Actually, yes they did. The use of /sbin/init was something that came up during the Debian Hoo-Hah. The conclusion was that it should be a symbolic link, and

Actually, yes they did. The use of /sbin/init was something that came up during the Debian Hoo-Hah. The conclusion was that it should be a symbolic link, and that there should be distinct packages providing that link and providing the real executable program image file that it points to. * https://packages.debian.org/search?suite=jessie&searchon=contents&keywords=%2Fsbin%2Finit https://packages.debian.org/search?suite=jessie&searchon=con...