Linux

12995 readers

497 users here now

A community for everything relating to the GNU/Linux operating system (except the memes!)

Also, check out:

Original icon base courtesy of lewing@isc.tamu.edu and The GIMP

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

Ategon@programming.dev

anzo@programming.dev

dwraf_of_ignorance@programming.dev

The reports of age verification in Linux are greatly exaggerated, for now (www.osnews.com)

submitted 6 hours ago by Rekall_Incorporated@piefed.social to c/linux@programming.dev

10 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Avicenna@programming.dev 13 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

I feel like most people are just gonna read the title and get the wrong idea about what is written in the page. So I will quote this:

And this is why I am of two minds about this issue. On the one hand, I fully understand that the various developers involved with these efforts want to make sure they follow the law and avoid getting fined – or worse – especially since compliance requires so little at this time. On top of that, these changes make it possible to implement a fairly robust set of parental controls in a centralised way, keeping the data involved where it makes sense, so it also brings a number of benefits for users. There really isn’t anything to worry about when looking at these changes in isolation.

On the other hand, though, I also understand the fears and worries from people who see these changes as the first capitulation to age verification, nicely making the bed for much stricter age verification laws I’m sure certain parts of the political compass are already dreaming about. With so many Linux distributions, BSD variants, and even alternative operating systems having their legal domiciles in the United States, it’s not unreasonable to assume they’re going to fold under any possible legal pressure that comes with such laws.

I’m not rushing to replace my Fedora KDE installations with something else at this point, but I’m definitely going to explore my options on at least one of my machines and go from there, so I at least won’t be caught with my pants down in the future. The world isn’t ending, age verification hasn’t come to Linux, but we’d all do well to remain skeptical and prepare for when it does make its way into our open source operating systems.

It is not that, "there is nothing to worry about age field creeping into sytemd". It is that in the current ecosystem in which most large open-source projects live, it is easier said than done to take a principled action against early compliance with such laws. Which is much more reasonable than trying to undersell this change as "eh it is just an optional age field". It is not, it is a statement that when asked to comply with surveillance laws, they will be met with minimal resistance.

[–] pglpm@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

Well said. In fact there's more than an ecosystem problem. We must understand that saying or using "FOSS" or "Linux" does not automatically mean to stand up for human rights, for the community, and against corporations. I've personally been under this gross misunderstanding, and I think other users might be too.

If we read the comments in current debates about FOSS, Linux, and age verification, we can see that many developers and possibly also users make statements like "the developer has no obligation towards the community", "the law is the law, no matter what the community wants", "we must comply", and similar. It's important to realize that many developers work on FOSS not out of consideration for the community or for human rights. For them it's just one kind of software development. We may have projects that are FOSS and pro-corporations or pro-surveillance. The "F" in FOSS stands for freedom to modify and distribute the software by/to anyone in the community. But it doesn't stand for "software that promotes / stands up for general human freedom" or human rights.

So for anyone who, like me, wants to use and promote software as an assertion of and a stand for human rights and against corporations, beyond the simple "software" aspects, it's necessary not to stop at "FOSS" or "Linux" but apply more scrutiny and a more careful choice.

[–] Avicenna@programming.dev 1 points 43 minutes ago

Agreed. I find it a bit insane that main discussion point up to now has been whether or not this PR is related to compliance with surveillance laws, especially when the author of the said PR states that is the motivation.

Whether or not such projects have a responsibility for promoting human rights is a much more valid discussion point, along with practicalities of the approach. But that also reminds us an essential aspect of FOSS. Despite being the dominant init system in the linux world, it is by far not a monopoly and any group with enough know how can easily maintain a non surveillance free version of it. But ofcourse if people keep downplaying the political aspect of what has been done here then they might find themselves in a boiling frog situation.