[Nix-dev] How to get rid of systemd (was: Modifying the initsystem (introducing S6 supervision suite))

[Michael Raskin]

>The module system does not prevent us from doing anything, it provides
>a new way of formatting which makes things declarative and extensible.

By now module system has grown quite a few places that behave like
global variables. 

Sometimes functional composition requires to write more, but is easier
to trace in case of unexpected effects… But there are many nice features
of the module system you have written on the other hand.

>Having
>multiple instances of a service is an issue with the module, not a
>limitation in the module system.

Well, with NixPkgs having multiple instances of a package installed
requires zero support from the package expression itself. I do think
that services becoming more like packages would be a good thing, but
currently I have no idea how to do this except by just giving up the
module system.

>In any cases, I do not think we want to switch to something without
>having a working prototype to experiment with.  Do not take that
>personally, this was also the case with the module system [1].
>
>[1] http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.distributions.nixos/1187

Yes, that was a long story of gradual improvements. Even though I still
find the previous state of affairs easier to read quickly, I agree that
you did a great job of reacting to concerns.