41–50 of 77 posts
So this looks like a spite fork intended to make a point, not likely to become a widely used fork of systemd. However, 1) he is right, and 2) systemd's recent full-throated embrace of AI for programming make it clear that systemd really is in dire need of a fork. This project has gone full corporate insanity. I was never one of the vocal anti-systemd folks (I think it's a huge improvement over SysV-style boot stuff),…
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Because this is a reactionary political statement and not a well thought out privacy project
Funny that the supposed “reactionary” statement is the one opposing bills backed by anti-porn activists and the Heritage Foundation.
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Funny that the supposed “reactionary” statement is the one opposing bills backed by anti-porn activists and the Heritage Foundation.
The problem is the law itself not whether a software package complies with it. Let me rephrase: people like you are the real problem, rather choosing to harass software maintainers that are merely following a ridiculous law instead of harassing your government to not implement it.
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The problem is the law itself not whether a software package complies with it. Let me rephrase: people like you are the real problem, rather choosing to harass software maintainers that are merely following a ridiculous law instead of harassing your government to not implement it.
"Just following orders"
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"Just following orders"
The thing is you can do something against these orders like we in the EU do every year against chatcontrol and other ridiculous laws. It's in your hands... stop sitting on them and stop moralizing other people's behaviour if you do jack shit yourself. If we will ever see the problem that some software mantainers have to comply to a law that will directly kill people you can bring your nazi talking points back to the…
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The thing is you can do something against these orders like we in the EU do every year against chatcontrol and other ridiculous laws. It's in your hands... stop sitting on them and stop moralizing other people's behaviour if you do jack shit yourself. If we will ever see the problem that some software mantainers have to comply to a law that will directly kill people you can bring your nazi talking points back to the…
Like OpenAI and drones, for example?
Perhaps I wasn't paying enough attention to this fork's commits, but what is actually happening with the birth date and where does it go?
There is a stupid new California law, which requires that all operating systems must demand the age of any user, and then the OS must implement an API through which any application can ask which is the age of the current user. This information is supposed to be passed by browsers to the sites you visit, so that they would implement age verification. The systemd maintainers are among the first who have rushed to be co…
[1] https://winbuzzer.com/2026/03/18/reddit-user-uncovers-meta-2...
systemd also stores the real name of the user using this computer in the same user record. Why not remove that as well, as it could uniquely identify the user of the computer? Or the uuid field...
You can put "Luke Skywalker" into the name fields, or even nothing at all, and there's no legal mandate that those fields be filled in or accurate.
The birthdate, however, has a legal mandate to be correct and checked for correctness by the software developers of the OS.
For example, if you visit facebook, tinder, or your bank and any of them store and communicate your actual age, the OS is mandated that it must update that field. Google's creepy analytics would also get involved here as if you put your age as a 99 year old, but google analytics show you are more likely to be 20->25 then the OS is supposed to update that age field with the better information from google.
And of course, facebook, google, and every other website can ask your browser for an age range and they are required to report it. Which makes this a symbiotic leaking of information.
All of this is about destroying anonymity on the internet. Today it's the age that needs to be perfect with communication efforts. Tomorrow it'll be the name. And of course, that will all be linked to every social media account.
Why is this bad? In many governments, it isn't. However, this presents a clear mechanism to track and monitor people who dissent with the government.
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> I leave "Users full name" empty and it's fine. And you're free to not fill out this field aswell. Full name is probably a lot more unique and sensitive than birthdate
Maybe, what's your point? Do you think it's a good idea for operating systems to comply with 1 or 2 exceptionally retarded state laws? The full name is as far as I know never exposed to websites right? Computers need to stay what they've always been. Chips that we run our programs on. Linux is the last free (as in freedom) option and they will try to take that away too.
I also wonder how non-systemd Linux is going to handle it. I mean ultimately it may be baked into the kernel in some way or another. It would be pretty sad though.
In any case, I agree. This is just the first step.
Perhaps I wasn't paying enough attention to this fork's commits, but what is actually happening with the birth date and where does it go?
It goes nowhere of course, but people seem to think that the age verification laws that are currently being drafted everywhere somehow make this the obvious next step. They don't understand that it's still all on your computer and you can of course set the birthdate to whatever you want (or not set it at all). tl;dr: it's a tinfoil hat fork