Amongst our weaponry are such elements as... I'll come in again.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1495-nobody-expects-the-spa...
> It is perhaps the case that the "anti-systemd" crowd wouldn't be "anti-systemd" if they felt like they had been heard.
I would say it is the other way around. systemd would not have been adopted as the default init system, had the anti-systemd crowed not been ignored.
But that's not even the main point. The grievance is not about how some individuals did not "hear". It is about the _possibility_ of such a decision being taken with that level of technical-community resistance; i.e. the expectation is that decent process would not depend only on the benevolence of those in charge. That's why it's a structural rather than a personal failure IMNSHO.
And again, there's the conflation, or bundling, of the multiple decisions:
1. Offer systemd in the distribution
2. Make systemd the default option for the distribution
3. Necessitate installation & use of systemd with the distribution
I am specifically pretty certain that Devuan would never have been forked if systemd were merely a configurable installation option in Debian.
You can't stop 5 or so random people on the internet from starting the 100th irrelevant Debian-based derivative.
The fourth item is what I find to be the most interesting. I really hadn't thought about it that way before. I remember the discussion in Fedora mailing lists around systemd and iirc the criticisms were mostly actually answered and handled. But in Debian it really wasn't and it fractured the community a lot.
It is perhaps the case that the "anti-systemd" crowd wouldn't be "anti-systemd" if they felt like they had been heard. Perhaps that's the bigger lesson we should all be learning: to listen closely and respond respectfully.