this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2026
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Fork time? Maybe all the anti-systemd zealots were right all along...

Edit: To address whether it is likely that this change will affect users: Gnome is planning a stronger dependence on userdb, the part of systemd where this change is being implemented. https://blogs.gnome.org/adrianvovk/2025/06/10/gnome-systemd-dependencies/

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[–] brax@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 hour ago

Just write a shell script that changes the birthday every few minutes lol

[–] Liketearsinrain@lemmy.ml 21 points 2 hours ago

They want to store the actual birthdays (not just a boolean stating it complies with an age bracket). And using claude to review PRs… fucking systemd

[–] AllAroundNerd42@lemmy.today 1 points 1 hour ago

So what? I am (g)root.

[–] jobbies@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 hours ago

This is some sick early April Fools thing right..? RIGHT?!?

[–] pglpm@lemmy.ca 42 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Something feels fishy... The user who made this pull request has more than doubled his contributions to various repositories since January (from 20–400 to more than 1100), and this is his first pull request in the systemd repo.

[–] pkjqpg1h@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

Can someone explain how they do this verification?

Not at all for now. Its just about storing the birth date in a way that the system can use it.

[–] chgxvjh@hexbear.net 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

The Californian law doesn't require being temper proof (yet)

[–] Patrikvo@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Great that California allows us to be angry about it.

[–] chgxvjh@hexbear.net 1 points 1 hour ago

Colorado too and some other states have similar plans.

The EU plans go in a different and worse direction.

[–] TrippinMallard@lemmy.ml 49 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

You mean they're complying with Meta's age verification at OS level lobbying?

https://github.com/upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings

[–] juipeltje@lemmy.world 16 points 4 hours ago (3 children)

Ofcourse the project run by a microslop employee wants to force this on almost every distro as soon as possible.

[–] underscores@lemmy.zip 13 points 3 hours ago

same thing with manifest v3, just some mega corp goon doing the work no one's asked for

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[–] whelk@retrolemmy.com 14 points 4 hours ago

This is the first time I've cared about the whole systemd debate, so that's something I guess. Not interested in anything that kowtows to this age verification nonsense

[–] PolarPirate@lemmy.zip 12 points 4 hours ago

Damn that's crazy. It'd be a shame if someone not beholden to California law just forked the code

[–] CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world 56 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

I was ambivalent about systemd up until now. If this gets merged I'm moving to a non-systemd distro. I do not live in California or even the USA. I do not want age verification garbage in my OS.

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[–] filister@lemmy.world 5 points 3 hours ago (3 children)

Why do they need the age after all. What are authorities going to do with it?

[–] Hawk@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Control what content you see and add some extra detail to fingerprint you.

If they can get this simple age verification done from everyone, it's not going to be hard to add "new requirements" in the future

[–] coolmojo@lemmy.world 3 points 3 hours ago

Either this or block access to people living in hostile places. Currently it is a parental control with no verification of the thruth. You can put 01/01/01 there, if you want. If it turns into identity verification we will see what we can do.

[–] pkjqpg1h@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 hours ago

"Protect Children" !

[–] daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

They (politicians) are obsessed with control.

[–] bskm@feddit.nu 10 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

To my understanding, it's also Meta that is lobbying for this. Basically pushing the responsibility elsewhere to the operating system vendors

[–] filister@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

But how would they know I have been truthful about my age? I mean I am never putting my real age when registering on websites.

[–] bskm@feddit.nu 4 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I guess they want this law to fall back on in case an underage individual is presented with mature/inappropriate content. Then they can just say that you lied about your age and that is not their fault.

[–] filister@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Yes, so pretty much they don't want to be held responsible. And the government is bending over to comply with the tech bros.

[–] pglpm@lemmy.ca 12 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Meta's lobbies reach really everywhere these days.

[–] pathwonder@kopitalk.net 7 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

Does BSD use systemd? I always wanted to try it and if this keeps up I might take the plunge.

[–] Mambert@beehaw.org 14 points 4 hours ago

There's systemdless Linux distros! I used Artix Linux with no issues.

[–] dsilverz@calckey.world 22 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

@skyline2@lemmy.dbzer0.com @linux@lemmy.ml

Brazilian here. I'm neither a lawyer nor a specialist, just someone who has read the Portuguese text from the Brazilian flavor of the ongoing worldwide age check set of laws.

I must note that the Brazilian age check law (Lei 15.211/2025) specifies "vedada a autodeclaração" (English: "self-declaring is forbidden"). This means that this kind of implementation, where age or birthday is an user input, wouldn't be compliant to Lei 15.211/2025, because it requires the age information to be assessed independently from the user whose age is being assessed. This means face biometrics, government-issued ID (in our case, CPF, CNH, Passaporte and similar) or "behaviorial analysis"... Anything but a "yes I'm 18" or "I was born in day month year", for those are self-declared and the Law says it's "not enough".

Someone should warn the systemd maintainers of this "Brazilian jabuticaba".

(Cross posting this reply of mine because the post was cross posted to two different Lemmy instances)

[–] ominouslemon@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 hours ago

I believe this only stores that information. It's not a system of declaring an age

[–] vk6flab@lemmy.radio 77 points 7 hours ago (12 children)

In my opinion, storing a date is pretty much irrelevant unless there's a process that validates the supplied date, otherwise every Linux user was born on 1/1/1, if not, an administrator can "fix" that

Furthermore, that systemd thinks that it's the place to store such information is in my opinion beyond absurd.

Who appointed that project the source of age truth in the Linux ecosystem? What discussion was there, who was consulted and where was the vote?

[–] Decq@lemmy.world 5 points 1 hour ago

Come on, you know it's going to be 1/1/1970 most of the time.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 hours ago

You're right that asking a user for a date is next to useless. However, that isn't a reason to not fight this stuff. Asking the user for the date is step one to getting people accept it. After that they'll point out that people were lying, and they'll need our government ID to verify (and link us to activity). It's all a step towards a surveillance network tracking every move you make on your computer.

[–] marcie@lemmy.ml 24 points 4 hours ago

1/1/1

every linux user is jesus confirmed

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