Story

Interesting post here:
http://www.vitavonni.de/blog/201410/2014102101-avoiding-systemd.html

Guy makes a couple of good points. Here are two clips:

Avoiding systemd isn't hard

Don't listen to trolls. They lie.
Debian was and continues to be about choice. Previously, you could configure Debian to use other init systems, and you can continue to do so in the future.
In fact, with wheezy, sysvinit was essential. In the words of trolls, Debian "forced" you to install SysV init!
With jessie, it will become easier to choose the init system, because neither init system is essential now. Instead, there is an essential meta-package "init", which requires you to install one of systemd-sysv | sysvinit-core | upstart. In other words, you have more choice than ever before.
Again: don't listen to trolls.

He goes on to point out, however, that you will get systemd installed if you use the gdm Gnome login manager or any part of the Gnome desktop, so for the moment, not only is systemd optional, but you can avoid it if you also avoid Gnome.

On a server, there shouldn't be any component actually depending on systemd at all. systemd is mostly a GNOME-desktop thing as of now.
As you can see, the trolls are totally blaming the wrong people, for the wrong reasons... and in fact, the trolls make up false claims (as a fact, systemd-shim was updated on Oct 14). Stop listening to trolls, please.
If you find a bug - a package that needlessly depends on systemd, or a good way to remove some dependency e.g. via dynamic linking, please contribute a patch upstream and file a bug. Solve problems at the package/bug level, instead of wasting time doing hate speeches.