RHEL5 came with one init system. RHEL6 came with another. RHEL7 comes along with yetanother init system replacement.
Each of which has required software vendors who build software to run on those platforms to do non-trivial porting work. I know it's annoying the software vendors no end.
I've heard from so many end users that they can't upgrade to RHEL7 (or derivatives) because the software they need to support doesn't work with systemd yet. Stuff that makes them frustrated with both RedHat and the software vendor. Annoying your customers hardly seems the sanest business practices.
Luckily with Debian being on board, and thus Ubuntu, at least there's some incentive for vendors to work at it.
They should be frustrated with the vendor if an upgrade is being held up by the trivial Upstart to systemd conversion for a dozen lines of code. Supporting both init systems combined is an order of magnitude less work than SysV init, and it allows you to rip out a good bit of darmonization code which tends to have details less portable across Unix variants.
It's far more likely that the real cause is one of the many major dependency updates (6 to 7 is like a half decade jump) and the systemd mention is either an excuse or axe-grinding.
RHEL5 came with one init system. RHEL6 came with another. RHEL7 comes along with yet another init system replacement.
Each of which has required software vendors who build software to run on those platforms to do non-trivial porting work. I know it's annoying the software vendors no end.
I've heard from so many end users that they can't upgrade to RHEL7 (or derivatives) because the software they need to support doesn't work with systemd yet. Stuff that makes them frustrated with both RedHat and the software vendor. Annoying your customers hardly seems the sanest business practices.
Luckily with Debian being on board, and thus Ubuntu, at least there's some incentive for vendors to work at it.