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this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2026
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If the whole story was the addition of this change with no other context, I'd agree. But if you read the PR description you'll see its more than that. The laws in question are specifically called out. This suggests that whether or not the legal interpretation of compliance changes (the law could require more than just DOB entry, aka DOB verification with government ID), systemd is planning to comply rather than join the legal battle against these invasive requirements.
Yes, I get that they may want verification with government ID... but unless they do it at a firmware level, anything above a FOSS Linux kernel on my own unlocked hardware, is fully under my control.
So far, it sounds to me like "age verif theatre" as applied to single user "jailbroken" systems. If they added this on a locked down Android system, as a requirement for network access (note: this is an actual proposal being floated around) then that would be of some concern... but systemd? 🤨
Theatre is all you need for proof of concept. Later it can be reinforced by making it a requirement for access to banking websites et al.
At which point, we're fucked either way.
Any idea what to do? Who still uses old init method? Anyways, systemd commands have too many components and I can never remember all the key words. It's way too much shit to remember anyways.
Gentoo, patch it out, funroll-all-loops for the memes.
I'ts open source, change the shit you don't like.