeing patterns"?
> Seriously, don't discuss these things to death in advance.

The whole point of having these things in testing is to discuss them in
advance. I'm taking a very moderate position on caution here, and I don't
think it's unreasonable.

> Well, it boils to the age old fact that software which is not used is
> buggy. Simply by letting software rot for another 6 months bugs won't go
> away. You have to push things into the distributions if they appear to
> be ready, and they very much appear so to me in this case, and I managed
> to convince FESCO of that.

Was there a conversation other than this FESCO meeting?
<http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting/2010-06-15/fesco.2010-06-15-19.35.log.html#l-446>

There, I see this discussion:

  20:51:41 <mezcalero> so, i would like to keep the options open, but i'd
           like to see the testing for the case "systemd as default"
  [...]
  20:51:59 <mjg59> mezcalero: The feature owner is always free to decide to
           stop pushing it part way through the release
  20:52:13 <ajax> and i'm happy to say no to anything you like ;)
  20:52:33 <pjones> I don't have a problem with you trying to make sure it's
           ready to _try_ to use as default fairly early
  20:52:41 <mezcalero> mjg59: well, yes, but i want to make clear that with
           this proposal this case is not unlikely
  20:52:47 <mjg59> mezcalero: If you're confident that it'll behave itself,
           I don't have any problem with aiming for it to replace upstart -
           but I'd like to see the initial transition happen early, so we
           have good confidence that it works for everyone
  20:52:47 <pjones> I think we need to have a longer discussion as to if
           that's what we're going to do though, even if you do have it
           ready.

And it goes on, but it's clear that the decision made is: We'll go ahead
with the feature as optional, and allow an attempt at making it the default,
but that isn't a done decision. I'm not sure if you actually read this
before or participated directly in the discussion, but if you have, it seems
a bit disingenuous to characterize this as having convinced FESCO that
systemd should be on default.

Oh, I have found a later meeting, from August 3rd. There, the comments
(after a brief discussion o updating the wiki):

  20:05:40 <nirik> What do folks think on systemd? still too early to tell
           if it will be ready for f14? (I know it's not had that much
           testing yet).
  20:06:05 <adamw> i think it would be useful to look at alpha feedback on
           that
  20:06:09 <cebbert> is it still trying to dictate how the kernel gets
           packaged?
  [... different-topic python packaging comment elided ... ]
  20:06:21 <notting> cebbert: have you filed a bug?
  [... different-topic python packaging comment elided ... ]
  20:06:52 <dmalcolm> nirik: given that as it stands it's less featureful
           that ubuntu's version of the same, it's debatable that it's now a
           "feature"
  20:07:05 <dmalcolm> nirik: hence F15, I think
  20:07:11 <mclasen> nirik/adamw: I know lennart was working on a bugfix
           release of systemd todasy
  20:07:45 <nirik> dmalcolm: yeah, no shame in moving it out a release...
  20:07:49 <adamw> yeah, we're going to need one to fix the 100% CPU usage bug
           at a minimum.
  20:07:58 <nirik> mclasen: great.
  20:08:13 <mclasen> I'll try to make sure that it lands before tomorrow
  20:08:18 <mclasen> if I can get hold of lennart
  20:08:21 <adamw> ok
  20:08:24 <adamw> thanks

Which echos what I was saying earlier -- it's not a failure if systemd
doesn't make F14.

> Please, end this discussion for now, and restart it if we find a real
> issue? That's not too much to ask for now, is it?

I'm not quoting all of this to argue, but to bring it to your attention if
you haven't seen already. Having a discussion at this point is absolutely
appropriate if you want to get systemd in by default. Or if not at this
point, as feedback from the alpha release starts coming in.

I understand your desire to get your code out there in the real world. But
Fedora really can't afford to have a marketing-disaster release right now.
Because this is a far-reaching change to a core service, any problems people
encounter will be amplified -- and amplified *way more* than my little
complaints. I want to avoid that.


-- 
Matthew Miller <mattdm at mattdm.org>
Senior Systems Architect -- Instructional & Research Computing Services
Harvard School of Engineering & Applied Sciences