their stated mission statement is "to give people free choice over > their init service". and... err... the lack of support for systemd >
makes that mission statement a false statement.
I wondered about this, so I am going to try a comprehensive analysis of their website (irrelevant analysis is cut)
Main page mentions the "Exodus declaration in 2014"
The original declaration says "produce a reliable and minimalist base distribution that stays away from the... lock-in promoted by systemd." The original goal was to prevent lock-in, huh?
Also: "Among the priorities are: enable diversity... for the existing Debian downstream *willing to preserve Init Freedom*."
That implies systemd is not part of "Init Freedom," since, according to that, if downstream stayed with Debian (and systemd) they would not be preserving Init Freedom
The main page mentions "the right to Init Freedom" and has a link...
"Init Freedom is about restoring a sane approach to PID1, **one that respects diversity and freedom of choice**." The rest of the page is irrelevant.
I wish they would define "Init freedom." The closest thing to a definition is the last quote (above)
So it seems that systemd is explicitly excluded from Init Freedom (which is *defined* as respecting freedom of choice) and therefore I cannot disagree with your statement
if they were true to their mission statement they would add the > option to include it.
Unfortunately, I have to agree
Here is a question: Is a false (in any way) mission statement enough to totally dismiss something? Even if their actions (providing a reasonable alternative) are seemingly good?
From what I have observed, you seem to have two "codes" that you live
by, your ethics and your intuition. Your ethics seems to mostly involve your influence over others, so what does your intuition say about Devuan?