MINT taken over by private interests....

[PKTKS]

Seen this film a dozen times last decades...

BIG corp buz takeover small or smaller folks and gradually sink them..

I am also wondering for quite a time that *NIX has been taken over
by private interests .. big corps (fill the blanks..) which has nothing
to do with *NIX but sinking them for their good...

CF SLASH.. it won't take long...

https://linux.slashdot.org/story/22/01/10/1930243/linux-mint-sells-out-for-mozilla-money?utm_source=rss0.9mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

https://www.linuxmint.com/start/

this film repeats over and over.. no changes.
no competition no market .. just a hand of big corps buz...

Paul

[voltsandjolts]

More hyperbole me thinks.

I use Mint and AFAICT they have accepted sponsorship from Mozilla in exchange for delivering plain-vanilla FF, just as any user would get if they downloaded FF from Mozilla's website. You don't even have to use it. Isn't Brave the new kid on the block anyway?

Mint is an excellent distribution (for me) and if this keeps developers employed/interested or even expands the number of paid developers, then great. All the better for me.

[PKTKS]

More hyperbole me thinks.

I use Mint and AFAICT they have accepted sponsorship from Mozilla in exchange for delivering plain-vanilla FF, just as any user would get if they downloaded FF from Mozilla's website. You don't even have to use it. Isn't Brave the new kid on the block anyway?

Mint is an excellent distribution (for me) and if this keeps developers employed/interested or even expands the number of paid developers, then great. All the better for me.

Made a MINT vanilla to my 6y nephew play his loved games...
Minecraft and Sargent MarkiV BrutalDoom (comic mode)..

He love that xyt... can "upgrade" system.. click anything..
fuss around..  that buntu thingys is made for kids..
obviously he does not have a clue what he does..

Choosen that hoping to prevent to expose him to the under the hood
model of thinking that letting your privacy data in the hands of
some corp buz.. (GPS info, com info... habits etc.. ) is a natural
or normal thing..

E.G> it should not be normal for a child to think that surrender
his personal data info is acceptable...  it should...not

Things got to ground zero again..

Starting to look alternatives to wipe out the mint machine
with some safe trusty other.. free of commercial spyware shitware..

I think Arch derivatives should be fine for him now...
still wondering..

Paul

[voltsandjolts]

Which meds are you on exactly?
Please stick to the prescribed dosages, for your own safety.

[PKTKS]

Which meds are you on exactly?
Please stick to the prescribed dosages, for your own safety.

Just coffee strong black no sugar... 

Helps me keep the pace of maintaining things working at safe sane level...

Including our game server....  alas ... he loves that so much he
kept his super heroes on top of it.. 

BUNTUs were working fine so far .. in such case...
I think it won't take long to turn out to be EXACTLY a MS replica...

Paul

[AntiProtonBoy]

Talking about a storm in a teacup. Of all the companies that could buy out Mint, Mozilla is not a terrible option. I'd rather have them than Google, Facebook, etc.

[PKTKS]

Talking about a storm in a teacup. Of all the companies that could buy out Mint, Mozilla is not a terrible option. I'd rather have them than Google, Facebook, etc.

The idea crossed my mind.. but fast the bottom line arises..
Unless you play the game by (fill the blanks) rules..

Soon it should be impossible to have a non privatized hardware+software OS

Things just add-up.  Add this one combine them all

https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2020/11/17/meet-the-microsoft-pluton-processor-the-security-chip-designed-for-the-future-of-windows-pcs/

Paul

[Nominal Animal]

BIG corp buz takeover small or smaller folks and gradually sink them..

No, they only took Mozilla money in exchange for using the exact Mozilla Firefox package in Mint, and use specific Firefox-related settings like search engines.

I'm not sure how I feel about it, especially long term (did they tie their hands for the foreseeable future?  What if Mozilla turns Google, and starts exploiting the users as the commodity they sell?), but I do understand why they did it: it was a fair financial transaction, that helps keep Mint alive.

The main reason I do not think this is indicative of future direction taken by Mint devs at all, is that right now, all browsers are monetized to some degree, or bastardized somehow.  (One of my favourite related peeves is how UTF-8 has been declared the only non-legacy character set, so that it is the only one you cannot choose as your default character set; and basically all browser developers agreed to do this.  Why?  That much extra work to make sure users cannot choose a single character set as their default one?  Insane.)

Now, if Mint developers and maintainers were taking money from anyone besides the upstream package developer, in exchange for packaging a specific version of some application, then I would agree with PKTKS that this would be worrying.  But, because it is just upstream Mozilla, I don't think it is a takeover situation; and is just one of those search-engine-default type of deal that in this case also includes a clause that you keep to upstream version of the browser.  Very limited, very clear, and does not hide any details.  And thus far it seems they do not intend to make it any harder for end users to use a non-Mint package for the browser either.  So, looks like above-the-board to me, even if I am not sure I like the move.

[PKTKS]

BIG corp buz takeover small or smaller folks and gradually sink them..

No, they only took Mozilla money in exchange for using the exact Mozilla Firefox package in Mint, and use specific Firefox-related settings like search engines.
(..)

Well.. considering a couple of rationales..:
- by undisclosed amount of money.. sure they are not doing that for kicks..
- considering how long and so many times.. MS tried to shit out Mozilla...
  seems reasonable to assume Mozilla is carving out  their path into a distro
 ( very well chosen one)  so they will have their spot in the sun..

I can not see this so kind ..

Considering how hard  MS is trying to enter and lock everything bottom to top
into their own realm...  running atop their safe  bundled processor

That security gizmo..   combined with top down GPU lock..
make any browser useless unless having the so called partner
support by them..

Kernel devels rejected once.. and IMHO should reject that shit for good

https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/phoronix/latest-phoronix-articles/1302053-microsoft-reworks-the-dxgkrnl-driver-it-wants-to-get-into-the-linux-kernel

Paul

[SiliconWizard]

BIG corp buz takeover small or smaller folks and gradually sink them..

No, they only took Mozilla money in exchange for using the exact Mozilla Firefox package in Mint, and use specific Firefox-related settings like search engines.

I'm not sure how I feel about it, especially long term (did they tie their hands for the foreseeable future?  What if Mozilla turns Google, and starts exploiting the users as the commodity they sell?), but I do understand why they did it: it was a fair financial transaction, that helps keep Mint alive.

Yep. A lot of ado for not (that) much so far... but obviously, big money never comes with no strings attached, thinking otherwise is delusional.

Unfortunately, all major Linux distros (those that get any kind of traction) are now maintained by large organizations that need the money to function, so the consequences are inevitable. Sooner or later.

The only thing you can do, if you're uncomfortable with that, is to use none of those distros, and settle for something a lot less popular. Quite a few out there that are decent and, not being as "mainstream" as Mint or Ubuntu (or...) do not come with the same potential issues. Of course the extreme is, you can always make your own distro.

[PKTKS]

BIG corp buz takeover small or smaller folks and gradually sink them..

No, they only took Mozilla money in exchange for using the exact Mozilla Firefox package in Mint, and use specific Firefox-related settings like search engines.

I'm not sure how I feel about it, especially long term (did they tie their hands for the foreseeable future?  What if Mozilla turns Google, and starts exploiting the users as the commodity they sell?), but I do understand why they did it: it was a fair financial transaction, that helps keep Mint alive.

Yep. A lot of ado for not (that) much so far... but obviously, big money never comes with no strings attached, thinking otherwise is delusional.
(..)

With that  PUTO processor inside every MOBO forced in everybody life?
Don't think so it is much a do about nothing... 

I will ditch these MS PUTO processors MOBOs by default..

Paul

[JohanH]

Please give Mozilla some slack. They are not the worst guys currently (title has a tendency to rotate). The worst threat against a free Internet is Google's total dominance in the browser market. They have a big influence on web standards and their corporate interest sometimes overshadows what is beneficial for common people. Now I don't believe in evil and good talk (everything isn't black and white), but without competition, Google can do a lot of harm without anyone noticing. That's why I prefer to use Firefox and so should anyone else who understands the importance of the whole situation. Would it have been the other way around, I would of course been using Google's browser. 

[PKTKS]

Please give Mozilla some slack. They are not the worst guys currently (title has a tendency to rotate). The worst threat against a free Internet is Google's total dominance in the browser market. They have a big influence on web standards and their corporate interest sometimes overshadows what is beneficial for common people. Now I don't believe in evil and good talk (everything isn't black and white), but without competition, Google can do a lot of harm without anyone noticing. That's why I prefer to use Firefox and so should anyone else who understands the importance of the whole situation. Would it have been the other way around, I would of course been using Google's browser. 

I am a big fan boy of Mozilla...
They saved me from the nasty alternatives... since 90s...

Never ever needed any other browser..

They have my deep respects concerning their great work..
resistance across all these decades of MS dirt tricks..

But even being optimist the short future ahead is closing fast..

RedHat now IBM give a shit to everybody POTTERIX has been promoted
to de facto system .. from there nothing better should come..

Debian was totally biased to POTTERIX since the sponsors put a lot
of biased seats on all Debian chain..  Devuan is a life saver boat ..

MINT based on BUNT base on Debian.. is a really alternative to MS nasty realm.

But if they lock the hardware and do the same dirt game as usual..
Partners and hidden sick things...

things are getting messy.. Firefox changed way too much
to "position" themselves in this trends..

Hopefully they will still resist these new dirt tricks..
But hardware processors are not simple..

IF we can can dessolder them from these "new" PCs..

Paul

[JohanH]

RedHat now IBM give a shit to everybody POTTERIX has been promoted
to de facto system .. from there nothing better should come..

Debian was totally biased to POTTERIX since the sponsors put a lot
of biased seats on all Debian chain..  Devuan is a life saver boat ..

I respect that everyone doesn't like everything. But some in the systemd disliker crowd for sure sound like they have escaped from some mental institution. Why all the hate and foul talking? Sounding like someone robbed them off their childhood, or worse. If you have real arguments and facts, no need to sound like some batsh*t crazy right-wing conspiracy believer. State your facts and leave it at that. With this kind of talk, you will never, ever, convince anyone of your standpoint, they will only see the foul naming and not the real arguments.

[PKTKS]

I respect that everyone doesn't like everything. But some in the systemd disliker crowd for sure sound like they have escaped from some mental institution. Why all the hate and foul talking? Sounding like someone robbed them off their childhood, or worse. If you have real arguments and facts, no need to sound like some batsh*t crazy right-wing conspiracy believer. State your facts and leave it at that. With this kind of talk, you will never, ever, convince anyone of your standpoint, they will only see the foul naming and not the real arguments.

No man..  absolute no hate or blinded...

They are FORCING this insane bloated daemon with every sort
of useless and absolute impossible to deal with "pile of stuff things.."

WTF does the PID 1 INIT daemon has to mess with:
- DNS resolver (the utmost thing in security..) (not even ISC could release a better one)
- File system messy things.. (all file systems.. formats... )
- Partition handle (WTF does INIT has to handle partitions?)
- User home... (this one came from the madhouse..)
- All sort of device handling cause they need to check devices? for who?
- and the list goes on..

So.. WTF does this makes sense .. at all to FORCE that into every single distro?

There is no hate. Even no need to argue..

Systemd is a EGOTRIP from some small group ..
paid ... they have to make a business over it..

The rest of the sane world should not be kind with that insanity..

The rationale is very clear.
Once they have entered the main distribution chain..

Like Debian ( thanks Devuan fork) Arch. itself (with alternatives...)
and some others just follow the herd..

Now it makes sense for a privatized hardware to force systemd.
Otherwise it would be impossible to use that "pile of glued things"..

Good best practices are one by one the opposite of systemd.

Nobody cares as long as there is a business behind it.

But clever people forked that  and should not be silent about it...
no hate .. the folks are just replicating an old model of bad habits

Paul

[JohanH]

Systemd is a EGOTRIP from some small group ..
paid ... they have to make a business over it..

The rest of the sane world should not be kind with that insanity..

It's just a freaking bit of software. It's not your human rights taken away and innocent people put tortured in prisons. Get over it.

[Nominal Animal]

But some in the systemd disliker crowd for sure sound like they have escaped from some mental institution.

Looking at the quality of the code the systemd developers push out, I wonder if those who think that output is acceptable have indeed escaped from some mental institution, sure.

With this kind of talk, you will never, ever, convince anyone of your standpoint, they will only see the foul naming and not the real arguments.

At this point, systemd, like gnome and others, are already semi-religious brands, and no argument on their merits or downsides will change anybodys mind anymore.

Talking about them in public (as opposed to among contributing developers) is about as useful as discussing clothing brands and their relative merits.

[PKTKS]

But some in the systemd disliker crowd for sure sound like they have escaped from some mental institution.

Looking at the quality of the code the systemd developers push out, I wonder if those who think that output is acceptable have indeed escaped from some mental institution, sure.
(..)

It is a total security nightmare... 

A pile over pile of code glued together..
not even capable to spot the real purpose of so much independent code piled..

Anyone used to secure systems know how hard was the FIASCO
of ISC  trying to re-write a better BIND..

They have figured it out  the hard way rolling BIND back to the good release.

The systemd troop is just not capable to understand a thing about
how bad security oriented is the their pile of stuff..
they collect security problems

If that severs something ..my 6y nephew play games over a systemd based MINT.

Perfect for his games...  say what.. that is enough
Paul

[JohanH]

I don't care which system/component/feature won whatever in this case. It isn't like someone has taken over the web standards and turned the web into their personal corporate gold mine by sucking us poor users empty (or wait a minute, that might actually be what someone is trying to do elsewhere while you are still bitching about init systems!). Within the linux world, you can't always have competition within all layers of the system. Yes, there are and have been competition and alternatives, also in the initialization system stuff. But sometimes harmonization is good for parts of the system that really doesn't matter in the long run for the sake of competition. And sometimes it's not the best alternative from all perspectives that wins. What I do care about is a fully working, developing, forward-looking infrastructure, where components are supported and evolving. If you are so sure that systemd is that bad, why haven't we seen the catastrophic events yet? Or we just have to wait, for sure, before heaven falls upon all of us. I'm so sick of religious zealots... Not going to comment further. Thanks and excuses. 

[Nominal Animal]

I don't care which system/component/feature won whatever in this case.

Well, I do, for the same reason I want my spanners to be made of stainless steel instead of say tin.

If you are so sure that systemd is that bad, why haven't we seen the catastrophic events yet?

I have.  The instability and reboot requirements caused by the incorrectly designed interdependencies between desktop systemd-subsumed components is a huge step backwards for me: right now, desktop Linux systems are way less stable and reliable than they were say a decade ago.  Some don't consider that catastrophic, I do.

The history of BIND (ISC name server) is a good example of how this goes on (it does not get much better, people just get used to dealing with the issues, and I don't like it).  To this day, there are tons of humans who consider BIND essential to their infrastructure.  Yet, their security and bug record is absolutely horrid.  Perhaps that sort of catastrophes are irrelevant to you, but they aren't to me.

We can do better.  Some people, like Devuan developers, are trying to deal with it.  Me, I have finite resources, so I try to help make things better where I can.  In the meantime, I too will use the tools-made-of-tin (like Ubuntu, Mint, and even proprietary software, even though I don't use Windows at all anymore); but I won't stop trying to show we could do better.  If that is "religious zealotry", then I'll gladly be one.

Now, Paul (PKTKS) has a particular communications style, that may look like fearmongering and exaggeration.  I think it may be just a stylistic or communications or language issue.  There is a valid point in there somewhere, but the style makes it look all blown out of proportion.  But, when you look at their posts, it's just the style.  I've started to treat it like I would if someone had a lisp or a stutter, because Me Fail English Too.  (If we ever meet and speak English, I will speak Finnish Rally English, even though most Finns deride it, and I can emulate an American accent somewhat, because it is just more honest and easier to understand for the listener.)

It would be nice if he could work on his writing style, but then again, I personally am trying hard to not make so damn long and verbose posts, and failing.  While I do try to give others more slack than I require for myself, sometimes frustration makes me fail that too.  Perhaps you yourself could consider how to do better, rather than just condescendingly tell others that the world is not perfect and we should just accept it the way it is?  You know, simply because we can make it better, even if just a tiny little part at a time.  Or at least not call people who try to do that "religious zealots", please.

[JohanH]

Or at least not call people who try to do that "religious zealots", please.

I think the pandemic takes a toll and brings out worse sides (I feel tired). I can understand the technical viewpoints, but I have no sympathy for people just throwing hatred around. Of course, now I fell in the same trap here, playing with name calling and foul words. Sorry for that.

I think (my persional impression here) the issue with systemd is that it changed the way how smaller distributions dealt with certain components of the system. For better and for worse. I've been using all of the Redhat based systems for 20+ years (and Debian a bit less), so haven't seen much of the distributions having had issues. I haven't dealt with BIND a lot, so cannot comment on that particular issue. For certain there are critical areas in the infrastructure that need a lot more attention and fortunately, we see also companies finally realizing that they have to throw resources at it. Even if you don't admit it, even the smaller distros are dependent on components in the system that are financed and backed by corporations (to begin with, the kernel itself...). The way forward is through organizing and cooperating so that there are resources throughout the free software infrastructure. Big corporations should give more back to the free software world in form of development and helping upstream components. And it will happen, not because they have to, but because they realize it is in their own interest. It is in this whole picture systemd is such a small issue, that my personal opinion is, that it a waste of time throwing energy on discrediting it instead of using that energy on something useful.

[Ed.Kloonk]

Aren't there any distros left that avoid systemd?

[Ed.Kloonk]

I think that NA's posts lengths are fine. The insertion of paragraph splits is appreciated. I suspect that you worry about it more than people reading worry about it.

Paul's post are good. You read them in a similar way someone like when RMS says something. You pretty much know their stance and that too is appreciated. A critical view and any new info in a bonus.

[Nominal Animal]

Devuan, devuan.org, is a Debian-following Debian fork without systemd.

I think (my persional impression here) the issue with systemd is that it changed the way how smaller distributions dealt with certain components of the system.

No, it is the centralization (and lack of documentation) for the connected core system components.  Horrible design known to be prone to failures.  Buggy code, and refusal to acknowledge or fix bugs observed in their code.  Compare to Bind, which was a Swiss cheese full of security holes, and is not that much better now.

(At one time, they even claimed that the Linux kernel boot parameters are not "kernel property", and stole the DEBUG parameter, making many kernels unbootable because early init system would output so much kernel log data that stuff would just grind to a halt.  Their response?  "Make the log buffer bigger; we're not going to do any changes on our end because we matter more than the kernel.")

Main problems include the added single points of failure, unnecessary complexity and overloading of component purposes and communications channels, and in general, the complete disdain for the tried-and-known-working Unix philosophy and modular approach that Linux distributions used to have.  There is basically no bugfixes or patches outside the core group of developers, and the code quality is pretty horrible.  Just download the sources and read them to make up your own mind, though.

Now, the main reason end users are not aware of these issues at all, is that whenever a systemd component (not the init service also called systemd, but one of the components maintained under the systemd umbrella, say PolKit, or the dbus daemons) fails, it looks to the end user as if it was the desktop environment or a specific application that failed.

It is also the main reason that these developers don't get pressured by those who pay their wages: they have chosen a way to avoid being responsible to end users, and therefore end users do not know –– have no way to know –– exactly who to blame or contact when such problems do occur.  I'm a problem-solving junkie, and I dig deep and find these things out.  It is very telling that core systemd developers believe that end users should not BE ABLE to contact upstream developers at all, and publicly advocate for such.

To do better, we should decouple init systems from desktop buses, privilege escalation/policy management, and so on, and implement them in a modular way.
Not only does that make it easier for projects to compete, but the most important side effect is that no longer could subsumed components "hide" their defects, as the modularity itself would force them to expose their issues.  Similarly, the protocols and interconnections between currently subsumed components would have to be documented, and then they could be developed further, replacing the current non-externally-reviewed implementations with something more competitive.

You could say that my own attitude towards systemd components is similar to my attitude towards stuff manufactured in the Soviet Union: some of it works, some of it doesn't, but overall, the design and management of it all is utterly shit and completely cut off from the actual reality the end-users are dealing with, thanks to the barriers (stopping both criticisms and end-user complaints) these self-appointed developers have managed to set up.  The only reason they got there is that they happen to have better social skills and money to pay for community management than those they replaced when their SystemD project started as an init system.

(The recurring discussions in various Debian mailing lists and bug reports is especially revealing.  It is NOT the technical discussion you'd think: it is just chock full of evasion, social pressure, false claims, and whatnot.  Basically a flamewar.)

Circling back to the original topic, none of that kind of community manipulation seems apparent at Mint.  The agreement is very limited.  Unless they do more of such, for example where the partner is someone else than the upstream software developer, then it is time to worry.  For now, I'll just keep a lazy eye open on how things progress.

[Bassman59]

I honestly thought this was about the web-based personal accounting program (like Quicken or Banktivity).