I can hear the conspiracy theories already.

For anyone wondering, the systemd option exists because the utmp file format uses 32-bit time stamps on 32-bit machines, so commands like who will report incorrect times on such machines. If systemd is available, then it will just ask systemd for a list of active user sessions and when they started, since systemd already tracks that information as part of its process-supervision duties. No need to look at potentially-incorrect utmp files then.

I wish they’d do something useful, like make all their utilities having a --json output option so I can do useful stuff with jq rather than playing games with cut, awk, sed and grep to find what I’m looking for. The fact that there’s a need to make accommodations for systemd in the userland utilities seems like a massive regression and a serious red flag for the overall direction of things.

Does that mean that GNU has finally given up on the dream of Hurd ever becoming a thing?