It's important to note that the blog post doesn't mean, "Linux is done for," but rather, "Linux is going to be a different kind of system than it has been historically." Some people think this is a good thing, and some think it is not. EDIT: I want to emphasize that I am trying to write this comment neutrally, not endorsing either side, so while my biases may sneak in, my intention is to be fair to both sides. Both sides have arguments in their favour, and I'd hope people consider both before coming to a conclusion.

All Unix-based systems start by running a single process known as 'init' which is responsible for setting up the system, starting all other programs, and managing various services as they run. The change under contention is the widespread inclusion of a relatively new piece of software called systemd, which replaces the historically popular sysvinit, Ubuntu's alternative known as upstart, and various other competing systems. All of these are different approaches to building an init system.

In contrast to some of the other systems, systemd is written less in terms of traditional Unix-style tools (like pipes and plain text files for storage), choosing instead to build on newer and more elaborate communication interfaces and store in specially designed binary formats. Systemd consists of a large family of interrelated pieces of software, many of which are nominally optional but generally expect to be used together. One point of contention is whether systemd is "too large", as proponents argue that developing these pieces together will increase their quality, while detractors argue that this makes it too difficult to substitute components if necessary and that these pieces should not be part of the same conceptual package.

Additionally, the architectural choices of a large, widely-used package integral to the functioning of a running system will influence the design and assumptions of other pieces of software and even Linux itself. Already, the Linux kernel has incorporated the newer communication systems used by systemd into the operating system itself (the mentioned KDBus), which many believe to be a sign that the inclusion of systemd will change the way that Linux operates and the way programs expect to interact with the kernel and with each other.

An important factor here, whether good or bad, is that these choices make Linux into a very different system than it has been historically, and very different than other Unix variants. Proponents argue that this is a step forward, as the facilities offered by Linux historically might not be appropriate tools for the current uses of Linux. Detractors disagree. Either way, the conclusion is that systemd is a change in the way the operating system is structured and used which has been a major point of contention in some communities.

It's not the end of Linux. It's the final death of the idea that Linux should just idly continue to act like a clone of some vague Unix of old because it was better when men were men and their computers had obscure RISC processors with billions of registers.

Linux hasn't really been that way for an incredibly long time, but a large proportion of the userbase still cling to this notion, some for ideological reasons, and some out of sentimentality.

If you read over Wikipedia page of systemd, you will find out - it just does not replace `init` system, but whole lot more. Systemd is a collection of 64 binaries which manage login daemon, networking (DHCP) etc.

In other words to some it seems like lot of not-so-tested software replacing software that was well tested. from an outsider perspective two things seem problematic:

1. A lot of Linux software worked on principle of, don't break userland. Systemd appears to break userland here and there.

2. From any such large software replacing a well tested infrastructure, bugs are expected. The problem appears to be, in many cases systemd developers push the blame of breakage to other subsystem devs (sometimes it could be Kernel dev, sometimes it could be end user apps written on top of KDE/GNOME). This is the part which makes lot of people angry apparently.

I don't agree with the article that it is 'end' of Linux, whatever that may mean, but the article argues that because SystemD is changing what Linux stood for - simplicity, never break userspace, keep as many things in user space as practical, and keep the kernel version dependencies on userspace to a bare minimum and in addition is also rewriting lot of battle hardened software like resolvd and in doing so it will introduce instability and security issues.

I guess the point is end users will shy away from the short term mess and move to another system like FreeBSD.

While I don't know if SystemD is a vastly superior design and implementation to any of the already existing things and I am not sure how much of a stability/security/complexity concern it is, I think that the 'end' of Linux will not be due to SystemD - it has a lot of momentum going for it. It will take something bigger to derail Linux at this point.

I think he means, "the end of Linux as we know it", but that doesn't have the hyperbolic ring of the current title.

TL;DR systemd is winning the developer mind share. Things being built like Gnome which require SystemD thus most things will need systemd.