Mastodawn

@cmconseils Seriously, so much what even the F...

I'm not convinced that it's even legal for them to have such a law. It probably violates privacy laws or something. Even as limited as our privacy rights are, still, this has to be too much...

And what's with the rush by systemd to comply in advance? And wow, so much is built around systemd it's kind of frightening to find out how hard it is to divest from it. If/until distros do, Linux has NOT rejected this!

My bet is most things will decide this is "too small" to fight and comply. Then the next "small" thing will be some sort of verification — probably online. Then IDs... I know I'm running dangerously afoul of a "slippery slope" argument, but this is literally the recent history of such movements in tech...

Sorry for the rant

@cmconseils @nazokiyoubinbou

SystemD isn't a integral part of Linux as far as I know, but an optional manager most distro's choose to use.

There are quite a few distro's actively shying away from SystemD.

@sarah @cmconseils I'm confused why whenever I say that most distros are built around it people always correct me like that...

I'm not saying all distros.

But one thing I am saying is that a whole lot of stuff is designed assuming you're using it. Especially, as in the example above, userland services. Take, for example, pipewire-pulse. If you install it on an init-based distro such as Devuan it's not going to be running. You're going to have to do some legwork to have sound again in a modern DE.

A few are doing their own fixes here and there. For example, MX Linux has a manual run script and a .desktop in the autostart to run it and this works, but most things don't have this. A lot of packages won't.

Worse, some distro packages require systemd to even install...

@sarah @cmconseils So, to be clear, while Linux can exist without systemd, it's also going to mean a lot of work for a lot of distros to divest from it. It may not be required but it sure is deeply embedded in Linux as a whole.

And most probably won't bother.

@cmconseils @nazokiyoubinbou

If/until distros do, Linux has NOT rejected this!Makes it look like until all distro's reject SystemD, linux (principally, not technically) support age verification.

@sarah @cmconseils In effect, yes, I would argue that. One thing to bear in mind here is that systemd has already pushed these changes. If you keep your system up to date and you're on like 95% of the distros out there, you already have the age check mechanisms installed, whether they've actually activated yet or not.

@cmconseils

I find it rather unpleasant that most mainstream #Linux distros use SystemD, who have implemented a age entry for users due to this law. I live 5300 miles/8600 km away from California.

My next linux distro is one without #SystemD, no Linux #Mint, no #Ubuntu (not that was an option anyways), no #Debian and so on. Probably going for #Devuan.

@sarah @cmconseils may I remind you, that you already for about 12 years had fields for your real name, surname and exact location? Which were, same as this new DoB field, empty by default and 100% optional.

It's like you said "I feel unpleasant that this restaurant added green tea to their menu, even though I'll never order it, and nobody will force me to order it"

@leniwcowaty

I'd like to know and understand more. While I am not as amnesiac as your post might suggest, I initially believed there was a principal difference between providing users the option to self-identify vs. implementing a feature as a stated response to Californian law.

Perhaps you can enlighten me how these things are the same?

And your strawperson example doesn't quite fit how I look at my own statements, I'd say it's more like:

"I find it unpleasant that the global franchise have mandated local restaurant should offer human clone meat here in Norway, as they say themselves; in preparation for a Californian law. In light of other franchises and the industry in general, as a resolute anti-human clone meat protestor I should look for alternative restaurants as hold it highly possible that they will at some point change their entire menu to human clone meat and I will not be able to eat here anymore."

@sarah your "clone meat" is prime level bullshit.

SystemD has userDB. I encourage you to go through it.

This db has multiple optional fields, that are empty by default, and nobody is forcing you to fill them. Such as name, surname, location. Systemd doesn't prevent you from using your OS if you don't give it your name or location. And now they added a new optional field - date of birth. Want to fill it? Do it. Don't want? Don't do it. Or lie about your DoB. Who cares? Not systemd.

@sarah tell me, are you offended, that systemd has a field called "location"? Do you find it unpleasant? Does it make you uncomfortable? Is it dangerous, that you CAN fill it with any location you want, or not fill it at all?

If not, why are you offended about the Date of Birth field?

@leniwcowaty

It seems you are unable to discuss the principal points I'm talking about, I don't see how we can have a productive discussion. Thank you for the interaction and I wish you a happy life.

@sarah no, seems like you don't understand what actually was added to systemd, and desperately want to be offended about something. Have a happy life, and in the future - actually read commits, instead of listening to fearmongering youtubers ;)

dil 21h ago

@leniwcowaty @sarah You keep talking about this age verification thing like it is a technical issue, but it is not -- this is a political issue.

Meta spent over $2,000,000,000 just to lobby for a global age verification law. California's implementation is just the test run, and soon most OS will make this "oh it is just an optional stuff things like this has always been on UserDB" a requirement to own and operate a PC.

That is the problem people are worried about. Not this your "you don't understand what you are talking about" shit, we are worried about how most of our systems will be illegal in the coming years, and how we may have to use the dark web to access the simplest if programs.

19h ago

@daesorin @sarah I understand the issue. And I am fully against this age verification bs. But being angry at systemd that they just added a field to your local db is stupid. If this field was there years ago, nobody would even blink twice.

Go be angry at lawmakers, at distros implementing that.

dil 16h ago

@leniwcowaty @sarah The "go be angry at lawmakers" redirect does not hold. Lawmakers mandate what infrastructure makes possible. You pointed at that mechanism yourself -- "if this field was there years ago nobody would blink." That is the normalization argument. The blinking is the point. The absence of blinking, once the field is universal and unremarkable, is what gives the law somewhere to land.

Nobody is angry at systemd for adding a field. The argument is that "it is just a field" is the wrong frame for evaluating what the field represents inside a specific regulatory moment, with Meta's $2,000,000,000 in lobbying behind it pushing toward exactly this kind of quiet, boring, already-present infrastructure. Technical triviality and political significance are not the same measurement. A thing can be both simple to implement and useful to mandate.

"Go be angry at distros implementing it" is also doing something strange -- distros that ship systemd ship UserDB. That is not a separate decision.

Von Xylofon 1d ago

@cmconseils This? https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/40954

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