Once you go mini...

[ibi sum]

> So I find this really interesting. I believe launchd (and SMF) have been overwhelming successes, and many of the things that make OS X awesome are enabled by moving away from the static and explicit dependencies of SystemStarter to the dynamic world of launchd.
> I don't see developers or admins complain about launchd anymore at all.

How many OSX servers are out there?  Compared to (“still using sysvinit-* scripts”) Linux systems?  I know of *one* person who runs OSX server live on the Internet, compared to 10’s of 1000’s of people who are doing it otherwise.

You don’t see complaints because nobody is trying to do it to the same extent that Linux-based servers.

> Why do you hate launchd?

Because its no longer self-documenting.  You have to dig deep into launch.plist files to try to understand anything, many of which are not documented, and of which you have no real control/understanding until you grok some non-existent/hard-to-find documentation that *might* tell you what some of the keys mean, or may not, or some of the values, or may not.

The beauty of the sysvinit-*/rc* approach was that it was all self-documented.  You just had to read the script to understand what it was doing, and that was all.  And I think that is the crux of the hatred for systemd/launchd.  systemd is an attempt to make administering a Linux machine more esoteric, more elite and more ‘exclusive’ to those who ‘do not hate systemd enough to understand it well’, which will be a much smaller set of people than those who can actually read sysvinit-* scripts, because they’re written in the same language that is supported and used throughout the rest of the system.

systemd is a power grab by a self-elected elite, a true and real cabal, and thats why the hate.  I think your arguments for it are also aligned along this axis in many ways - systemd will create a new walled garden into which Linux sysadmins will be corralled, weaned and neutered.  Gone are the days when anyone can understand the arcane mechanics of system boot-time configuration by just reading the code that does the work .. now, there will need to be training courses, and new books written, and new CM tools marketed to the masses ..

;
--
Jay Vaughan
ibisum at gmail.com

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