this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2026
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In my opinion, storing a date is pretty much irrelevant unless there's a process that validates the supplied date, otherwise every Linux user was born on 1/1/1, if not, an administrator can "fix" that
Furthermore, that
systemdthinks that it's the place to store such information is in my opinion beyond absurd.Who appointed that project the source of age truth in the Linux ecosystem? What discussion was there, who was consulted and where was the vote?
Exactly. This is a massive overreach, and it is crazy that Poettering is even considering merging this.
I would say the majority of objections to systemd pertain to perceived overreaches of the project (perceptions I generally share). So in that sense, it is kind of on brand.
You've, uh, seen systemd, right? Cmon; this is just one more section for the cancer to eat.
He thinks that systemd is desktop linux.
Not familiar with him then?
every linux user is jesus confirmed
Everyone knows Jesus was born one 0001-12-25
You're right that asking a user for a date is next to useless. However, that isn't a reason to not fight this stuff. Asking the user for the date is step one to getting people accept it. After that they'll point out that people were lying, and they'll need our government ID to verify (and link us to activity). It's all a step towards a surveillance network tracking every move you make on your computer.
I understand your point and agree that this is the thin end of the wedge.
What we're doing here is discussing the phenomenon and I'm highlighting some concerns.
I believe that this is how you get a dialogue happening which will effect change, which is what we're both advocating.
I think that age verification is about surveillance rather than protecting children and I think it should be fought at every level.
This is me contributing to that fight.
Come on, you know it's going to be 1/1/1970 most of the time.
https://itsfoss.com/systemd-free-distros/
This change is mostly in the userdb code which is a sub-component of systemd that stores user records. It isn't in the PID1 process. But I could see an argument for having it be part of the desktop environment in GNOME or something like that instead.
https://blogs.gnome.org/adrianvovk/2025/06/10/gnome-systemd-dependencies/
They haven't fessed up yet that that's part of their plan. I expect to hear from them after they've passed the first half.