kcxt4d ago

people on reddit are doing a whole lot of yapping about age verification in Linux

I would generally agree that the whole approach of these laws is total dogshit and clearly a wedge issue to enable stricter surveillance laws in the future

at the same time though, the actual implementation and potentially having a portal which exposes the users age bracket seems totally reasonable as a way to implement parental controls... I'm also not totally against holding service providers to higher standards for data processing when it comes to minors, and hey if they're doing that why shouldn't adults get the same treatment?

what im totally miffed about though is why the fuck would you get mad at systemd for adding a birthDate field to userdb, what would you have them do? Would you rather every desktop environment had its own way to store this data??

An XDG portal for this also means you can *trivially* write a stub that always identifies you as an adult or even lets you pick per-app (heck maybe per website! that might be the new cursed way of avoiding trackers under late stage capitalism)

and yeah it sure would be shit if we get real-id laws in a few years, but systemd or XDG standing on "principle" and refusing to implement this API is absolutely not going to lead to better outcomes for anyone. The last thing we want is for users in certain regions to wind up relying on implementations maintained by distros or random individuals, if we need to have this crap the least we could ask is that it's maintained by established and trusted people in the open source community!

Show threadRa (Freyja) (it/its)𒀭𒈹𒍠𒊩4d ago
@cas I would ask why providers should make it easier to implement parental controls, given what those are so often used to do (namely, horrifying shit?)
Show threadjane400 - 628.4 fan4d ago

@freya
your argument sound like an ad hominem.

one can also implement parental controls to be not creepy; without it turning into an audit of the child's every activity or doing gps tracking. reasonable parenting is working on limits in cooperation/input of the child.

new features i didn't expect and am happly suprised about this release in gnome: https://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/2026/01/gnome-50-will-support-bedtime-daily-screen-time-parental-controls/amp/

@cas

Show threadkcxt4d ago

@jane @freya agreed, this was basically the point i was trying to get to. parental controls in Linux are absolutely a good feature to have, and the GNOME community have earnt a lot of respect from me for implementing this functionality. The ability to impose restrictions on non-sudo users (particularly children) is NOT a restriction of freedoms, I'd argue it's the opposite.

Knowing you can give your kids a device running a FOSS OS while being able to ensure they aren't accessing software they shouldn't is a good thing, give them the freedom to enjoy tech without looking over their shoulder

Show threadZanaGB4d ago

@cas @jane @freya You ARE supposed to supervise your kids. You know?

It is called "Parenting".

You let them break the computer. And if you catch them installing something nasty you tell them that they should not be doing that.

Show threadjane400 - 628.4 fan4d ago

@ZanaGB @cas @freya yes. but at what point has the child learned enough? at what age is privacy more important? you can't supervise a child all day long unless your an "helicopter parent"

it's giving your kid training wheels with a bicycle so your sibling can take them on a small road tour, there isn't an exact day where a newborn turns into a kid turns into an teenager turns into an adolescent.

Show threadZanaGB4d ago

@jane @cas @freya

Y'all SERIOUSLY need to trust your kids more. They arent stupid.

Dunno about your local culture. But everyone here grew up knowing you never had to talk to strangers, nwver dibulge any information and stay away from anything that demands a paynent.

Kids are smarter than you remember. Tell them not to do something and why and 99% of the time they will follow through.

No, you will not get a free PS2. No, that raffle for the shiny creature is rigged against you. No. You may not have horse armour. That game looks sketchy but it comes from Steam you might have it. No i dont care all your friends are posting selfies they are going to get hurt and you cannot make an instagram.

One thing is not letting your kids have any agency (helicoptering) and the other is telling them gently they cannot have things and why.

You cannot leave IBM, Amazon, Google, Meta and Oracle decide how it is best to take the task of parenting. The owners of the platforms with addictive content aimed towards children do not have the besr intentions at mind with these policies. The best way to prevent kids from being in places they should not be is... Being literally around them every now and then to check what they are up to and simply... Dont let them go to those platforms.

Show threadjane400 - 628.4 fan4d ago

@ZanaGB you're not getting the point. we're talking about someone having problems with parental controls in foss while @cas was talking about the different topic of age brackets api laws and people misunderstanding unrelated things.

we're not talking about big tech.

Show threadZanaGB4d ago

@jane @cas who do you think is behind these surveilance laws? And who do you think makes 5/7ths of freedesktop? Its all IBM/Amazon/Microsoft/Oracle reps there.

Y'all keep forgetting SystemD is a god damn IBM product

Show threadjane400 - 628.4 fan4d ago

@ZanaGB congratulations for delving into conspiracy theory! nobody is interested in the linux desktop, all of those players are into linux server.

@cas

Show threadZanaGB

@jane @cas

Fine. We'll take the bait.

Here are some facts.

- SystemD (and most of FD.O) is an IBM product by virtue of the sheer weigh behind Red Hat's contributions to most to their codebases

- Most of the kernel patches are submited by IBM/RHEL, MicroSlop, Amazon, Google, Oracle, Meta employees.

- A lot of these "anti big tech", "for the children" surveilance laws are being lobbied by... These same companies who happen to be contributing most of the code to freedesktop dot org, and who own these very platforms.

- SystemD is the first project to rush to implement these surveilance specs.

These are just facts regarding the current situation.

This has nothing to do with the inane discourse unsavoury people and fascists alike love parroting ad nauseum, going against everything systemd has done due to being "monolithic corporate slop" and "not SysVInit"

And yet... Here we have a clear example of legitimate concerns being drowned by the wolf that cried "child" and their comrades trying to muddy the waters.

The corporate product with a lot of corporate weight behind it is the first to implement the corporate surveilance garbage onto its code way ahead of schedule.

... It is really not a conspiracy when you are seeing the thing happen in real time now is it?

Mar 20 at 11:46amWeb
Show threadjane400 - 628.4 fan4d ago

@ZanaGB
Yes, Red Hat is a heavy weight in contributions but it's misleading to think in those terms.
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Red_Hat_contributions

So we look at governance, I cant find the link for stuff so I'll just the first result in my search engine. https://www.x.org/wiki/BoardOfDirectors/

Do note, that it makes sense to view the stuff gnome is doing and the gnome foundation as completely different things.
https://handbook.gnome.org/governance.html#maintainers
https://www.bassi.io/articles/2025/08/03/governance-in-gnome/

systemd is probably the clearest example for cooperate involvement, as it's not a desktop only component.
https://systemd.io/GOVERNANCE/

systemd isn't the first project to rush. it's not a spec to provide that, it sadly passed in california. and it maps cleanly to existing gecos field for passwd so isn't a new thing for linux. /etc/passwd is probably readable by everyone, so already fingerprinting compatible.
i myself will just geoblock non-europe in the future if i make my distro public.

You wanna think about corporate linux desktop? We already have that, it's called chromebook, android and steamos. https://agelesslinux.org/distros.html

There are far worse things already around for years. Like forcing a data sim-card in combination with a microphone in your car. You should be scared for a widevine-like module in trustzone to ensure you verified your age with a government. Not seeing certain domains in emails of contributors as a big conspiracy by big tech. It's so much easier to just force compliance by saying that "disabling secure boot" and "rooting" is prohibited in a country, only compliant operating systems will be allowed.
https://compliancehub.wiki/brazil-age-verification-law-operating-systems/

Red Hat contributions - Fedora Project Wiki

Show threadZanaGB4d ago

@jane And yet, in your brazil example, you see IBM and Canonical merely pondering about how to implement it. And they will probably drag their feet for months if not years. Giving time for that legislation to be reverted.

While the CA situation had PoC scaffolding... Within the week? For gnome, systemd and eOS at least, with the xdg portal being ready within a month.

And that very scaffolding will let laws like Brazil's and worse to take hold. Because the infraestructure is already here.

And we go back to the matter of whom is reaping the benefit of all this. But since nobody dared saying "fuck you, make me" and instead bent backwards so now we are in this fucking mess.

We aint scared of an extra field on /etc/passwd. We are scared of how quickly everyone jumped to implement it and how clear the signal every spineless developet at the big companies pushing these changes is of "yes please take this gun. We will even put our forehead in the barrel so you can't miss the shot.". Of how quickly everyone is ready to provide the infrastructure and incentive for worse things to come, instead of forcing Big Iron to eat shit and pay their god damn fines.