IMO Systemd is such a hot topic because it is written by Poettering. He has a reputation of writing/being responsible for borderline broken software (PulseAudio

IMO Systemd is such a hot topic because it is written by Poettering. He has a reputation of writing/being responsible for borderline broken software (PulseAudio and Networkmanager still crash on my brand new Ubuntu) and being an asshole. In this case it seems mostly a personal thing. The technical changes are also huge, and there is a complete paradigm shift that many people do dislike. Also many people see all these software as solution in search of a real problem, while they add lots of complexity. Now put on your tin foil head and see where this is going. (DBus support breaks Pidings OTR encryption btw.)