I like annoying PITA's...
I think you misunderstood my intent, or I did not speak it clearly. Want and need are the questions at hand. As much as I want to stay at the core of Debian, I do not need to and obviously the community will make that decision
I have questions though on what you have said... Is your dislike of upstart purely philosophical? Is it just because of Canonicals involvement? The Canonical license? Debian simply not existing anymore if they adopt upstart? If upstart was the best thing ever and blew anything else away, would you still feel the same?
I was happy to see the angst at the end of the presentation by the questions raised by Ian Jackson who was clearly frustrated. I was also shocked at how flippant Steve Langasek was about the license issues Ian was raising. I think I understand now why the decision is taking a long time from the technical committee
This is a huge deal for Debian as we know it and your concerns are valid. I did not mean to imply I had changed my opinion on the matter, I was only suggesting that we should take a look at both to be sure due diligence has been done
Pottering was also at that DebConf13 presentation and had some questions and also gave his reasons why systemd should be used also ... you can see that on one of the links from that video
[edit]Just watched Lennart his social skills are limited aren't they. But he does come off like a human versus the robots from Canonical.
My problem with upstart is also technical. In summary:
Systemd is a complete rethink and rebuild of how the init system is conceptualized and makes full use of modern systems.
Upstart seems a slapdash attempt to get control of the init process but at the same time not really alter the issues that are there in sysV. It's kind of like the first Windows GUI. Just creating an icon and a batch script and calling it a graphical user interface doesn't make it one. Just adding a layer on sysV and calling it a new init system doesn't really make it one. Finally socket handling or lack there of.[/edit]
Just watched the upstart one and will watch Lennart's show and the new link. Thank you. I think my thoughts are confirmed by two things. One is at around the 16:20 mark where Steve essentially says "it won't work because it's upstart dependent and not doing it with upstart makes it fail" he re-iterates the same idea with the GPG question at the end. You have systemd clearly admitting that there are going to be dependencies with systemd while the upstart people are saying no we are not causing dependencies but if you don't write it specifically dependent on upstart it won't work. Like the "corporations should be allowed to control and have the license for what you write" statement, I can't accept that as a foregone conclusion and the insidous-ness (word? I think not) of the smarmy Steve and his glossing over made me throw up in my mouth. The guys question on the event structure is legitimate and laughed off. I guess this only confirms my feeling that today the battle is over upstart but the war is over control of Debian. Once you bend over the first time .... sorry that is a little graphic. In answer to your questions.
My concern is over the license - first and foremost to agree to that gives Canonical a theoretical ownership of a core process in Debian. That foothold at the base is a predication to control. Power is never given it is taken and Shuttlegates is who he is. Having control of Debian's user base and the ability to add those installed systems as "yours" is worth $MILLIONS to Canonical. Don't kid ourselves this is what it is about.
My concern is over the control of Debian and it's direction. Listen to what is said, it's already Ubuntu this and Ubuntu that and Debian is thrown in as an after thought. Already a step-child without the formal adoption.
My belief is that once Canonical gets control of the init process the ability of ANYONE to stop them from the Ubuntu-ization of the whole Debian is gone. We have to have Unity because it works so well with Upstart, etc.
LOL at Steve and his "I don't understand why the license is so important to Debian people". I will with-hold further comment due to this being a family site

Bear with me for a personal aside. At one time in a galaxy far away I was involved in corporate takeovers. One of the strategies we used quite successfully was the takeover by proxy of boards and decision making. I often got companies without ever having to pay anything by just controlling decisions and influence. Once a certain momentum was reached I never had to ask but just say, well we already did this and that so this is just the next natural step. The former owners never knew what hit them. There is an eerie similarity here and I think that is what has my spider-sense tingling.