Stores the user's birth date for age verification, as required by recent laws
in California (AB-1043), Colorado (SB26-051), Brazil (Lei 15.211/2025), etc.
The xdg-desktop-portal project is addi...
Fork time? Maybe all the anti-systemd zealots were right all along…
I’ve been using Linux for many years and not even once I’ve seen those info being requested by the operating system.
Otherwise, you’d have to ban me from creating text files
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.
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.
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.
It does provide a standard and (somewhat) central place
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 don’t think this is the hill that battle should be fought on.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
Doesn’t change the fact that it needs to be stored somewhere, if the maintainers end up facing legal pressure to implement it
Sure, but trying to apply it to the entire world when only a few countries are currently impacted is fishy at best.
And no, we don’t know yet what the entire world will do about it, even if Meta is trying to lobby everyone, there’s also a push for making opensource exempt from it, in that case those applying the PR have worked for nothing.
Are you going to oppose every other system that allows storing data too, because it might be used to store data for age verification?
It depends, if the purpose is age verification then yes I will oppose it.
There are legitimate, reasonable complaints to have with systemd.
I didn’t have any so far, for the very simple reason that I don’t have the technical knowledge to judge by myself. This PR tho doesn’t require any tech knowledge to understand what’s going on.
“We added a data field, which we’re trying to make sure doesn’t end up in the wrong hands”
The road to hell is paved with good intentions, even tho by reading the PR thread I’m not sure the intentions behind the push are actually good as you seem to believe.
Fuck these laws, and fuck the fascists using kids as pretense for surveillance
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.
Sure, but trying to apply it to the entire world when only a few countries are currently impacted is fishy at best.
And no, we don’t know yet what the entire world will do about it, even if Meta is trying to lobby everyone, there’s also a push for making opensource exempt from it, in that case those applying the PR have worked for nothing.
It depends, if the purpose is age verification then yes I will oppose it.
I didn’t have any so far, for the very simple reason that I don’t have the technical knowledge to judge by myself. This PR tho doesn’t require any tech knowledge to understand what’s going on.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions, even tho by reading the PR thread I’m not sure the intentions behind the push are actually good as you seem to believe.
That’s something I fully agree with.