I think, frankly, that the CLA situation isn't really the cause of systemd to begin and compete with upstart, but the CLA situation is a symptom of the types of problems that Canonical, Ltd. causes with its policies.

Canonical, Ltd. insists on control of every single project for which its a major contributor. I heard a rumor years ago (when Canonical, Ltd. was just getting started) that Shuttleworth thought his company could be successful easily if he could just "make himself upstream from Debian".

This way of thinking permeates his company. If Canonical, Ltd. can't be the primary developer, it seeks way to abandon a project. That goes for bzr, Mir, upstart, all of it.

The sad thing about this is that when Canonical, Ltd. "gives up" on a package, there's no hope. I think developers at other companies can sense this.

Lennart is a hard guy for some to deal with (I actually like him a lot myself, but I see why people find him frustrating), but even so, he does understand how to lead a Free Software project, and he puts the project first, his company second. Other developers can sense this, and that culture permeates systemd.