this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2026
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Systemd isn't an init system. Systemd-init is an init system and it is a part of the systemd suite.
It has been sold as just an init system to people who argued it's a Katamari Damacy. We now know who was right.
Whatever the fuck it is it doesn’t need to know how old I am to do its job.
It already has fields for personal information, though, and they're every bit as sensitive as your birthdate. realName, emailAddress, location, and timezone are already in there. The important part is that they're all optional, and you don't have to fill them in at all, or can fill them in with fake data. The system still serves you, not some outside party.
But the timing of it does have a lot of people freaking out about it.
I now fear it will one day be required for services on the internet (as it is by a recent law in California). I want to make that less likely, and more difficult to implement.
Having a principle the majority do not have and refusing to participate means being another step further out of society.
It doesn't need to know your age. It just provides a way to take a note of your birth date, only if you want to. The system already has a place to write your name and home address. All are optional and practically nobody uses them.
And it still doesn't, the blank space does not need to be filled
...until it becomes a requirement to be filled.
And then one can simply remove the requirement for it to be filled, because it's open source software.
It doesn't know how old are you, it just remembers a date you tell it. You can give your birthday, but you can choose any other day
This is step 1.
Final step: Scan your passport to verify and populate the date of birth field.