A small set of people are merging changes to various Linux components to make sure every application knows your birth date.

This is being done rapidly by people with questionable justifications and being merged with no youth and few marginalized people involved.

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/accountsservice/accountsservice/-/merge_requests/176#0b07c0cc4d49be119f65cdb2037440f56eed647a

user: Add BirthDate with polkit-gated GetBirthDate and SetBirthDate methods (!176) · Merge requests · accountsservice / accountsservice · GitLab

Summary Add a BirthDate field to the user account interface. For non-homed users, the value is stored...

GitLab
@wwahammy wtf… these are current maintainers???
@k3ym0 some are. systemd already merged a corresponding change from the same contributor.
@wwahammy can’t we fork it prior to that commit and maintain a separate fork?

@k3ym0 could it be done theoretically? Sure. But on systemd, that'd be a huge task to maintain. And the systemd folks say "oh, this PR is just an optional part of the user account system, we're just making a common API for anyone who wants to add it for any reason".

They build the tracks and plead innocence as to what is in the trains.

The Engineer Who Tried to Put Age Verification Into Linux

Dylan, useful idiot with commit access, pushed age verification PRs to systemd, Ubuntu & Arch, got 2 Microslop employees to merge it, called it 'hilariously pointless' in the PR itself, then watched Lennart personally block the revert. Unpaid compliance simp.

Sam Bent
@zl2tod @yrrsinn @wwahammy @k3ym0 wtf, so now Linux and we all are under California ruling? California Über Alles?? Well I hadn’t anything against systemd, now I have a big one.
@tagomago @zl2tod @yrrsinn @wwahammy @k3ym0 there are similar laws being approved and some are already in force in many places through out the world.

@DiogoConstantino @zl2tod @yrrsinn @wwahammy @k3ym0 Imho legalism is not a valid standpoint, precisely in free software. What if free software is made illegal in California (and “many other places”). Would you just shrug and stop making it? This is at best cowardice. Also, I find the fait accompli argumentation on the PR (“we already collect personal data 🤷”) so disgusting. As if this was nothing at all.

This is what happens when you hollow out ethics, you’re left with technicalities.

@tagomago @zl2tod @yrrsinn @wwahammy @k3ym0 your stand point is childish and imbecile this is a political and legal issue, and it's exactly at this nature that both the definition of Free Software is, and that this problem is.
@zl2tod @tagomago @yrrsinn @wwahammy @k3ym0 just like he's doing to the developers and others he's accusing not having ethics, but not even making the minimal effort to put himself on their shoes, the shoes of users that would be forbiden from using software without this.
@zl2tod @tagomago @yrrsinn @wwahammy @k3ym0 he likely knows nothing about those developers, like if they are actually organizing to fight in the ways that can actually be successful in repealing or ammending these laws. But he still attacks them.
@zl2tod @tagomago @yrrsinn @wwahammy @k3ym0 I've been a Free Software advocate for 26 years, I and others have fought many fights like this, shaming and attacking developers and demademanding them to not obey the law to be ethical, was never successful.
@zl2tod @tagomago @yrrsinn @wwahammy @k3ym0 and in my country we have actually won fights: example we can legally break DRM, because we did the political fight, we tirelessly enganged with politicians, until we convinced them to change the law.
@zl2tod @tagomago @yrrsinn @wwahammy @k3ym0 making it more risky to develop, distribute, having a livelyhood, and to use Free Software, is not a considerate or ethical attitude, it's the opposite, specially if "you're," demanding others to suffer the consequences, it's a very entitled attitude.