A good article! It does come down to a definition of "life" and how narrow or broad a definition one uses. Surely a definition that depends on the specific chemistry of RNA and DNA is too narrow, but once that constraint is relaxed, a lot more systems can qualify as "life". I have discussed this in more detail in my Medium article, "The Universality of Life and Death":

https://medium.com/the-innovation/the-universality-of-life-and-death-c3bf951809ec