Author of Systemd Quits Microsoft To Prove Linux Can Be Trusted (theregister.com)
- Reference: 0180704046
- News link: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/26/01/30/235231/author-of-systemd-quits-microsoft-to-prove-linux-can-be-trusted
- Source link: https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/29/lennart_poettering_quits_microsoft/
> Linux celeb Lennart Poettering has left Microsoft and co-founded a new company, Amutable, with Chris Kuhl and Christian Brauner. Poettering is best known for systemd. After a lengthy stint at Red Hat, he joined Microsoft [3]in 2022 . Kuhl was a Microsoft employee until last year, and Brauner, who also joined Microsoft in 2022, left this month. [...]
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> It is unclear why Poettering decided to leave Microsoft. We asked the company to comment but have not received a response. Other than the announcement of systemd 259 in December, [4]Poettering's blog has been silent on the matter, aside from the announcement of Amutable this week. In its first post, the [5]Amutable team wrote: "Over the coming months, we'll be pouring foundations for verification and building robust capabilities on top."
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> It will be interesting to see what form this takes. In addition to Poettering, the lead developer of systemd, Amutable's team includes contributors and maintainers for projects such as Linux, Kubernetes, and containerd. Its members are also very familiar with the likes of Debian, Fedora, SUSE, and Ubuntu.
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/29/lennart_poettering_quits_microsoft/
[2] https://mastodon.social/@brauner/115968807569462508
[3] https://linux.slashdot.org/story/22/07/06/2348255/systemd-creator-lands-at-microsoft
[4] https://0pointer.de/blog/
[5] https://amutable.com/blog/introducing-amutable
Linux can be trusted (Score:5, Funny)
Poettering can't.
Re: (Score:2)
> Poettering can't.
Hahaha. Only you know what? All of this is part of why this - and every other year - isn't the year of Linux on the desktop.
People who are getting fed up with Windows issues can't look at Linux as a clean, problem-free destination. Systemd, initd foopd hoopd sunnyd... the only people who care about this drama are embedded in the Linux world already. From the outside, all the stories about KDE this, Gnome that, arguments of distros and windowing managers and... if Linus is or isn't vibe coding this wee
Re: (Score:2)
Android aside the vast majority of Linux installs are backend servers when stuff like how easy it is interact with and debug issues with the init startup and other fundamental subsystems of the OS *DOES* matter. Clearly you have no idea about any of this.
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Thanks for the heads up sherlock and way to go on completely missing the point.
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It's pithy and funny, but it's true. Poettering is the enemy of Linux, open source, and security, which is why he was hired and well-paid by Microsoft. My guess is that they're still paying him to set up this sham company in order to continue sabotaging Linux.
If the Linux community had any sense, they would blacklist this asshole -- from EVERYTHING -- for life.
Re: (Score:2)
[1]MS Linux [archive.org] is still shipping 2001!
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20010331225146/http://mslinux.org/
Re: (Score:2)
Hahaha. You read my mind.
The problem is breakage-ignorant and make-everyone-change-everything people get way too much influence per the value that they deliver mixes with gullible project managers who then foist this half-baked, buggy, incompatible, fragmentation-producing shit onto everyone else. While we could've done better with FHS across NIXes, it would've been better to have Borne script caching infrastructure than take over almost every goddamn thing.
New | different doesn't always deliver enough n
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Besides, Linux isn't - or at least doesn't have to be - synonymous w/ systemd
Maybe Poettering can figure out a way for Emacs to run directly on systemd, w/o needing a separate kernel
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I think the trope demands that emacs incorporate systemd. You access it via ctrl-e ctrl-s or some such. (Don't flame me for that; I use vi, and don't know any emacs ctrl- keys.)
No trust (Score:1)
Well, Linux can already hardly be trusted, but CIA spy Poettering certainly never can.
Let's hope systemd will die soon!
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Poll: runit, s6, or OpenRC?
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Let's go w/ BSD then? Or HURD, if one needs GPL?
uh (Score:4, Funny)
> Poettering will also continue to remain deeply involved in the systemd ecosystem.
I therefore trust that it will continue to be shit.
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When I was at Meta (briefly) and in SV startup land, there were way too many Poettering (and Musk) fanboys. While I grew up in SV, I was gentrified out and renounce asshole VCs, managers, engineers, and broligarchs, and now I'm elsewhere with saner housing prices.
daemontools and runit at least were simple and dependable, could drop-in and stop services on-the-fly, and didn't have a weird-ass broken state where it refused to start because it failed X times before. Oh and GFL shipping systemd syslog to othe
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for people hacking together their own systems I'd admit that systemd does nothing for that. But organizational level mass deployed systems are pretty much barred from linux without something filling that role. then I think systemd was an idea put forward around the same time io_uring was which maybe possibly was the beginning of a compliant solution filling the systemd role. my opinion is io_uring actually increased the attack surface of linux systems. would that have been different if systemd never existe
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Overrated. Prior to systemd Linux administrators famously admin'd thousands of systems vs tens in the windows world. That text/file/directory-based system combined with all the text-mangling power tools in linux, the shell, and perl... nothing compares.
It actually becomes much easier to work with configuration management tools when they are managing the state of text files as the Linux gods intended.
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Systemd units are plain text files, you know.
I honestly don't understand the visceral hate for systemd. I've been using UNIX since 1989 and Linux since 1994, so I have plenty of experience with old ways of doing things.
Systemd, at least in my experience, just works and writing systemd unit files is easier than writing sysvinit scripts. So when Debian switched to it, it was fine. I adapted.
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> I honestly don't understand the visceral hate for systemd.
It is the antithesis of the Unix way. This has been argued back and forth all along, and if you don't agree I won't try to convince you here.
> Systemd, at least in my experience, just works and writing systemd unit files is easier than writing sysvinit scripts. So when Debian switched to it, it was fine. I adapted.
The problem with systemd and unit scripts is that they cannot do all the things that a script can do, so you often wind up using a script anyway. In that case you have really not made things any simpler than the usual case. Meanwhile you've added a whole lot of complexity which is largely unnecessary, some of which is utterly dependent on other parts so it is difficult
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Appealing to "the UNIX way" is just silly. UNIX has been around for over 50 years, and it evolves as people figure out better ways to do things.
The problem with systemd and unit scripts is that they cannot do all the things that a script can do, so you often wind up using a script anyway.
I would say: very rarely, not often. Looking at the units on my machine, none of them uses an auxiliary script to start or stop a service.
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What was the point of the journal log system? We had stable tools for decades for manipulating and managing text logs. So systemd made the logs binary and then re-invented all the same tools but slightly different. Same as with ifconfig. Worked great for decades and now it’s replaced with “ip” and a different syntax. What was gained?
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I agree with you about the binary logging. Not everything about systemd is better than what came before, but also, not everything is worse.
You can still have plain-text logging and AFAIK Debian still generates the normal plain-text log files by default.
I also get annoyed with ifconfig and ip, and iwconfig vs iw, etc. but AFAIK those are not Poettering's doing and are not related to systemd.
BTW, I think the reason for ip instead of ifconfig and route was to add support for different routing tables, wh
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"Appealing to "the UNIX way" is just silly"
No, it's the Unix philosophy of small purpose built tools combined rather than large monolithic integrated solutions and that never changes. But you tipped your hand, you began as a proprietary unix guy and they use monolithic systemd-like chunks all over the place.
"it evolves as people figure out better ways"
The philosophy doesn't, the tools do, but systemd doesn't bring better ways to do things just one built with Microsoft's big monolithic one size fits all phil
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I never began as a "proprietary UNIX guy" for two reasons; one is that I'm not a guy and second is I used SunOS and Solaris mostly as a student and a little bit on the job, and this was back in the day before SMF, etc. when the system was much more BSD-like.
The problem with appealing to "the UNIX way" is that nobody really knows what that is, beyond a few vague generalities. Systemd itself is not one monolithic program, by the way. It consists of 38 small purpose-built executables (on Debian 13, anyway)
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You: "you often wind up using a script anyway. In that case you have really not made things any simpler than the usual case. Meanwhile you've added a whole lot of complexity which is largely unnecessary"
Him: "Systemd, at least in my experience, just works and writing systemd unit files is easier... I would say: very rarely, not often."
If this isn't a constant repeat of Unix philosophy clashes with Microsoft monolithic one-size-fits-all solution then I don't know what is. Yes it is easier to walk up and conf
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But you are not making sense. (And it's "Her", by the way, not "Him".)
As the person I replied to pointed out, if systemd doesn't quite do what you need, you can always fall back on a script. So the common use cases are easy and the uncommon ones are possible.
Now I personally have not encountered a use case that systemd couldn't handle natively, but I'm willing to admit that such use cases exist, in which case... you use a script that you call from a systemd unit. Problem solved.
Fade Away (Score:2)
Hopefully Poettering will fade away now.
Systemd succeeded injecting itself because he had Red Hat's bulk behind him. As an independent, he'll have no traction. I guarantee he'll be looking for work ina year's time.
Please, no one hire him.
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Yes but its been around awhile now. Will all the baby admins who grew up sipping from systemd's teet give it up?
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No, probably not. Most people have made their peace with systemd and I think it'll persist.
Trust? (Score:5, Insightful)
Trust is more than just technical stuff. You actually have to have the right attitude. Pottering's pretentious and overconfident attitude already casts doubt that he can be trusted.
What are building? (Score:2)
Can someone ELI5 what they are trying to build? Is it something similar to Android's verified boot + attestation or Play Integrity?
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ELI5 means: "Explain Like I'm 5"
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DRM
Verifiable integrity (Score:2)
Let's hope this is about countering attacks and not about implementing Android Play Protect certification on Linux.
Given the current microsoft state? (Score:2)
He was probably being told daily to shove copilot in system-d somehow.
Not ruin linux on purpose or any sort of "make windows win" kind of deal, just get copilot inside linux because the copilot SOMEONE has to use the thing.
Bis später (Score:3)
I feel better already.