this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2026
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It's not "ceding ground". It is picking and choosing battles.
What does adding a DOB field to a user account do? Absolutely nothing that the Location, Email, Phone Number. whatever fields didn't already do.
What does adding libraries to fetch cost us? Yes, I dislike that on principle. But it provides an OS functionality that is genuinely useful (age restricting accounts) and... it is one that I can work around should I ever need to.
What does it get us? It is an immediate response to "There is no way for parents to protect their children from this vile content" because... it is exactly that. It is an immediate response to "We can't manage school systems" and "We want to provide a way to lock this down but those evil OSes won't let us".
Versus "holding the line" and ceding absolutely nothing... and then getting blindsided because this is a feature downstream companies actually want. So rather than implement it their way with all the hooks into remote databases at the systemd level, it is instead a wrapper for
useraddcommands.They don't need a precedent. They are already pushing their own (often more restrictive) laws.
And that is what EVERYONE should be doing. Understand what is being demanded. Understand what is being done. And understand what the actual meaningful impact is.