(This is the second part of my comments.)

> This does not scale beyond a very small number of users...

We are not talking about the Linux kernel. We are talking about an init/supervision system. Why are you moving the goalposts?

I would rather interact with individual users and delight them than have a massive audience. This has many benefits: you get friends, you have fun, and you have less bug reports!

But it does lead to bigger things. More on that later.

> By "peanut gallery" I am actually referring to people who don't use your software and who decided they don't like it...

I know. That's why I want to delight a few users than have many. By not spreading the message wide, I also avoid creating a "peanut gallery" of people. You only get a "peanut gallery" when such people can't ignore your software, so I'm going to make sure such people can ignore my software with no effort on their part.

> I have been trying to give you tips on how to promote your work and succeed, based on my own experience.

Your tips seem less than useful, and I guess I should explain why.

You don't know who you are talking to, which isn't surprising; my name is barely on Wikipedia in a footnote.

Let me enlighten you: I have code in FreeBSD. FreeBSD adopted a piece of software I wrote and put it into the base system. I did this by interacting with individual users and delighting them. One of them happened to care about this piece of software enough to push for it to be put into the base system.

So basically, I do what doesn't scale, and I got a lot of users from it. Didn't Paul Graham suggest doing something like that before? [1]

I know what I am doing when it comes to getting users. Sure, Poettering has more users, but I have more delighted users, and that's a win for me in my book.

> In the same way, you can just make a systemd interpreter.

systemd's language is underspecified. As someone who has written a compiler or two, I would rather walk on glass than implement an interpreter for something like that.

> But this is the tradeoff you have made personally. You can decide to support systemd, it's more work but you get more users.

I would get more users faster if I did that, but there's no guarantee I won't get the same amount of users eventually, even if I didn't. And like I said, I like to do things that don't scale because it's more fun.

> You can decide not to do that, it's less work and gives you some flexibility but it's risky.

Why is it risky? Risky in that I'm risking that people won't use my work? That's not a risk; it's not going to harm me if that happens. In fact, getting users faster is more risky in my eyes. Users are demanding when they are not delighted, and there is a risk of creating a "peanut gallery."

(I should write a blog post about these principles.)

> That is a choice you have made yourself to not be compatible with systemd, based on your own intelligence, it is not systemd somehow manipulating "politics" to make you do that or not do that.

I never said it was. I never said systemd's politics affected my choice to support its language. I said that its design affected my choice.

> No, I am sorry. I don't use my real name on here because I have been harassed online before...

So let me get this straight: you tell me to ignore the "peanut gallery," yet you create a new account to avoid them? I'm afraid I can't take any of your advice seriously now.

By the way, I agree that systemd detractors do harass, and that's never okay. I try to downvote them when they are, even though I don't like systemd.

(I will note that, to your credit, I have not seen you be toxic.)

But I've been harassed with this account, using my real name. I deal with it because that's the reality of our toxic industry. Perhaps I am better at dealing with the "peanut gallery" than you are?

Part of the reason I'm not happy with Poettering is because I believe he contributed to the toxicity, directly (by dismissing users, treating them disdainfully, etc.) and indirectly (by generating anger through indirect coercion).

That's also part of why I want to delight users: delighted people are usually less toxic.

> ...the systemd developers have actually received death threats before just because someone was mad at them for developing systemd.

I know about this, and it is unacceptable. For the record, if such people start using Ur (as they might), and then start doing this, I will hang them out to dry. They can go jump in a lake.

> I am not Lennart, I have never worked with Lennart, I am not a systemd developer, I am not a Red Hat employee or a Microsoft employee.

I guess I have to take your word for this because I have no proof of this.

[1]: http://paulgraham.com/ds.html