[ale] Remove systemd network handling

[Solomon Peachy]

On Fri, Sep 24, 2021 at 07:10:06PM -0400, Steve Litt via Ale wrote:
> Not needed because there were already great solutions.

Great solutions *for you*, but not so great for others.  

A whole lot of others, as it turns out.

> Am I to understand that encrypted directories on shared machines wasn't
> doable before systemd? I'm pretty sure that LUKS, GnuPG, LVM, and
> several other tools that you can mix and match for the type/degree of
> encryption you want, existed before started their home directory thing.

Sure, it was "possible" -- but did anyone actually build a coherent, 
reliable system that actually did all of this without having to "mix and 
match" everything in an unsupportable special-snowflake manner?

(as it turns out, yes, somone actually did.. and called it systemd-homed)

> Yeah, if my vehicle used a drop of fuel per hour and put out no
> pollution, yes I would leave it running all the time, especially if the
> alternative required installing complicated equipment on my vehicle. 18
> wheeler drivers leave their trucks on for hours at a time to keep their
> engines warm with oil flowing and battery charging.

Ah, so you do acknowledge there are costs involved with "leaving things 
running", and that there are scenarios where one would choose different 
outcomes based on needs and relative costs.

(I might add that you'll find far fewer big rigs idling for long periods 
 these days, due to government regulations regarding air pollution, far 
 higher fuel costs, and other options for keeping drivers cool while 
 they catch some sleep...)

> Your response certainly shows how much you value free software and want
> to contribute to it. 

Excuse me?  What makes you think you are entitled to dictate how I spend 
my time?  What makes you think that your problems or priorities are more 
imporant than my own?

And what makes you think you have the right to pass judgement upon how 
much someone else values Free Software and should be contributing to it, 
especially when you have no fucking clue about them?

For the record, I am listed in the Linux kernel's MAINTAINERS file, 
responsible for heavily reworking and mainlinging one wifi driver and 
was the upstream for a second that someone else later mainlined.  At 
least two SBCs supported by Linux (and u-boot) were also my doing.  I 
have contributed code and fixes to ALSA (sound) and SANE (scanners). I 
contributed a lot to Wireshark's early 802.11 support including their 
WEP decryption code.

More recently, I currently co-maintain the GPL'd Gutenprint printer 
driver suite, and through my reverse-engineering efforts I am largely 
responsible for breaking the hold of Windows on photo booths and 
drugstore photo kiosks, usually resulting in better output quality (and 
much more functionality) than official manufacturer drivers & SDKs.  As 
that's largely in a stable state, I've turned my attention to cracking 
open the medical/scientific imaging and ID card markets away from highly 
proprietary software suites to enable full end-to-end Free Software 
solutions. I'd have made more progress on that front but even putting 
aside the time-consuming nature of reverse-engineering black boxes, ID 
card printers are quite expensive and nearly all of this printing crap 
has been funded entirely out of my own pocket.

Meanwhile, I am also a primary maintainer of Rockbox, a Free Software 
replacement firmware for various Digital Audio Players (eg "classic" 
iPods) that, as well as being completely Free Software, is vastly more 
featureful and usable than the OEM firmware.  As well as being 
responsible for three ports myself, most of my attention has been 
focused on improving Rockbox's already-second-to-none 
internationalization and accessibility features for visually impaired 
users, plus the endless bug reports, code reviews, and cleanups that 
come with maintaining a nearly 20-year-old 1MLOC codebase and its 
associated public infrastructure.

Additionally, In my current $dayjob I have been advocating for vastly 
increased use of Free Software in medical applications using open 
standards as leverage, and I've made headway because I can show the 
powers that be that it will save them a _lot_ of R&D money vs continuing 
to extend 30-year-old proprietary solutions designed around 
technological limitations that haven't been relevant for the last 20.

All of the above (other than $dayjob stuff) and a long, long list of 
more minor contributions can be trivially confirmed by plugging my 
unique name into Google.

But no, since I decline to work on Steve Litt's anything-but-systemd 
vision, clearly I don't contribute to, or otherwise value, Free 
Software, public record to the contrary be damned..

> And who in 2021 would write a document on printed paper?

....quite a lot of folks, as it turns out.  

Office-centric printing has been on a slight decline in recent years, 
but still represented a nearly $70 billion market in 2020 in the US 
alone. However, printing has always been about far more than office-type 
documents; The photo booth and photo kiosk markets that I care about 
were worth over $2 Billion worldwide in 2020, even with the significant 
COVID impact on travel & tourism. Meanwhile, the ID card market is much 
larger, worth over a billion dollars in just the US.

Oh, did I mention I'm also involved in the Linux Foundation's 
OpenPrinting efforts?  Usually as a bit of a cranky contrarian, but 
dealing with printers in the real world would make even Mother Theresa 
curse like a sailor...

(Gee, it's almost like I know what I'm talking about)

 - Solomon
-- 
Solomon Peachy			      pizza at shaftnet dot org (email&xmpp)
                                      @pizza:shaftnet dot org   (matrix)
High Springs, FL                      speachy (libra.chat)
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