Where is runlevel 5?

[Scott Robbins]

On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 11:17:19PM -0600, Michal Jaegermann wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 08:02:45PM -0700, Adam Williamson wrote:
> > On Wed, 2010-08-25 at 21:18 -0400, Tom Horsley wrote:
> > > 
> > > http://home.comcast.net/~tomhorsley/wisdom/braindump/oss-happens.html
> > > 
> > > Another example of the Vogon effect :-).
> > 
> > No, not really. It's not the Vogon effect. This is a very public,
> > very open project; the use of systemd has been discussed
> > extensively on this list, and on -test list, and is listed in the
> > Alpha release notes - it's the very first item under 'what's new'
> > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_14_Alpha_release_notes#Better_System_and_Session_Management
> > - and the Alpha release announcement -
> > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/F14_Alpha_release_announcement -
> > again it's the first item.

I reckon that perhaps there should be, somehow, a place--one
place--where people could always go to find the things that violate POLA
(for those who missed earlier installments, Principle of Least
Astonishment).  Granted, there would always be something overlooked, and
what might astonish some wouldn't astonish others. 

As it is, people are, as Tom's Vogon (sorry about the Volgan to all you
Vogans who may have been offended) page indicates, are supposed to
follow X and Y and Z and perhaps Q, and if it's in any of those 4-10
places (generally speaking, I realize I only specified 4), it's their
fault. 

Perhaps an announcements mailing list, read only, which could have had
something like, We have this great new thing, systemd--at present, it
means you can't change runlevels in inittab so to do that, edit $FILE.

Looking at the page originally mentioned, 

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_14_Alpha_release_notes#Better_System_and_Session_Management

such a list (or page) DOESN'T NEED the things the kernel does (the
several points below), only needs mention of spice if it is going to
completely change the way KVM now works, no need to mention the JPEG
stuff, or even mention of the D language unless it breaks C and C++.  In
other words, a page that just mentions, Ok this thing that you've always
done will no longer work.  Do this instead. 

When someone says, hey, what's this spice stuff, how come I didn't hear
about it, THEN, one can point them to the relevant pages or links, but
it's not something that will make the way they do what they've been
doing no longer work. 

(Or point them to a Spice Girls video, of course, but I digress.) 

It seems that in Open Source, the onus is always on the user--the way
Apple put the blame on its users to hold their iPhones in a certain way,
and if it dropped calls, well, it's your fault for the way you hold it, 
even though that way has worked for you since the beginning of the iPhone.

It's not even in this case, a matter of assigning blame--it's just a
suggestion  to find a place or mailing list to be sure to mention what
will break--and only what will break, so that people who wish to use
Fedora don't feel they have to subscribe to 4 lists and constantly check
4 pages, nor wade through a bunch of things that won't affect them.  

Even the release notes will have a what's changed, but the vast majority
of it won't necessarily affect how people HAVE to do things (as opposed
to how they can now do things.)

FreeBSD has a couple of lists (though these aren't announce only, but
they have a different, and far smaller, user base) where when major
changes are coming, they're announced with a subject line beginning
HEADSUP.  They also will have an UPDATING section that is updated with
each upgrade, as well as a second UPDATING in their ports (3rd party
programs) section, so that if you miss it, it is fair to put the onus on
you.  I'm not saying that's practical for Fedora, but simply to mention
the sort of things that should be covered.  



-- 
Scott Robbins
PGP keyID EB3467D6
( 1B48 077D 66F6 9DB0 FDC2 A409 FA54 EB34 67D6 )
gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys EB3467D6

Willow: Why couldn't he be possessed by a puppy, or some
ducks?