60
submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by pglpm@lemmy.ca to c/linux@programming.dev

Software changes for compliance with age-verification laws are being pushed a bit everywhere in Linux-development; for example:

It's interesting that it's the same small group of people behind these pull requests, and that discussion threads in them have been locked owing to a great amount of negative criticisms.

They say "we have to comply with the law". Which also means that if "the law" in the future will require proper verification, handling to 3rd-parties, or whatnot, then they will comply.

Well, it's their right to. They don't owe anything to anyone, and are under no obligation to report to users or to the community, nor to pay heed to anybody's wishes.

If things proceed in this direction, we users may at some point have to choose between privacy-friendly Linux distributions or legal Linux distributions. People who, like me, are worried, need to start thinking about concrete actions to take before it's too late: where to develop such distros? which channels to download and distribute them from? And so on. (And of course, more generally we need to write and protest to politicians, organize protest marches, go on strike, refuse to comply...)

It's good to remind to those who keep on repeating the words "legal" and "illegal" that for example Nelson Mandela was, technically speaking, a criminal who did and promoted illegal activity. This happens when laws become immoral.

top 30 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] mrbigmouth502@piefed.zip 51 points 3 days ago

Don't comply in advance, that's what I say. Unfortunately, that's what systemd is doing, and what archinstall, xdg-desktop-portal, and Freedesktop.org are on the verge of doing.

For the vast majority of people who don't live in California, including myself, California law can go fly a kite.

[-] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 16 points 3 days ago

Doesn't the law expect "Operating Systems" to do this? I feel like everyone should point fingers and lean on bureaucracy. Systemd should say "well don't look at us, we're not an operating system, we're just an init and services system", and Linux says "well we're just a kernel, usermode does whatever it wants", and Debian says "well we're just a distro, we didn't write any of the packages we just stick them together."

If the tech illiterate idiots who wrote the poorly thought out law can't figure out who to ask, maybe they'll do their due diligence next time.

[-] ExperimentalGuy@programming.dev 2 points 2 days ago

This would be the funniest reality.

[-] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 46 points 3 days ago

It's all one fucking guy! WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS BOOTLICKER DOING?!

Dylan M. Taylor
dylanmtaylor

this fucker

[-] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 days ago

If we're going to blame one person, Zuckerberg comes to mind.

[-] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

Zuckerberg didn't fucking write the actual piece of shit making it real, this fucker, Dylan M Taylor did, and fuck him.

[-] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 days ago

Zuckerberg paid for the law that Dylan is reacting to.

Zuckerberg is ultra rich with sociopathic tendencies and poor impulse control.

This other guy is probably just trying to get by.

There are two sides: the Epstein class, and the rest of us.

The Epstein class rely on distracting us from that truth, to keep their influence.

Come to think of it, Zuck, is that you?

[-] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

This other guy is probably just trying to get by.

explain how jamming this shit in ASAP is "trying to get by".

[-] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Well, I'm not happy with that, either.

But I'll save my rage for Zuckerberg, not at some FOSS developer.

There's billionaires actively increasing my work hours, lowering my pay, stripping my government services, and some of them part of a kidnapping and rape operation targeting my kids.

Ill be happy to remind Dylan whose side they should be on, but my rage is for Zuck the fuck.

Edit: I'm done here. My option on jackbooted authoritarians carrying guns doesn't belong in a public web profile, today, no matter how anonymous.

Maybe I'll share my thoughts at their trials, someday. Or through some other method of helping them reveal their faces.

[-] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

and what do you think about individual members of ICE? You think they should be left alone just for following orders to deport innocent people?

[-] Eldritch@piefed.world 16 points 3 days ago

I can synpathize with the devs as they are simply taking the minimal steps they can. To avoid being targeted by these failing states. But yeah, what's this guys story. Someone suddenly contributing so narrowly to such a broad slate of projects isn't common.

[-] refalo@programming.dev 11 points 3 days ago

My bet would be ulterior motive.

[-] Eldritch@piefed.world 14 points 3 days ago

Honestly with the way meta is playing the states with this. I could easily see them paying someone to do this. Just look at all the ignorant reactionary people this is stirring up. Attacking projects made of volunteer devs. It's a good way to possibly hobble or even kill some projects. As the devs aren't being paid enough to handle the BS from either end.

[-] Pika@sh.itjust.works 13 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

No, I disagree.

It is not one person's doing. That is the deflection.

I will not downplay the effect of this by saying they are the only one involved. Every maintainer so far that has locked or approved any changes that they did are equally at fault here. In fact, one of those linked articles even stated that the primary reason they locked it is because they didn't like the amount of coverage it got. This is a failure on the community as a whole, not the individual.

edit for clarification: By failure, I'm talking more on projects that are humoring it and actually going through with it without considering the potential side effects of just blanket applying that.

Currently considering that a handful of these are locked or posted as we don't know if we're going to be doing this yet, I haven't quite put them in that same sector yet, but it's rapidly approaching it.

[-] moxymarauder@thelemmy.club 16 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I don't get why gnu/linux devs are even involved in this. They aren't serving the content, how are they liable?

[-] sbeak@sopuli.xyz 22 points 3 days ago

Because Facebook paid a lot of money to the courts to shift the blame from the social media companies (including themselves) to the operating system

[-] Zurgo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 3 days ago

What is stopping everyone from having the same birthday? I propose 1969-01-01

[-] cbazero@programming.dev 6 points 2 days ago

Your digital ID which needs to be linked with your user account. "Age verification" is the setup for this.

[-] Skankhunt420@sh.itjust.works 14 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I already have the distros downloaded that are against this.

If it comes for my favorite distro that I use everyday I will immediately uninstall it and instance one of the ones that isn't bending over to let Uncle Sam and others take them from behind.

All they had to do was say they wouldn't support people from the places that those laws were or would be enacted in. That's it. That's all they fucking had to do.

I will also add that it disappoints me so so much that so many of my fellow Linux enthusiasts aren't more upset or even just plain old cautious about this.

It actually hurts my head to think about. I don't get it. Don't we all usually have about the same goals in mind with this? Open, meaning not invasive. Not windows (spyware) and no telemetry meaning privacy respecting?

What the fuck is happening?

[-] aqua@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

Which distros are against it?

[-] Skankhunt420@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago

So far I have Ageless and regular Debian but the Debian devs haven't taken a hard stance either way yet, that's still better than taking a stance for it. At least there is some resistance. Adenix as well.

And while not Linux I'm about to install freeBSD on a spare laptop as well and if they take a stance for it I'll use MidnightBSD or GhostBSD.

[-] artyom@piefed.social 8 points 3 days ago

I honestly don't know because when it comes to Linux, it's super complicated. Because it is essentially a collection of packages developed by various organizations and contributors from all over the world.

I suspect you won't even be able to choose "illegal" distros either because the distro is only half of the equation. The app stores are required to require an age signal as well, and if you don't provide one they probably won't let you download. Flathub is run by GNOME out of CA, so they'll most certainly comply.

I suspect this will result in new mirrored repositories located outside the US but who knows really?

[-] pglpm@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 days ago

I'm curious to see how it'll develop.

[-] adubya@feddit.online 6 points 3 days ago

Praying for us 'I use Arch BTW' people to have our day in the sun. Don't fail us!

[-] racketlauncher831@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 days ago

OP's "Arch Linux" link points to the install script, not the operating system Arch Linux.

[-] tux0r@snac.rosaelefanten.org 2 points 2 days ago

Luckily, OpenBSD does not do that,

[-] DmMacniel@feddit.org 6 points 3 days ago

When privacy is outlawed, what do you think?

[-] moxymarauder@thelemmy.club 6 points 3 days ago

I think the community needs to ddos every CA website into oblivion.

[-] DmMacniel@feddit.org 4 points 3 days ago

That would kill the entire SSL infrastructure?

[-] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Already a thing. We can choose between Ubuntu, who restrict your freedom and privacy in the Snap store, and have experimented with weird things like forward your desktop search to the internet or integrate Amazon into your desktop. Or you can pick a different distro. Some have telemetry, some ask you for your permission and even patch user software so it doesn't send telemetry per default. Some were kinda illegal and distributed libcss2.

this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2026
60 points (87.5% liked)

Linux

12991 readers
293 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