→ comment to The Tragedy of systemd [1] where Benno Rice said that he’s impressed by the way how systemd was spread into most GNU/Linux distributions and that systemd was a source of ideas for BSD.
Looking at the methods used to force distributions to adopt systemd, i.e. by adding hard dependencies in the biggest desktop environment or by bundling udev and continuously tightening the dependency from udev on systemd, that’s a form of power-play against the distributions. A dependency I really don’t want [2]. One group decided that they wanted to force everyone else to buy into their new system. And then they used every leverage they could get to do that.
SystemD developers decided to become the one group that can dictate conditions on everyone else.
I can see the skill in that power-play, and be impressed by the skill, but seeing how that power is used and what methods are used, I am also horrified by what they did and how they will continue to abuse that power they now grabbed.
About systemd being a source of ideas: systemd contains quite a few ideas that come straight from the Hurd, but have worse implementations in systemd. Systemd solves problems by tacking things onto Linux — problems that have been solved in the Hurd in a clean way 15 years ago. For good ideas, don’t repeat the mistake of ignoring the Hurd. Instead first look at the clean implementation and take care to put functionality at the right level.
In hindsight, SystemD is the consequence of ignoring that the Hurd solves real problems. Of ignoring the technical advantages of the Hurd [3].
Links:
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSi3Lziq5jg
[2] https://www.draketo.de/light/english/top-5-systemd-troubles
[3] https://www.draketo.de/light/english/free-software/some-technical-advantages-of-the-hurd