At this point RedHat has consumed de-facto governance of some core projects that make up the Linux desktop system that sit atop the kernel. They pay developers to work on these projects and there employees have decision making authority. SystemD is almost entirely driven by current/former RedHat employees.
The fact of the matter is that "Distros" like Debian etc are dependent on upstream developers to provide new versions of there system. If a large portion of important subsystems are developed by RedHat developers then they will adopt that code and be driven in the direction upstream wants to go.
"Distros" do not develop, they package upstream into compiled binaries and add there configs and perhaps package management. In short most of the distros will bend which ever way the upstream wind blows.
Thats why I use a "Distro" Like Slackware or Crux that is built from scratch and not based on another system. What limited autonomy there is in Linux land is with the independent Distros.
Ultimately you can go for something like Linux From Scratch. And even they have gotten somewhat fed up with the Systemd antic.
For instance their main book use eudev rather than udev, because they found the effort of extracting udev from the larger systemd project a right pain.
They do however maintain a parallel systemd book for anyone interested.
Linux was/is an extremely flexible system. The vendors like RedHat should be able to refashion Linux in what ever way they see fit. The big problem with SystemD is that it stepped over the red line from in-house RedHat Linux component like SE-Linux and there various "enhancement" to a rigid default that attempts to lock down a large array of system components under a project that has commercial motives and drivers, driven by a single vendor. And it was done with a pre-meditated social engineering push which was quite nasty. Big no-no for Linux and Open Source eco-system in general. Projects Like Linux from scratch, GNU, Busybox etc will not role over for the endless attempts at vendor lockin. Its all been tried before and while the players may be new the game is very old and ultimately we will defeat these new attempts just like we did with SCO and the proprietary Unix/Microsoft Corporations that tried to kill Linux in the 90s.
The fact of the matter is that "Distros" like Debian etc are dependent on upstream developers to provide new versions of there system. If a large portion of important subsystems are developed by RedHat developers then they will adopt that code and be driven in the direction upstream wants to go.
"Distros" do not develop, they package upstream into compiled binaries and add there configs and perhaps package management. In short most of the distros will bend which ever way the upstream wind blows.
Thats why I use a "Distro" Like Slackware or Crux that is built from scratch and not based on another system. What limited autonomy there is in Linux land is with the independent Distros.