This shit is really getting out of hand. But that was always a given considering the uneducated and hyperbolic panic being stirred up around this. Brodie of course I think has a solid response. This should served as a constant reminder how easy it is for anyone to be manipulated.
On one hand I completely agree that people are overreacting to adding a field that anything actually implementing age verification could potentially make use of.
But on the other hand I think people are not overreacting enough (in ways other than pointlessly harassing the names on a pull request) because this is a ‘foot in the door’ and basically the only way to prevent these vaguely worded laws from fully rooting everywhere would be massive blowback that actually has consequences for the corporations and governments pushing the laws.
But on the third hand, every Linux distribution collectively refusing to abide by the law and blocking California, Brazil, ect. IPs probably wouldn’t have much overall impact so time would probably be better spent trying to get the average random person to care… and the average random person definitely does not care about systemd fields…
But on the third hand,
I know an AI comment when I see one /jk
he never said it was his third hand. he could be a serial killer who keeps hands.
Damn moties!
Yep, the people losing their shit about this should be fucking ashamed.
Do you mean the mere mention of age verification prompted them to react immediately in support of it, even if it is just a silly input field?
tl;dw?
A bunch of arseholes who watched Linus Tech Tips and Pewdiepie videos and have recently jumped on the Linux hype train and who now consider themselves 7eeT hAx0Rz because they figured out how to apt-get in a terminal have been piling hate on the dev even to the point of death threats. They don’t actually understand what the change has been and in fact probably still don’t have a clue what systemd is or even if they’re using it on their Linux install.
A developer submitted a PR code change for systemd userdb.
My proposals (that’s really what PRs are) are to implement a solution that meets the regulatory requirements in several jurisdictions by providing a way to store a self-reported birthdate locally on the machine. These laws also require that this date is collected during account creation (hence why I made PRs against installers) and you can enter any value here, even January 1st, 1900. There is no proof required, no ID scanning, and no external tracking. Nor do I have any desire for that to ever change.
Apparently the developer is confirmed to be just a regular guy. He thinks it’d be worse if every desktop environment implements their own solution to comply with these laws. He’s against the various laws related to this incident.
As a fallout for submitting this pull request, he has been extensively harassed. His personal information being repeatedly posted online; his information used to sign up to a lot of sites, groups, churches, car dealerships, ordering food for him; threats of murder; regular textual harassment.
Deserves, the change is garbage, it affects so few people and now the rest of us have this option to be forced to use it at a later date. garbage human. Most of linux users will not be touched by any of this garbage law. i am rather militant over this
But you don’t have to use it dumbass. There is no requirement to fill it in. Funny though how you’ve never apparently had a problem with the RealName field that’s been in there for years.
But you don’t have to use it dumbass. There is no requirement to fill it in.
No shit, that’s not the point. The point is that in the future they will make it a requirement. Is there something more specific you need help understanding?
No requirement today, what about tomorrow? What is happening with age verification in UK?
You need to prove you are an adult usually via CC when you want a wank
So kids and adults started to use VPNs
So now the government is considering forcing VPN’s to also perform age verification
What is next? Do you need more examples of how this is idiotic? Do you know the reason why no one is up in arms about the RealName? Because it was not implemented specifically to facilitate age verification where as this change is purely and specifically to be used for this purpose and no other. Go read the actual PR.
Yes, the dev deserves to be harassed and receive literal death threats because checks notes he added a completely optional field.
Grow the fuck up.
He thinks it’d be worse if every desktop environment implements their own solution to comply with these laws.
Sure he has a point there, but putting it in systemd means there will need to be at least one other implementation for systems that don’t use systemd…
Are you suggesting that we should put this field in the kernel instead.
I’m not suggesting anything specific. But the point of rushing to implement your way into software A to prevent each software having their own implementation does not make sense to me. This is not a proper way to standardise. There are many months left to make a proposal that works for everyone.
What people fail to realise is that these laws affect very few users in the world… So why is it there for the rest of us?
