I notice you have added an aside :-)

> edit: systemd might be perfect for you or other people, I don't doubt that, it might make things easier for some, in some respects in might do some things better, but if the debate (as it is now) is whether it follows the unix philosophy or not, I don't think one can reasonably make the case that it does

I can and have made that case :-) I guess we'll agree to disagree.

> The way systemd is structured it's next to impossible to use any parts of it outside of systemd

Well that's not true. If you want to swap out a systemd daemon with another one, then you just have to write another service configuration file - see here: https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd.ser...

> nomenclature is ridiculous (system daemon, what's that even supposed to mean?)

It's the daemon that runs the system. init, you realise, is a daemon process? As in, it's a process that runs in the background that is not under direct user control?

> it suffers greatly from feature creep

A lot of folks quite like the features it has introduced, but that's subjective

> took over logging using a binary format

journald can be configured to do text logging...

> gained basic firewall controls

It's a component of the system, which doesn't have to be used.

> assimilated udev

I just cannot understand why this is such a big deal. udev is a userspace daemon that interacts with the kernel, it has had zero negative effect on anyone and it makes total sense for the ones maintaining the init system to integrate it into their tree and maintain it going forward!

> incorporated a bootloader

You can swap it out. Why is this a concern?

> ... and some additional things people took/take offence with: introduced to quickly, criticism was shut out instead of being debated, promises were broken, main developers behind it are quite arrogant and often ignorant when dealing with complaints/bugs... et cetera
there is a reason why Lennart is good in stirring up controversy, and it's not because everyone is just against him for no reason.

I'll stick with technical issues, not personalities.

Just reviewing your links:

https://lkml.org/lkml/2014/8/12/459

No technical reasons given as to the concern over systemd, only some personality clashes ("Kick these fucking carpetbaggers to the curb!" - now there's a convincing argument!)

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http://without-systemd.org/wiki/index.php/Arguments_against_...

Yeah, I've read most of these, I'm really not convinced by any of the arguments

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http://www.infoworld.com/article/2608798/data-center/systemd...

The guy rehashes the same arguments you are making, and I've already addressed each of them - I disagree!

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http://www.infoworld.com/article/2608864/data-center/choose-...

Same author, same arguments - but with a side-dish of "what would the grey-beards think?" and concocted outrage over an apparent schism within the Linux community.

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http://www.infoworld.com/article/2608870/linux/you-have-your...

Same author again, and this time the argument is:

You have your Windows in my Linux

Ultimately, the schism over systemd could lead to a separation of desktop and server distros, or Linux server admins moving to FreeBSD

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http://blog.darknedgy.net/technology/2015/10/11/0//

Yeah, that article was largely prompted by myself I think. I promised vezzny-ford I'd read this, and I never got around to it. I'll eventually do so :-)

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http://suckless.org/sucks/systemd

I'll have a read - looks interesting.