Comment Re:I agree with Lennart (Score 2) 551
None of that speaks to why systemd needs to suck in everything under the sun that has a server mode (like the gimp and open office examples above).
It doesn't.
That a particular distro/package maintainer utilizes their distro's init-system and service manager for launching a daemon is hardly a problem or even controversial.
And just because something's launched often doesn't mean it has to be sucked into systemd. Angry Birds is launched on Linux more often than most stuff the systemd guys play with -- but that doesn't mean all games need insane dependancies on an init system.
It seems to me that have some problems with understanding what an init-system does. SysVinit/systemd/SMF deals with starting daemons and similar processes, not end user programs like games. Of course, if a game has a server mode what uses sockets and what not, then it probably is convenient to use a proper init-system.
Your container example seems to be taking the wrong approach too.
Lightweight containers like Docker seem to suggest it's best to run a single service within a container --- so the last thing such a system needs an init system -- let alone the most bloated init system in the world. A it turns out, it's quite a pain in the neck to run systemd in a docker container.
There are many different OS container modes, from running single services, to full blown servers. Each mode has it advantages and disadvantages. That flexibility is exactly what makes OS containers interesting.
Unlike other OS container implementations, systemd also support running unmodified Linux distros as containers. That means that I can boot a standard Debian distro on top of my Fedora distro, or running a newer unstable version of my distro on top. It takes seconds or minutes (depending on net speed) to launch such a container. A great way to test and debug new stuff without bothering with a full VM.
The "machine concept" that allows maintaining OS containers from the "outside" is also way cool.
All in all, systemd is on its way to become the best OS container manager the world have ever seen, and that is great news for Linux.