* made debugging a random system a lot more straight forward
* made putting up software for packaging a lot easier
* made customizing the start-up of a daemon a lot easier (this ties in with the first point)
* made it so I didn't have to go to the guru who's only job seemed to be managing our obtuse set of init scripts that were extra baroque because order of startup really mattered.
That guy I had to go to - he was an asshole an lorded his knowledge of arcana over anyone who brought him a question. I'm 90% sure he made it intentionally complex since he didn't have much skill beyond memorizing those silly facts (this is the same guy who got an entire project reassigned to me because he couldn't understand the concept of functions when I removed some extreme repetition from a python script he wrote). Most of the systemd haters remind me of this guy.
I guess what you're implying is that he helped automate away dead weight and that made the leeches mad?
Where you had ultimate responsibility for the correct operation of the box and any VMs or services that it ran?
The reason I ask, is that despite running many more non-systemd than systemd boxes over the past 22 years, I have had far more time taken up by systemd issues than issues with other init script systems. And that includes Solaris both sysV and SMF based.
The SysV init scripts weren't good, they were crufty and slow, and messy when you wanted to customize something, and -- this doesn't get said enough -- used no Linux-specific features at all. Systemd was an upgrade that was sorely needed, and brought features to the init system that just didn't exist before.
I personally wouldn't touch a non-systemd system if I didn't have to.
The thing they did to piss people off was breaking with UNIX tradition and not prioritizing simplicity. This makes them hated by enthusiasts, tinkerers, people who don't trust tech, etc, and loved or just passively ignored by corporate sysadmins, non-hobbyist everyday desktop users, general devs just trying to make modern software, etc.
It's kind of an unsolvable conflict. People who want simplicity are looking for something very different from people who want everything to just work and never require looking under the hood.
I just think Poettering's (and, more generally, Red Hat's) taste is really bad, so I wish it weren't him(/them). Possibly when they finally achieve Systemd/Linux and the entire stack atop the kernel is stuff Red Hat likes & directs it'll all be worth it, I dunno.
FWIW I also haven't much cared for a lot of Ubuntu's attempts to steer the direction of Linux—they've just lost so badly at every attempt, that it hardly matters.
