Linux
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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In my opinion, storing a date is pretty much irrelevant unless there's a process that validates the supplied date, otherwise every Linux user was born on 1/1/1, if not, an administrator can "fix" that
Furthermore, that systemd thinks that it's the place to store such information is in my opinion beyond absurd.
Who appointed that project the source of age truth in the Linux ecosystem? What discussion was there, who was consulted and where was the vote?
Exactly. This is a massive overreach, and it is crazy that Poettering is even considering merging this.
I would say the majority of objections to systemd pertain to perceived overreaches of the project (perceptions I generally share). So in that sense, it is kind of on brand.
You're right that asking a user for a date is next to useless. However, that isn't a reason to not fight this stuff. Asking the user for the date is step one to getting people accept it. After that they'll point out that people were lying, and they'll need our government ID to verify (and link us to activity). It's all a step towards a surveillance network tracking every move you make on your computer.
I was ambivalent about systemd up until now. If this gets merged I'm moving to a non-systemd distro. I do not live in California or even the USA. I do not want age verification garbage in my OS.
Iv not given a shit one way or another as well. But as a Californian I refuse to have this shit on my PC damn be what the law says.
Something feels fishy... The user who made this pull request has more than doubled his contributions to various repositories since January (from 20–400 to more than 1100), and this is his first pull request in the systemd repo.
They bought a second computer so they can ask Claude for twice as much code.
You mean they're complying with Meta's age verification at OS level lobbying?
https://github.com/upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings
i think it's really wholesome that a lot of 126 year old people use linux
While I think it's amazing that not only are 95% of Linux users 56 years of age, but they even share the same birth date!
Yes, the Unix epoch is the obvious choice of birth date here
We graybeards tried to warn you about systemd but you acted as fools.
Guilty as charged xD
I know the debate around systemd is going on for quite some time, I understood the basic reasoning behind it but I don't have the technical knowledge required to truly decide for myself, so I just didn't pay too much attention to it and followed what my distro of choice does.
The good thing about this "new development" is that it's not just a tech debate anymore, it has such wider implications that it'll be much easier for people to decide where to be.
They want to store the actual birthdays (not just a boolean stating it complies with an age bracket). And using claude to review PRs… fucking systemd
I never cared about the systemd debacle, now I do. I don't want that shit on my PC.
Ofcourse the project run by a microslop employee wants to force this on almost every distro as soon as possible.
same thing with manifest v3, just some mega corp goon doing the work no one's asked for
echo "18+" > ~/.age_rc
Am I compliant with California's law now? Apps can use the POSIX API to access my age.
Wow that's an insane level of bootlicking, it was completely free for them to do absolutely nothing about this nonsense law and give the middle finger if asked by the US
I didn't care before but it turns out the systemd haters were on to something for a long time, fuck these owners for even considering this and even locking the PR to avoid valid criticism, I hope all the contributors create a fork, jump ship and never let the previous owners commit a single line of code to it
Why do the rest of us have to have this shit added in our systems just because some Yankees (and Brazil) passed some bills? My country has already said they won't be doing any age verification shit. I'm starting to think there's some big conspiracy here that FOSS isn't as independent as we believe it is.
The answer to the PII issues is hence not restrictions in userdb, the answer is proper app sandboxing. And that even already exists in flatpak! It restricts access to $HOME already, and to userdb too! And that's the way to do it!
I don't use flatpak. I don't like it. Linux is about choice and I choose not to use that.
Hence, just embrace app sandboxing! And if you come to me and say "hey, I run all my apps without sandboxing, but i want the birthday hidden anyway" then I can only say, your model is really really broken. Fix your security model first, then come back.
In the words of the great Linus Torvalds, go fuck yourself.
@skyline2@lemmy.dbzer0.com @linux@lemmy.ml
Brazilian here. I'm neither a lawyer nor a specialist, just someone who has read the Portuguese text from the Brazilian flavor of the ongoing worldwide age check set of laws.
I must note that the Brazilian age check law (Lei 15.211/2025) specifies "vedada a autodeclaração" (English: "self-declaring is forbidden"). This means that this kind of implementation, where age or birthday is an user input, wouldn't be compliant to Lei 15.211/2025, because it requires the age information to be assessed independently from the user whose age is being assessed. This means face biometrics, government-issued ID (in our case, CPF, CNH, Passaporte and similar) or "behaviorial analysis"... Anything but a "yes I'm 18" or "I was born in day month year", for those are self-declared and the Law says it's "not enough".
Someone should warn the systemd maintainers of this "Brazilian jabuticaba".
(Cross posting this reply of mine because the post was cross posted to two different Lemmy instances)
This is the first time I've cared about the whole systemd debate, so that's something I guess. Not interested in anything that kowtows to this age verification nonsense
what a fucking bootlicker
Final Edit: The PR has been merged into main.
Fucking hell. All he had to do was fucking nothing, the bastard.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/revoluciana-facing-fascism-sabotage
Sabotage sounds spicy. It sounds dangerous.
And yet, the underlying concept is simply this: inefficiency.
I told you last time, make every inch have its cost.
Resistance does not have to be violent, and that’s not something I’m advocating here. Resistance is the word no. Resistance is standing in place. Resistance is pushing.
Resistance is the albatross around the neck of your opposition. Resistance is the anchor that drags along the sea floor.
Here are some incredibly mundane but effective examples from the manual:
Make mistakes with purchasing travel tickets
Make engineering mistakes
Make long speeches and waste time
Act ignorant, or ask a lot of questions: if you’re not familiar with the concept of sea-lioning, you should really learn it
Take longer to do your work
Even if you’re terrified of doing more, this is simply a place to start.
You are someone and you have a responsibility to do something.
You cannot make it easier for the fascists to achieve their goals. You can’t do it today, and you can’t do it later if they claim authority. You must stand in the way of oppression.
This is fucking horseshit. I'm turning against fucking systemd , and I had no fucking opinion before, now it's completely clear they're a bunch of 1940s IBM wannabees.
EDIT : What a surprise, the fucker that wrote the PR works for IBM and "A Medical Malpractice company" and the one that merged it works for Microsoft.
Just think of all those Azure and AWS VMs needing age verification as they're spooled up, destroyed and receated every few minutes...
Has anyone even looked at the PR? Why is there such a big stink about adding an optional birthday field to a JSON schema? It's opt-in and can't be validated in any way.
That's like saying OpenSSL is the thin end of an anti-encryption wedge because they provide FIPS compliant modules. Or complaining that it puts your privacy at risk when you generate an SSH key and it asks for your address.
The problem is the laws getting passed, not with software that gives people a choice about whether to comply.
Looks like this is just for storing the data (birth date). Distros can use it and do age restriction or ignore it. Not a big deal imo. Its not like systemd does anything more with the date.
Damn that's crazy. It'd be a shame if someone not beholden to California law just forked the code
It is possible that California law will be changed. But similar ideas are popping up in other contexts and it's unlikely that they'll all go away. This implementation is fairly generic and useful for other things besides age verification, so we shouldn't decide whether to merge it or not based on a single law in any jurisdiction.
https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/40954#issuecomment-4032355482
Just write a shell script that changes the birthday every few minutes lol
I didn't need one more reason to hate systemd
Why would anyone on Linux, having free choice of all Linux OSes, choose one that actively compromises your privacy?
This is why Linux should never be a corporate, paid-for ecosystem. The nerds that keep all this shit running for free will not be interested in maintaining spyware OS.
It's so hilarious that the most recent thing that's happened on this shitty PR is a request for Claude to review their code.