A history of modern init systems

The subject of process management, supervision and init(8) for Unix-like systems is one plagued by a large degree of ahistoricity and "pop culture" explanations. This leads to a lot of confusion and misunderstanding surrounding feature sets and how one formulates the problems surrounding reliable process management on Unix in general, making it a ripe topic for demagogues of all persuasions.[...]The purpose of this article is to set the record straight on the history of attempts to create "modern" init systems, where we define "modern" somewhat broadly as anything that tries to improve the classical BSD and System V styles of initialization and service management.