Dylan, useful idiot with commit access, pushed age verification PRs to systemd, Ubuntu & Arch, got 2 Microslop employees to merge it, called it 'hilariously pointless' in the PR itself, then watched Lennart personally block the revert. Unpaid compliance simp.
I have read the git thread related to the merge request.
I don’t see what’s the big deal. You have a user model that already contain fields like user’s full name, location, … among others and all this developer did was adding yet another optional field called date of birth.
This does nothing to verify user’s age and enforce nothing. They’ve stressed that repeatedly in the comments.
What that does is making it easy for a Linux distro to store user’s birthday - should they wish to do so - and making that bit of info accessible to running apps so that each app can do what it wants with it.
User’s fullname and location are already there which are also optional so what’s the big deal?
Fields like name and location do not have any expectation for the information being valid or accurate (see eg.:
adduser).DOB is different. It comes from a legal expectation that correctness of the information will be enforced somehow. If going by the Colorado and NY law proposals, IIRC, by using biometrics at the time of system install.
[citation needed]
…Have you eve been following the news and the law proposals? I’m not sure you are engaging in good faith here.
I know what’s been going on.
However, the statement “legal expectation that correctness of the information will be enforced somehow” requires proof because it’s currently not true.
not even said laws have an expectation that the date of birth provided would be accurate. the colorado bill just says “require[] an account holder to indicate” and never defines “indicate”, the ny bill says “request an age category signal” and never defines “signal”, so i assume they’re like the california law which has been verified to be just “enter your date of birth in this text field/dropdown and we’ll trust you girl”. i don’t think any of that involves biometrics
there’s no alien intelligence or protocol specification in systemd that ensures or says the dob field must be accurate either
Wow, picking choice words only in sections of the laws and proposals. At least try and engage in honest discussion, mate,
Honestly, just go check Ageless Linux’s site. They have a complete rundown on how and where does each law’s expectation come from.
Just one (1) example:
Requires “commercially reasonable” method. In other words, the powerful agents of the market (the Googles, the Facebooks, the NSAs) get to choose what you have to do to validate. Could even require biometrics.
That’s because systemd, a well-known Microslop infection into the Linux ecosystem, is using the wayland playbook: specify nothing, leave to other projects the task and legal weight of implementation. All systemd has to do is to ship the field, then other projects are delegated the task of entering in a “legally compliant” way.
You specifically named the bills from Colorado and NY. They simply do not include those. https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/SB26-051 https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/S8102/amendment/A I wholeheartedly believe my characterization of these bills are faithful.
Specifically due to how barebones it is, it is trivial to modify yourself the birthdate sent to applications, as long as you have the system password.
Then why did they lock the fucking thread as controversial if it was such an innocent change?
It’s paving the wave to implement a Californian law that can very easily end up meaning ID verification for everything.
They could just not have done this at zero cost but decide to go to multiple projects, at this specific time which obviously isn’t coincidental, and actively work to start implementing this on Linux. I guess “Contributed to systemd” on their CV was more valuable than resisting the USA taking control of the whole internet and ending all sense of privacy.
It’s definitely wrong to degrade or harass this guy for doing it.
Buuut this is being made to support a bad law that should be opposed. The law is a bellwether for compulsory age and identity verification, which should strike fear into the hearts of everyone. And especially everyone who cares about their privacy (which really should be everyone, but …).
Furthermore, it’s questionable whether a law like this can apply to open source software. IMO it really can’t - who exactly is liable? Is the world really better with ageless Linux outlawed?
This is one of the most sensible comments in the thread. The law is the problem. This is something which should have been self regulated by websites themselves, but Meta lobbied for laws like this so they wouldn’t have to police it. The law making this mandatory for everyone when this should be a parental control is the issue.
This is a law that companies are required to implement or stop making business in the states enforcing that law.
You probably feel that companies should just stop doing business in those states “to show them”. Sadly a lot of profitable Linux companies that fund Linux development disagree with your high morals. They want to continue doing business there.
Adding that field help those company comply with the law and doesn’t hurt you in anyway except maybe taking few bytes in your disk drive.
Even if the field is not added, those companies would come up with another place to store date of birth or even use systemd fork.
Its not like they will say since we can’t store date of birth in systemd’s user model then we’ll have to abandon this project and close our branches in those states instead.
Yes it’s technically trivial. I have read the patch. That’s beside the point, which is social and political.
I get to decide and report what does and does not hurt me thankyouverymuch. And I do think this is a step that erodes my right to privacy, taken with shockingly little discussion. (Which got it reverted)
There’s a lot of degrees of freedom between “just comply bro” and “good luck enforcing that”. For example https://blog.system76.com/post/system76-on-age-verification