About 56% of users dislike systemd

Dislike is not usually the best measurement.

Next time try this kind of voting questions:

I use systemd and like it

I use upstart and like it

I use launchd and like it

I use traditional init daemon and and like it

30% of like should be quite impressive

This is ... very suspect.

I suspect the vast majority of users haven't the faintest idea what init system their OS is using, or even know what an init system is.

Even amongst knowledgeable users who do know (e.g., me), I'd guess most don't care one way or another as long as their system boots and they can get on with things (and systemd does just fine in that regard).

I would argue that the sample of users on DistroWatch might be more savvy than 'users', which might skew this data.

If you don't know what systemd is, than why would you even care or know enough to vote on it. Distrowatch users, who really know and love Linux, are arguably more competent to make a determination than "regular" users.

My guess is that number is higher than only 56%, but most people feel powerless vs distro team members who were probably just trying to choose the least of two evils in an uncontroversial way; a referendum might have been a reasonable way to move forward.

The irony is that there are many good alternatives to systemd, but no one system does everything that systemd does.. by design. Systemd has a philosophy that has more in common with Windows than the UNIX way.

The whining about systemd seems never to get old. Is this on the way to become part of Internet folklore (like Gnu Hurt, etc.)?