A well-known software architect (some say it was unix whitebeard the third) once gave a public lecture on unix philosophy. He described how cat orbits around grep and how grep, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of unix commands that comprise the unix environment. At the end of the lecture, a little Lennart Poettering at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. Linux is really a flat binary supported on the back of a giant systemd." The unix whitebeard gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the systemd standing on?" "You're very clever, old man, very clever," said the little Lennart. "But it's systemd all the way down!"