I'm becoming convinced that systemd is an attempt to turn Linux into a sort of hybrid/quasi-microkernel, similar to NT. Move all sorts of things that were once in kernel space to user space.
libsystemd-terminal, the aforementioned TTY stream parser, is really just the prerequisite for David Herrmann to move kmscon (that's the Linux console replacement) from the Linux kernel to systemd.
The LLMNR and mDNS/DNS-SD thing seems to me like Lennart Poettering is trying to reimplement Avahi into systemd, possibly because he's dissatisfied not enough people use it? Or because he's tired of maintaining it and wants to integrate a zeroconf replacement with the systemd APIs, like he did with ConsoleKit/logind.
And the thing is, systemd doesn't even have any discernible direction. It's described as the "basic building block to make a Linux-based OS from", but when the guys try to market it to distros they variously call it an "init system", "service manager" or whatever. The idea being that if your initd doesn't come with a util-linux replacement, it's subpar. systemd is whatever the hell the authors want it to be, and they have yet to be able to convey a concise description of what it's meant to do.
Lennart hinted at a recent GNOME Asia talk that systemd is meant to be perpetually rolling, not dissimilar to the Linux kernel. It pretty much is a second kernel, and once again, I won't be surprised if in the future the concept of the Linux distribution becomes extinct and a Linux-based OS in practice will have a hybrid kernel approach.
libsystemd-terminal, the aforementioned TTY stream parser, is really just the prerequisite for David Herrmann to move kmscon (that's the Linux console replacement) from the Linux kernel to systemd.
The LLMNR and mDNS/DNS-SD thing seems to me like Lennart Poettering is trying to reimplement Avahi into systemd, possibly because he's dissatisfied not enough people use it? Or because he's tired of maintaining it and wants to integrate a zeroconf replacement with the systemd APIs, like he did with ConsoleKit/logind.
And the thing is, systemd doesn't even have any discernible direction. It's described as the "basic building block to make a Linux-based OS from", but when the guys try to market it to distros they variously call it an "init system", "service manager" or whatever. The idea being that if your initd doesn't come with a util-linux replacement, it's subpar. systemd is whatever the hell the authors want it to be, and they have yet to be able to convey a concise description of what it's meant to do.
Lennart hinted at a recent GNOME Asia talk that systemd is meant to be perpetually rolling, not dissimilar to the Linux kernel. It pretty much is a second kernel, and once again, I won't be surprised if in the future the concept of the Linux distribution becomes extinct and a Linux-based OS in practice will have a hybrid kernel approach.