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/
Final Edit: The PR has been merged into main.
Y’all are making a mountain out of nothing. There are already userdb fields for the real name and location. I don’t think anyone ever gave a fuck what you enter there, if anything at all. Why should DoB be different?
Adding another data field alone does nothing unless:
As it stands, it’s a performative gesture to avoid law enforcement crackdown, which I think is perfectly reasonable for a private person with limited funds to fight a legal battle with. That doesn’t mean they can’t also fight that battle privately, but expecting volunteers to put their necks on the line over adding data field seems rather entitled to me.
If Gnome (or any other program) decided to implement age verification (beyond just “enter your date and please don’t lie”), using that field, the blame for that would fall on Gnome.
This is more like adding a field in the cookie of an adult website to store whether the user has clicked “Yes, of course I’m 18”, without even implementing the disclaimer for the user to click that button, let alone actual age verification.
dude, can you send me a picture of your government ID? I just wanna see?
Nope. I’m John Doe, living in Nice Try, Atlantis, and my email is “who@car.es”. But I draw the line at being asked for my birthday (which is 1970-01-01).
The userdb already has fields for other information. Nobody enforces putting anything there, nor verifies the contents. Why should DoB be different? And why should that be on the userdb?
Because this design does not come from the project, it is bowing down to a fascist funded movement.
It’s easy to say “just ignore the law” when you’re a nobody on the internet. But also, this isn’t much bowing. More like slightly inclining your head to do the bare minimum.
They’re debating about the best way to make sure that data doesn’t end up where it shouldn’t. They’re not implementing some systemd-level verification requirements. They’re literally just offering a central-ish place to handle storing and securing that data. If anything, this should be preferable to having different implementations with different levels of security standards.
And it’s delusional to think that Linux will collectively be able to evade this requirement, unless the law as a whole ends up overturned (which I very much hope it does). You wanna get pissed at someone for sucking fascist dick, get pissed at the lawmakers passing this crap.
A data field isn’t the hill to fight that battle on. If someone goes and actually implements mandatory verification, I’ll be right there with you, (pitch-)fork ready and ready to burn bridges, but this isn’t it.
Are you saying corporations like Red Hat sponsoring the development of systemd are thinking of “poor private devs” of whatever distro when taking such a decision than impacts the majority of distros?
Red Hat probably could afford to go to court over those laws. Maybe should, too. Maybe just passively ignore them until someone drags them to court for it. But all of that would be independent of this change.
And just what is that impact?
“Here, you have a space to write stuff down.” So what? If I’ll never read it or verify the contents, what difference does it make?
That every distro will inherit a field containing a birth date, whether they want it or not.
That “stuff” is a personal information that not everyone is legally equipped to deal with. In EU there are specific laws protecting storage and usage of personal information.
Your "stuff"can potentially create more problems than the ones it tries to solve, assuming good intentions.
You mean like email address, real name, location? Because those fields exist already. I’m not aware that they have ever caused any issues, even though real name and location should be more critical in a doxxing or surveillance context than “just” the date of birth.
I assure you, I don’t have my email, real name or location stored in my userdb. Nobody makes me enter them. Nobody cares. Nobody would verify if I did. What’s stopping me from entering 1970-01-01 as my DoB, if I enter anything at all?
If I’m the one storing, transmitting, querying and processing PII, I’m responsible for it. If my distro were to require email verification, proof of identity for the real name, records of my place of residence or employment to ensure the location is accurate, that would be an issue, and that would make the vendor liable for handling that data.
That is what the GDPR and related laws are actually concerned with, not the exact format or place they’re stored. Otherwise, you’d have to ban me from creating text files: I might store someone’s phone numbers in there.
I’ve been using Linux for many years and not even once I’ve seen those info being requested by the operating system.
There’s a huge difference between YOU putting your info by your own accord wherever you want (look at what people do on Facebook) and an operating system requesting those.
In case you didn’t notice, this whole ordeal is pushed by Meta to avoid being accountable for the shit they do on their platforms, they’re trying to shift the responsibility to operating systems of all things, and that’s not acceptable.
Is it though? As best as I could tell, this PR is literally just adding the field next to the others, not requesting shit.
Absolutely. I just disagree that this particular addition (particularly considering all the fuss about making sure it doesn’t show up in logs and dumps and what not) is a problem. I don’t think this is the hill that battle should be fought on. Adding or not adding it to systemd doesn’t make the OS / distro built on top of it any less responsible for their handling of that data.
It does provide a standard and (somewhat) central place to implement the security aspects of it though.
That would be the case if everyone used systemd, but it’s not, sysvinit distros still exist and they’re not going away in the foreseeable future.
I could agree with this if the reason for this PR wasn’t age verification, that’s indeed a battle that needs to be fought, on every piece of the puzzle.
That’s nice. Doesn’t change the fact that it needs to be stored somewhere, if the maintainers end up facing legal pressure to implement it. Opposing one (optional) way to store it won’t fix the issue, it’ll just result in the same splintering of competing standards we see everywhere else, with the attendant difficulties in ensuring security and quality across the board. In other things, that might matter less, but if we’re pissed about having to hand over PII to one instance, I’d be even more wary of it being stolen.
You’d be cutting off one leaf of a tree.
Are you going to oppose every other system that allows storing data too, because it might be used to store data for age verification?
No, it’s a battle that needs to be fought at the focal points: lawmakers, law enforcement, developers implementing the verification tools, companies using them.
Spending time and energy waging a culture war over the most insignificant, replaceable, trivial part of it will achieve nothing. It sacrifices all nuance and bulldozes all discussion of other merits (or issues) systemd might have.
There are legitimate, reasonable complaints to have with systemd. “We added a data field, which we’re trying to make sure doesn’t end up in the wrong hands” isn’t one.
Fuck these laws, and fuck the fascists using kids as pretense for surveillance.
Everbody look at bro, he’s glowing!
?
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/glowie
I mean, I literally say that implementing actual verification would be an invasion of privacy. Storing data isn’t the problem, because we do that any way. This isn’t any different from the fields for your real name or location, which nobody gives a fuck about either. At least systemd are talking about ways to secure that data, whether to add a separate flag or save some CPU cycles before wiping it from memory and such.
If you force me to enter something, that’s definitely shady. If you force me to verify that information, we’re in “fuck no, fuck you, fuck this surveillance bullshit” territory.
But getting upset about this optional field in particular, but not any other data storage option, is hypocritical. Worse still, getting upset at the one effort to provide a standard that also makes some attempt at securing it is short-sighted. We have a hundred ways to store data. Cancelling one won’t stop the root issue:
Collecting that data. Fuck that law, fuck the people that wrote it, fuck the people that passed it, fuck the people forcing you to surrender PII for plain bullshit reasons and fuck the people implementing those surveillance methods. That is worth raging about.
Hey I’m not gonna disagree. I just provided an answer to what that person meant about “glowing”.
I’ll add another link that you might want to consider though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticipatory_obedience
You’re right, and thanks for that and the second link too.
Still, as “bowing to fascist fuckery” goes, trying to figure out how to securely store a piece of data is hardly problematic. The Flatpak PR they cite also mentions that they wanted options for parental controls independently of the law, and it’s that part I’d be more concerned about, but still less than about the “upload your ID please, promise we won’t pull any fuckery with it- whoops” shit going on elsewhere.
You are correct but every little barrier helps.
Hate to just keep throwing out links to Wikipedia but … these techniques have been used to some success in the fight against fascism before.
It is much better if Linux and systemd say “oh gosh we’re not ready to implement that for at least another 2-3 years and even then only in preliminary implementations” instead of “yes sir right away sir we have that all ready to go at a moments notice, let me put that boot of yours right down my own throat”
CW: racism
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/glowie