systemd, the project, isn't a binary. Its dozens of binaries. It can't have scope creep because that's impossible - they're literally dozens of separate things.
We call that the unix principle, lol.
Saying systemd has scope creep is like saying GNU has scope creep because they have a compiler and a text editor. Makes no fucking sense.
I also don't consider a dependency on dbus "scope creep". It has to communicate over IPC - okay, don't reinvent the wheel, just use dbus. Every program ever supports dbus if it has a public API over IPC. Sorry if that bothers you.
And sure, maybe OpenRC is just as simple as systemd, but the reality is every distro chose systemd and that's that, and for MOST of them they switched from primarily scripts to unit files.
That is a HUGE reduction in complexity. HUGE.
Scope creep as in SystemD is now: the init daemon (systemd-init & systemctl), device manager (systemd-udevd), replaced cron, mount point manager, hostname and time/date controller (hostnamectl, timedatectl), container management (systemd-nspawn, machinectl), session manager (systemd-logind), and of course... the horrific syslog replacement (journald).
It's made Linux more Mac/Windows-like. When it works, it works very well... but when it breaks... good luck figuring out anything.
I guess that's OK for a "desktop" but for a server it's a huge pain in the butt.
> systemd, the project, isn't a binary. Its dozens of binaries. It can't have scope creep because that's impossible - they're literally dozens of separate things.
I suppose you don't understand (or are pretending not to understand) what "scope creep" means. Oh well.
> I also don't consider a dependency on dbus "scope creep".
I also don't consider a dependency on DBus scope creep. I consider making PID 1 crash whenever DBus needs to restart because of a upgrade/security fix/etc. in DBus or one of the libraries it links against to be a fantastically poor design decision.
> And sure, maybe OpenRC is just as simple as systemd...
It's far simpler. It concerns itself with bringing up and supervising services. It doesn't contain a DNS resolver, a (subtly buggy) Cron, a syslog daemon, and the many other things SystemD has decided to (whether correctly or incorrectly) reimplement.