[vezzy-fnord]

"Objectively terrible" certainly isn't the case with systemd, but there's plenty of reasons for adopting software in general that has nothing to do with technical merit. Much of the Linux desktop daemons (particularly ones associated with GNOME and Freedesktop.org) have begun using systemd's interfaces, sometimes as hard dependencies. Thus, for the major distributions that want to tailor to the most popular use cases, the cost of adopting systemd is probably lower than patching against the ever-expanding upstream that requires it.

Lots of programmers aren't particularly good at analyzing the cost of surface convenience in proportion to future technical debt. Software is just as frequently adopted purely because it's convenient, well marketed or in a self-serving feedback cycle, because it's already popular.

It's also worth noting that ChromeOS still uses Upstart.

[the_why_of_y]

The primary reason why systemd got adoption it that it solved real problems both for end users (system administrators) and for higher layers of the stack.

It has replaced various kinds of NIH'ed and pointlessly differently colored bikesheds in different distros with stable public interfaces that obviate #ifdef hell in higher layers of the stack.

Your technical debt argument is very apt. It's how we ended up with piles of brittle and unmaintainable shell scripts that don't do error handling worth a damn.

[progman]

As long people have the option which init system (and software in general) to choose everything works fine. However it is not ok to force people to use something they question, or actually don't want. By the way, systemd is not the only way to go. There are also runit and other systems.

I always follow the KISS principle because the more complicated a system gets the more difficult it is to be fixed. I am a Linuxer since 1990, and I am concerned that current Linux distros follow a way which will make maintainability much more difficult by leaving the KISS principle.

[geoka9]

Actually, as long as you don't install things like Gnome, you can blacklist systemd and run Jessie as any other Debian before it.