Devuan as Lefthanded Debian, a different view of the future.

I think the "Devuan" fork has been misread. Certain dissatisfied sysadmins and developers are creating a traditional init Debian fork. Keeping the older strain of Debian alive is a good thing. Debian itself has chosen a system-d based path, like many other distros. Someone keeping the older gene pool alive is very good. It is not however a mainstream thing.

A .deb based distro which is easier to customize or shrink will be very useful. This left handed Debian will be where alternatives to systemd can be developed. It is where non-mainstream options to the suite of tools in the systemd universe can be grown. It is a new reference implementation of debian. It is unfortunate that so much friction has come from what may be a welcome offshoot of Debian.

Devuan's porters and supporters will be doing a lot of work. They are creating another option for those who choose it in the future. People who support their vision of things will package or repackage things their way. Nothing they do will reduce our options. They may provide a fallback position for the rest of us. Linux itself provides a fallback position from many ex XP users. Options are what linux is about.