[MikeTheGreat]

Genuine question: Maybe the pro systemd people meant the word reactionary in it's non-left/right definition? From Wikipedia: "In political science, a reactionary or a reactionist is a person who holds political views that favor a return to the status quo ante, the previous political state of society" [0]

I've heard people use 'reactionary' to mean "doesn't want things to change", or "wants things to go back to the way they were", which would actually be a pretty reasonable opinion for a pro-systemd person to have about people opposed to systemd.

(I'm not saying that systemd is or isn't good/bad, but it was definitely a change, so describing people who wanted to keep initd as reactionary does seem to jibe with the definition of reactionary folks as being people who favor going back to the earlier status quo)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactionary

[DonHopkins]

If the anti-systemd weenies wanted to be reactionary edge lords and return to the status quo, then they should have said something when it would have made a difference during the ill-fated transition from the simple BSD init system to the steaming pile of shit AT&T System V init system that they only think is "classic" because their first experience with Unix was Linux.

It's like saying Nickelback's "Woke Up This Morning" is Classic Rock because you never heard of the Rolling Stones "Start Me Up".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGyOaCXr8Lw

[noobermin]

They didn't. They implied it as a political association. I've since lost the thread unfortunately...

[sugersvoltet]

I think that's part of it, but I think they primarily mean politically reactionary. I wrote more about this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34543573