One more from Pat (Slackware founder) volkerdi Slackware Maintainer
"Well, the problem with using shell scripts in the boot process is that it goes through a lot of PIDs, and it would be "less ugly" to arrive at a usable machine state with a PID in the hundreds, or lower. If everything has to break in order to achieve that, it seems like a good trade. Eventually all the broken stuff will be fixed, right?
I think that's the basic rationale. And maybe shave a few more seconds off boot time, but who boots much (or cares)? My servers and desktops remain on, and my laptops are usually on, suspended, or hibernated. I would prefer a reliable and well-understood boot system like the one we have.
My primary concern is that the systemd cabal is going to be pushing it as a dependency wherever possible, but we'll deal with that if it happens. But if any major distributions do actually release using systemd, the world will be stuck with it forever. If that's the case, I hope it turns out to be a good idea..."
