If it isn't a bug, why patch it?
And this is a clear systemd bias (and GNOME attitude).
If systemd says it is not a bug, then it is not. And if something doesn't work - well, somebody opened a ticket about something NOT working - then something does NOT work. And if the systemd refused to fix it - who's going to?
Not every bug filed is an actual bug, even though the submitter feels it is. Saying no to bad patches and closing non-bugs with a "not-a-bug" is the daily grind of developers and package maintainers.
The "Heartbleed" bug is a prime example on how bad things can go when you accept patches that circumvent security measures in order to support obscure user cases.
Really, systemd developers accept a huge amount of patches from hundreds of different non-systemd developers each year, suggesting that they won't accept patches is simply contrary to reality. I have yet to see a reasonable patch being rejected on the systemd-mailing list.
The whole position of systemd implementors in Debian was and probably still is: we change how the whole system works, but we are totally not responsible if something breaks, because it is, duh, mainline systemd.
I really don't see the Debian systemd maintainers that way at all. They seem to be hard working and serious to me. I have yet to see a example of them accepting breakage because mainline systemd. As I said, there are Debian developers with commit access to the systemd git tree, so they obviously have a lot of influence on systemd as a upstream project.
Tollef Fog Heen was pretty clear that he is not going to do anything special for Debian. (He is (or was at the time) a Fedora user already anyway.)
I have seen no examples or evidence of this. Really, what specific non-trivial patches could Debian need that couldn't go into mainline systemd? Can't think of any, nor have I ever seen it on the mailing list.
If you can't tell what the hell the trivial commit does, then you are obviously not a software developer.
It is trivial, but it is Debian distro specific and in upstream systemd. There are a lot more examples in the git tree, and also of Debian influence in the general design of systemd. You assertion that systemd developers doesn't care or won't accommodate the Debian distro is therefore unfounded.
That systemd actually accepts trivial distro specific patches, shows that they are accommodating their users. Since it is trivial, it could have been carried by the distro maintainer.
That was a great PR move on part of the systemd developers: to flood the mail lists with the buzz words. Users have no idea what they mean - but they sure sound cool - so systemd must be cool too.
Really, trying to pass off systemd as a "fad" that Debian accepted because of "buzzwords" on a mailing list is outright pathetic; systemd is real improvement over SysVinit in every aspect, and the Debian CTTE choose it because of its technical merit. That the Debian developers agree with this, was demonstrated at the latest Debian GR.