I think that's the right choice. GNOME is leaving non-linux out in the cold. There are plenty of linux distributions that ship GNOME, but there's only one serious GNU/kFreeBSD distribution.

but is there even one serious GNU/kFreeBSD user?

I use Debian on my laptop, and FreeBSD on my server, but I wouldn't touch GNU/kFreeBSD with a ten foot pole. FreeBSD kernel with GNU userland and SysV filesystem layout is the worst of both worlds.

I'd rather see the inverse: a Linux kernel with BSD userland, filesystem, and ports. But that doesn't fit with Debian's strengths as a package repository. Installing packages to different paths on different systems is not really feasible. Using ports means Debian has nothing to contribute, since it completely replaces the Debian package system.

On the other hand, swapping out just the kernel is a natural fit for their system. All they have is a hammer, so they found a nail. Unfortunately it doesn't result in a very appealing OS, since the kernel is not really the selling point of BSD. It works, but it's nothing special. The magic is in the BSD userland.

I like the solidity of BSD and I love ZFS, but the ports system always felt surprisingly flimsy (coming from Gentoo I was expecting it to be just like portage, but it's a lot more ad-hoc and breakable) and I never got on with the BSD userland - I mostly work with alias ls=gls, cp=gcp and so on. If I set up my server again it would probably run GNU/kFreeBSD.

There never will be with an attitude like that.

I don't think that is a fair reading of that email. The remark at the bottom about preserving choice is in line with what Jackson has said before.

Here's the last paragraph:

"The doomsday scenario of choosing between (a) and (b) becomes less likely if we make it clear how bad it would be. We need to provide appropriate backpressure to encourage upstream decisions that support the continued freedom of our users."

In other words, Jackson is willing to drop GNOME from Debian to pressure GNOME developers into not making dependencies on systemd.

No, and beyond being inaccurate I'm beginning to think you are being intentionally misleading.

He wants the doomsday scenario of choosing between (a) and (b) NOT to occur. By making it clear how bad it would be.

But his "doomsday scenario," where Debian has to drop support for all other inits or drop all support for GNOME, is a false dilemma. Debian can still support other init systems, for people who want them, while still letting GNOME depend on systemd if that's what's best for GNOME. Users who don't want systemd can run without a DE, or they can run a DE that doesn't require systemd. (GNOME isn't even the default DE for Jessie, that's Xfce.)

So yes, he wants to make it clear how bad it would be, but he's also the one who's pushing for making it bad. It's not like he's just warning us that someone else will make Debian choose between those two things, he's trying to make Debian choose between them.

Actually, now that I think about it, this announcement has rather serious implications for the current debate in Debian. Several members of the Technical Committee are proceeding under the assumption that the Upstart developers will continue to provide logind without systemd. If Ubuntu is moving to systemd, that work is a dead-end, and Debian is going to have to take over maintenance of that work if they want to use it to support multiple init systems.

They will continue to provide it. Part of what he wrote: > We’ll certainly complete work to make the new logind work without systemd as pid 1.

The decision was already made, unless they can approve _and_ win a GR for overriding it (and I don't think they would win).

The decision to make systemd the default in jessie has been made. The TC is still debating whether or not packages will be able to declare systemd as a dependency.

Ugh. While I agree with some of his concerns about the ever-expanding scope of systemd, all of what he has managed to do during this debate is paint himself as an immature, toxic person, between his call to remove the head of the Debian technical committee and his "ultimatum".