That seems to be the only credible way to create workable standards. Open source ecosystems clearly do not yet have the thinking and infrastructure around standardization so it may take concerted effort and time to develop the right processes.
I think the "forking threat" applies nonetheless as long as RH doesn't at least broadly go along with the "committee" of the (F)OSS community. Honestly, I don't really see how they would extract any value from not doing that, so I'm mildly mystified by all the "they're trying to take over the world" rhetoric.
EDIT: Aside: Honestly, I don't see much value in trying to "de jure" (as in: ISO or similar) standardize a thing like systemd. Do you see value in doing that?
EDIT#2: I used to work in the semi-embedded space, and I'm sure many of the people I was working with would kind of see a value prop, but I would point out that they were already working with 2-5 years out-of-date Linux distros anyway...
Software is not static and decisions need to be made by everyone the standard impacts. Which is why it is important that control rests in a collective that represents everyone's interests. I think that's the only way we could call it a 'standard' without taking liberties with the word. Wouldn't you agree?
Yes, it's a last resort and that does give the incumbent a bit of leverage. However, we've seen this type of thing before in the (F)OSS world: EGCS is an almost model example.
> Software is not static and decisions need to be made by everyone the standard impacts.
Sure, but systemd actually has very good reference documentation which you can hold them to.
> Which is why it is important that control rests in a collective that represents everyone's interests.
That may be the thing we disagree about, actually. I actually do think that the systemd maintainers actually do have everyone's best interests at heart and not just RH. That doesn't mean that they formally represent everyone's best interest, obviously. (I readily acknowledge that I may have this perception because I happen to agree with them on many issues, but I do try to be as impartial as possible when discussing it.)
>I think that's the only way we could call it a 'standard' without taking liberties with the word. Wouldn't you agree?
I don't. Off the top of my head, my best example would be AC vs. DC[1]: They were both 'standards', but were basically pioneered by two individuals. (For -- as it turns out -- absurd reasons.)
The point is that a 'standard' for me means something more along lines of a 'standard of service' or 'standard of care'. It's more about having a formalized set of parameters of X. It's not so much about the process itself.
[1] Oh, how I wish I could do a real proper link on those words, but here you go anyway: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2AC41dglnM
> I suspect Linux would not have got to where it is with 'gatekeepers'.
Uh, Linus? ... and distros, in general? There are very few people who decide to fork their own distro because, ultimately, good enough is good enough.
You're portraying this as some of cabal of nefarious shady characters trying to do back-handed deals... it really was just a case of the other non-RH distros realizing that systemd was actually good enough.
This is still all Free/Libre software, so if things go awry there's always the option of forking.