this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2026
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The latest changes implemented in the Systemd repo, related to or prompted by age-verification laws, have made many people unhappy (I suppose links about this aren't necessary). This has led to a surge in Systemd forks during the last days ("surge" because there have always been plenty of forks). Here are some forks that explicitly mention those changes as their reason for forking (rough time ordering taken from the fork page):

Hopefully the energy of this reaction won't be scattered among too many alternatives, although some amount of scattering is always good.

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[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 5 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Out of the loop:

The systemd project merged a pull request adding a new birthDate field to the JSON user records managed by userdb, in response to age verification laws in California, Colorado, and Brazil.

Lennart Poettering clarified that this is an optional field in the userdb JSON object — not a policy engine, not an API for apps. It just defines the field so it's standardized if people want to store the date there, but it's entirely optional. Systemd itself does nothing with the data.

What a nothing burger

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 10 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

It's not nothing, freedom is often taken by inches.

[–] motogo@feddit.dk -1 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

How do you see this depriving anybody of freedom? It's an optional field. There's no logic connected to it. Even if you were to put your date of birth into that optional field how do you see this technically connects with external consumers let alone for regulatory purposes?

[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 1 points 37 minutes ago

This feature isn't depriving anyone of anything. Neither is the guillotine in my front yard. It hasn't been used to decapitate anyone. It's just sitting there in case it's needed at some point in the future.

Oh, those cameras in the elementary school bathroom? Yeah, those aren't actually hooked up. They don't have any power, let alone a network connection to the security camera system we just ordered. Those cameras are there just in case they are needed later.

This date field is a Checkov Gun hanging on the wall in the first act.

[–] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 4 points 5 hours ago (1 children)
[–] DarkMetatron@feddit.org -4 points 4 hours ago

It is not complying in advance, it is beeing prepared for when the law becomes active and binding.