I would like to know what Arch Linux and the other distros thought of alternatives like runit, openrc, and BSD-style init. I can at least sympathize with the a

I would like to know what Arch Linux and the other distros thought of alternatives like runit, openrc, and BSD-style init. I can at least sympathize with the arguments for systemd if the only other choice was SysV init scripts. As Richard Gooch once said, "These boot scripts, in the tradition of SysV, can do anything. They are flexible. They are scalable. They can run industrial-strength systems. Unfortunately, they're bloated and ugly. OK, maybe they're not ugly to everyone (not that I've ever heard anyone admit they're elegant, only 'it works'), but they sure are bloated. They are complex and hard to navigate." (http://www.safe-mbox.com/~rgooch/linux/boot-scripts/ http://www.safe-mbox.com/~rgooch/linux/boot-scripts/) But the choice was never just between SysV init or systemd. Couldn't Linux have done something like FreeBSD's rc? Or I read about the daemontools family of init systems, like runit, which is what Void Linux uses. These systems sound like they solved SysV's problems without adding systemd's. That is, they are more declarative, easier to maintain, can handle complex dependencies, and can run things in parallel. But they remained unixy: they are small, file-oriented, and don't swallow up adjacent software.