@sarahjamielewis

It's a fairly binary option, comply with the law as written (as best as it can be interpreted anyway) or simply ignore it and see what happens.

If those who are considered to be in violation are prepared to accept the consequences then they should do so.

They would have my support for resisting a stupid and illogical law.

systemd for all of its many faults is making a beginning for those who wish to build a framework. It's not mandatory. I don't see how any version of Linux could force this issue.

For one, I am looking with interest at the Ageless Linux strategy which any version of Linux could adopt as a way to achieve malicious non-compliance.

@simonzerafa @sarahjamielewis

It's a fairly binary option, comply with the law as written (as best as it can be interpreted anyway) or simply ignore it and see what happens.

It's not even complying with the law though... Someone rightfully pointed out, laws are likely to be amended, so rushing to comply in advance will probably not meet later requirements. Other implementations are likely to be contradictory.

systemd for all of its many faults is making a beginning for those who wish to build a framework. It's not mandatory. I don't see how any version of Linux could force this issue.

Putting aside that age-gating is outside of the scope of something that should only be handling init, it's mandatory in that most major distros are built around systemd and use it as a dependency...

@simonzerafa @sarahjamielewis If you want to see something interesting, try removing systemd from your distro. (Don't actually do it. Use dry-run or whatever equivalent you might have.) Just watch how much else gets removed with it...

Some people are actually doing it and it even removes stuff like Pipewire-Pulse. They're back down to Alsa and all the problems it presents...

@nazokiyoubinbou @sarahjamielewis

My bet would be that the Ageless Linux strategy will be the way to go.

Distros will ultimately have to comply with the law (however stupid and illogical) and let users break or sidestep compliance post installation.

The legal folks can point to whomever asks and say that Linux / our distro is compliant and users can break it as they see fit.

I doubt that even the commercial distros will want to pay fines or suffer the other legal consequences even if they can theoretically afford it.

Hopefully the various laws will be eventually be written to be sensible but while we wait for that ...

@simonzerafa @sarahjamielewis As I said in my previous post, rushing to comply in advance will result in them not being able to comply or even breaking other laws (like privacy) in the process. (I would, in fact, argue that they can't comply with these laws due to this and the laws themselves are illegal, so by rushing to comply in advance, they're actually breaking other, more established laws.)

I will agree that the decision should be the user's, but opt-out is NOT letting the user decide. Opt-out is making the decision and then requiring the user to jump through hoops. Ultimately this will also mean your data will be submitted first. That also means opt-out often doesn't really opt-out, it just provides the illusion. Once the data is collected it's frequently already too late.

@simonzerafa @sarahjamielewis As a side note, "just being illegal" isn't the only other option. Fighting back is also an option. Telling them that this can't be legally implemented is an option. Hiring lawyers (fund-raising first if need be, but likely EFF/etc will take it) is an option.

Rushing to comply in advance is intentionally and willfully making a decision to circumnavigate what is best for users because it's what they want (and I might add here that "they" is actually a very small handful of people who are just pushing it through and ignoring/deflecting arguments. Oh, and Claude apparently.)

One thing I'd really like to be clear on is that in complying in advance with that law in one specific area, they're probably breaking a lot of other laws everywhere else.