The Debian init system general resolution returns

This GR will (or will not) give me the reassurance that any work done on alternative init implementations (or maintenance of sysvinit) will not be blocked simply by systemd being the default.

I think that the GR is only peripherally connected with that. As I said, even without the GR it is unlikely that package maintainers will deliberately decline to include support for other init systems than systemd if that support is volunteered by interested third parties.

It seems to me, though, that the GR in its present form tries to force package maintainers to create support for additional init systems even if the upstream package doesn't come with such support and nobody else steps forward to do it. In addition, it is unclear whether packages must support all init systems that are part of Debian or whether any two will do as long as one of them is systemd. One might also ask exactly what actually constitutes an “init system”.

In my opinion it is unreasonable to ask package maintainers to actively create support in their packages for additional non-default init systems. As of now most if not all relevant packages do support sysvinit, and that support should not be removed without good cause. Bug reports can be opened if required, and if the package maintainers don't (or can't) take care of them themselves then those people who are sufficiently interested in keeping sysvinit support going in Debian can help out. The same goes for support for things like Upstart; I don't think package maintainers should be compelled to add, debug, and maintain Upstart support for packages that don't come with it in the first place. If they want to do it, fine; but let those people who are interested in widespread Upstart support in Debian do the work if the package maintainer won't or can't do it, and have the package maintainer integrate it once it is done.