The Debian and systemd debate has pushed yet another developer to quit an important role in the Debian project. Tollef Fog Heen has resigned his position because of the constant attacks regarding the implementation of systemd in Debian.

A very important decision to adopt systemd in Debian was taken a while ago, and since then the project has been under constant criticism. As it turns out, many people were fond of the old init system and they want nothing to do with new solutions. Most of systemd detractors say that it's still a buggy choice and that it complicates things, and this seems to be an increasing trend.

Because the Internet is a medium that allows everyone to express themselves in any way they choose, the Debian and systemd teams have been under constant attack since the decision was made. Many users have left any kind of civility aside and have been vitriolic in their statements. This puts a lot of pressure on the developers, most of which work on this project in their spare time. Many of them will have nothing to do with something that has become so controversial.

Debian is an important OS and it has many ramifications

If some unknown Linux distribution announces that it will adopt systemd, no one will really care. The problem is that Debian is, in fact, one of the most used Linux distros out there, especially if we take into consideration the fact that it's used as a base by a lot of other operating systems. Anything that changes in Debian is usually reflected in all the other projects, so the user base of third-party Debian-based OSes is actually much bigger than the number of people actually using Debian.

Just remember that Ubuntu is based on Debian and this is the most used Linux operating system today. Canonical already announced the switch to systemd a while ago and they are already working to implement it in future versions.

Despite the fact that it's been several months since the decision to get systemd by default in Debian was taken, the attacks haven't quelled. In fact, they seem to grow in intensity and developers like Tollef Fog Heen don't want to have anything to do with it.

"I hereby resign from the systemd maintainer team in Debian. Please remove me from Uploaders on the next upload. You've been an awesome team to work with, but the load of the continued attacks is just becoming too much. I wish you all good luck and all the best in the future," says Tollef Fog Heen on the official mailing list. He is leaving only the systemd maintainer team, not the project.

Just a week ago, another Debian maintainer, Joey Hess, said that he was leaving Debian because he didn't like the direction taken by the operating system. It will be a while until Debian 8 is made available, so we can only hope that, until then, the community comes to terms with the systemd adoption and things finally calm down.