Version 256 of systemd Boasts '42% Less Unix Philosophy' (theregister.com) 135

The Unix philosophy is about composability. The phrase "do one thing and do it well" is about encouraging composability. Some tools are quite complicated and tricky to get right, eg the LaTeX compilers. And that's as it should be.

The full Unix philosophy is a modular philosophy. The modules are specialized tools in the form of binaries and scripts that all have a simple common interface: STDIN, STDOUT, STDERR and the command line arguments. Crucially, these things can be snapped together like LEGO as long as this common interface is used. And they can be inspected and debugged as long a plain text is consistently used.

Composability means when you snap the modules together the outcome still looks like a module with the same STDIN, STDOUT etc interface. In this way you get infinitely many modules that do higher level things forever,and these modules can be bult in 5 minutes by a nontechnical user of the system, on an as needed basis, no programming necessary. It's your system,you can make it do what you want without any help from strangers.

Some complaints about systemd and many other non-Unix style software that exists on Linux are

1) they make up their own crazy interface that deprecates the STDIN, STDOUT etc interface, so cannot be used as a module to enhance the functionality of the Unix-philosophy operating system through composability.

2) because of 1), they keep adding more functionality internally, leading to bloat and NIH syndrome, because they have to reinvent everything that already exists somewhere else since they have no useful interface to those existing tools.

3) because of 2), there is no quality control and quality improvement over long timeframes, because new stuff gets bolted on, but that new stuff is not best of breed, it's just a half assed implementation by someone who isn't qualified to make specialized software. Furthermore that half assed functionality is constrained by irrelevant software design issues from the base package due to bloat.

4) With a collection of bloated software you get multiple half assed implementations of the same functionality on your system, every time you install a new tool you get a bundle of unnecessary duplication. Contrast with a composable modular system: when you install a module, it does what you ask and no more. You install what you want only. If you find a better module somewhere for some task, you can replace just that module without affecting the rest of your system.

TLDR: the Unix philosophy is letting experts create highly focused software that does a single thing and is world class at it, so that ordinary users can use that thing everywhere they want it, or nowhere if they don't want it.

Posting AC, just because.

If you point to -anything- security related to systemd, lets get one thing straight. The code has not been audited or vetted by a third party. It is one huge code blob that has had remote root holes in the past.

For something that is the gatekeeper to secure systems, it never was asked for; it was forced on everyone without any real reason. Yes, it has some cool functionality like setting limits, but a far leaner package could do the same stuff without having to listen on network ports or deal with fundamental UNIX authentication.

run0 seems like something that is just asking for local privilege escalation issues. Has any real security guys checked this out, much less done a formal audit? Most likely not.