Birthdate field under discussion also in Arch Linux

https://lemmy.ca/post/62271746

Birthdate field under discussion also in Arch Linux - Lemmy.ca

> Add a required birth date prompt (YYYY-MM-DD) to the user creation flow, stored as a systemd userdb JSON drop-in at /etc/userdb/<user>.user on the target system. > > Motivation > > Recent age verification laws in California (AB-1043), Colorado (SB26-051), Brazil (Lei 15.211/2025), etc. require platforms to verify user age. Collecting birth date at install time ensures Arch Linux is compliant with these regulations. The pull-request discussion thread has been locked, just like it happened for the similar thread in Systemd, owing to the amount of negative comments…

I don’t know what people expect.

All big linux distros are going to be quickly a target, because the people who like age verification laws like that hate the idea of free software.

Putting a dummy, useless age input, is a good way to comply maliciously, and can be easily reverted if these stupid laws ever get removed.

It wouldn’t surprise me if obvious ways to bypass it appear a few seconds after the changes are validated.

The alternative is that these systems could be outawed in a lot of places, which would have a much more negative impact than an age field.

War is about knowing to take a hit to avoid defeat, sometimes.

I have no idea what to think because this sounds reasonable, but so do the arguments that it’s a slippery slope and complying now makes it easier to surveil us all later. (Yes, I know this is the name of a fallacy. I’m curious as to when is it a fallacy and when is it not. I can absolutely imagine people saying “slippery slope fallacy” and being right, I can also imagine a different situation where people say “slippery slope fallacy” to something and it happens exactly as the people whose claim is being denied with “slippery slope” fallacy said.)

I guess that is why controversial issues are controversial, no easy and obvious resolution?

They’re not handing over private crypto keys here. It’s a database entry that the person installing the system can put whatever they like in.