StriderMar 26
Drew Mochak

So systemD added a birthdate field to the JSON records managed by userdb:
https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/40954

A PR to revert this was denied:
https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/41179

This is apparently an attempt to satisfy new legal requirements in various US states and elsewhere around age verification.

My question: since we've already established RedHat's willingness to jump and twirl for Palantir like trained seals, when will they jump and twirl for us? Or do the applicable laws not count in this case because they only affect disabled people?

userdb: add birthDate field to JSON user records by dylanmtaylor · Pull Request #40954 · systemd/systemd

Stores the user's birth date for age verification, as required by recent laws in California (AB-1043), Colorado (SB26-051), Brazil (Lei 15.211/2025), etc. The xdg-desktop-portal project is addi...

GitHub
Mar 23 at 9:35pmWeb
Show threadDrew MochakMar 23
Cue the inevitable whining how complying with surveillance capitalism is super easy whereas doing what's right for your users is hrrrrrrrd :-(
Show threadTamas GMar 23
@prism I think what will suck more is when a lot of mainstream distros adopt that birthday field on user accounts, and then, of course, we have forked copies and distros that just build a version with this removed anyway. Not like this will stop alt distros from emerging without it in the first place, I would think.
Show threadDrew MochakMar 23
@Tamasg Hey man, it's your choice! You don't have to use the birthday thing if you don't want to, we are just building an optional field that is optional because we are options people who like options. Why are you mad at us? You wouldn't hit a guy with glasswes, would you?
Show threadDrew MochakMar 23
@Tamasg As much as I like Linux, there are unfortunately not enough distributions out there, so at least this goes some way to solving that problem.