"Basic OS building blocks" means that systemd aims to provide low-level tools that you can reliably depend on across distributions. In particular those pieces that are currently implemented through distribution-specific init scripts of various quality and robustness.

Network configuration in particular varies greatly from distribution to distribution, having a common, shared system would be a great improvement over the status quo.

> So it's trying to obsolete the Linux distribution?

You say it like that would be a bad thing.

You and others speak as if nobody ever had a reason to make their distro work differently. That they're just all evildoers who change stuff for no reason. Maybe you can say there is some of that, or that it emerges as a net result, but in a lot of cases people have honest differences of opinion about the right thing to do. So if person 1 has idea A and person 2 has idea B, you're going to deny one of them to get their problem solved simply because they are scratching at the same itch from two angles? Sounds kind of like software fascism to me.

Many of the current incompatibilities between distributions are not due to evil reasons but mostly historical ones. The vast majority of distribution maintainers, ie. those who should care most about those differencies, already think that it should be time to get rid those differencies and this is the reason systemd has seen such widespread adoption.

Package management is already a sufficiently big differentiator that there's no need for separate network configuration systems.

> The vast majority of distribution maintainers, ie. those who should care most about those differencies, already think that it should be time to get rid those differencies

Sounds made up.

> and this is the reason systemd has seen such widespread adoption.

It seems more like a few very influential players are in favor and the smaller people must follow suit if they want to be compatible. The latter part doesn't seem nearly as voluntary as you suggest.

If you believe that this sounds made up you don't have to trust me, check directly with them in the appropriate venues (ie. IRC or mailing lists). Most of the Debian Developers I know are quite sure that how to configure network interfaces is definitely not the most awesome distribution differentiator, and are seriously aware of the big limitations of the current solution.

Also I don't know who you're referring to with "influential players" vs. "smaller people". How such "influential players" are forcing "smaller people" to do things they don't want? Care to elaborate?

systemd is targeting the totally wrong layer of the stack for such a thing. What makes a distribution is its package manager. We already have solutions like Nix for this, though they sadly might not break the mainstream if Lennart's proposed btrfs volume scheme comes into fruition.

I'd say that experimentation and divergence in systems and application software, particularly if it's easily enabled thanks to the bazaar approach of Linux, is definitely a good thing. Trying to erect unshakable foundations around what is just an OS kernel will only stifle the marketplace of ideas.

Of course, wanting a fully integrated OS is most certainly not a bad thing. This can be done either by using a BSD, or on the individual distribution level if it's sufficiently advanced.

There's no reason third party components couldn't slot into systemd. It is quite modular. It is just a different method of intercommunication, not the end of intercommunicating modular components.

Who do i hear Hotel California playing in my head?

Poettering has already laid out his vision for obsoleting package managers.

Thinks Docker style containers, applied to the whole distro. Every lib or program put in its own BTRFS based container image, and via union mount magic (managed by systemd, natch) "always" (looking forward to the blog entries about its failures) given a proper run time environment.

Sounds like an idea that functions well in a niche and seems like complete nonsense in others.

The great thing about the historical diversity in Linux is that, contrary to the complaints of "pointless" differences by folks in this thread, the various distros represent honest differences of opinion about what's good in a system. If you want to do silly things with loopback mounts and containers, there's room for that in the universe, but it would be wrong to impose it on those who don't want or need it.

I think you hit it on the head to point out that the phrase is meaningless. The whole systemd phenomenon is very Freudian, right down to its name, it's as if systemd fans seek a single component to point at and call "the system", to worship as pater familias. "The system" will not only free you from being precise about what components serve what purpose, it will end all arguments and bring order to their lives in a way that decentralized purpose built components will not.

Maybe they should just use OS X and be done with it.

Trying to obsolete the needless differences between linux distributions on the basic level. The differences that everybody just re-implements all the time, but slightly differently and never decides to innovate or make the status-quo better.

>> basic OS building blocks

> Is a meaningless phrase.

What does "OS/Net consolidation" mean? Or "Base system"?