The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate

The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate

(b) there is no replacement that looks more attractive than systemd

I would amend that to say that there is no replacement that looks more technically capable than systemd. People who are interested primarily in its technical capabilities see that as making it the most attractive choice. People who are concerned about design beyond pure technical capability don't necessarily reach the same conclusion. You are obviously skeptical of some of those other factors, too.

I agree that the big question is whether the people who don't like systemd are going to create a practical alternative. It certainly should be possible to create a better competitor for systemd than the current options while still avoiding some of the design choices that people dislike in systemd. That said, I doubt that it's possible to achieve some of the stuff that systemd does (e.g. recording things from early boot) without making the corresponding design decisions (e.g. running logging through PID 1).