We all agree that Devuan was born to be systemd-free and this looks
like a sustainable goal to begin with. But I understood this thread
started with questioning the long term policy.

     For sure, if one wants systemd, this one should install Debian, or 
RH. Also, to all of us, anybody trying to provide systemd for Devuan 
would be suspect of being malevolent

     However, the long term policy of Devuan can't be "We hate systemd 
and Lennart Poetering". Instead Devuan should advertize the reasons to 
reject software like systemd, in the form of  a set of rules for 
acceptability, in a sensible and attractive form, for users, 
developpers, and distros to easily share. I see these rules as an 
addendum to the definition of free software.

     These rules would obviously put systemd out of the free-software 
category, let's call it anti-freedom, which is worse than non-free. This 
does not mean there needs to be an anti-freedom repository, after all :-)

      This leaves no room for systemd-contaminated software, except if 
the systemd API can be replaced by  a do-otherwise/do-nothing stub.

     Didier