this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2026
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Homosexual activity is illegal in Uganda. If they pass a law saying your OS should track that, is it moral for developers to enable compliance with it? Or do developers have a moral duty to at least not go out of their way to enable that bullshit, even if they risk a gajillion dollar fine?
Moral duty begins with contribution of any sort imo. But I still agree, this is a law that can and should be ignored. Don't think this pr is put from any actual pressure though yet, more akin to "soft compliance"
I have so many qualms with this comment alone. Concurrently, I am not sure how to articulate them. This text might be a bit messy as a result.
To begin, of course it wouldn't be moral. Purposely complying with discriminatory laws is not at all a good thing. I don't think systemd will even bother adding such a thing, even if it was against the law in Uganda. The difference between a country like Brazil asking for the date of birth for a user and Uganda asking for the user's sexuality is:
I imagine you put thought into your hypothetical to see where it stands, but I would advise putting more thought into it. Stuff like this will drain both our energy.