this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2026
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It's saying that you can invent an infinite number of hypothetical futures but they are not useful for making decisions in the here and now
The prospect of being prompted to submit an ID is not useful for making decisions in the here and now? As far as I understand it, this is the concrete danger. California lawmakers and lawmakers from elsewhere have indicated that this is only the beginning.
But this is just speculation. The fact is, systemd introduced a new optional field in the local database. They don't publish an OS so they have no obligation to do anything more, actual implementation would have to happen in other projects.
What this is, is a spite-fork by some random AI researcher and anybody installing that on their system has way larger problems here and now than hypothetical ID verification in the maybe future.
Why are the people who decide on changes to systemd implementing stuff that the vast majority of Linux users vehemently reject? +Things that they have no legal obligation of adding I might add.
No one deeply cares about the spite fork. It's weird that commentators have suddenly become very acclimatised to the systemd changes. A few days ago people were asking themselves why a rando got through with an intensely disliked pull request and now we are here.
I think you vastly over estimate the importance of the reddit/lemmy-sphere freaking out over this.
And the more insane the slippery slopes you imagine skiing down, the less seriously you're taken. The fact that there isn't a serious programmer making a fork and instead y'all promoted a slopfork from someone who didn't read the docs, should be a wakeup call for how unserious y'all are.
If it's the vast majority of Linux users, how come there was not one that's read the systemd docs?
I honestly don't care that much about the law eitherway but the hyperventilating over a milktoast law is something else, it makes me think maybe we should age gate higher.
I don't. The people I know in real life don't take likely to the changes.
This is the fallacy fallacy. There is a precedent for freaking out. Foreign routers being banned, countries and regions stating that this is only the beginning for age verification, you name it. Anyone who submits to that in any way unambiguously invites the new order that is enforced upon them, I say that in regard to systemd specifically.
No serious programmer is forking systemd because systemd is more or less doing kernel tasks besides the Linux kernel... and then some. This violates GNU best practices. Not to mention openrc and plenty of other init systems existing as a yet uncompromised alternative. Also you are twisting what I am saying, I specifically am not promoting the fork in the article.
You didn't see the barrage of critism under the pull request, did you? Makes me wonder if you read anything at all.
The law is not at all non-trivial or milquetoast. With ID verification and other methods of age verification you absolutely can unmask users online if states demand APIs be implemented.
You sound like a narc btw!
Yeah because they likely got misinformation about it from you, and nodded along because Alien rectal probes sound bad.
Good thing there is no ID verification in the PR.
You sound like Alex Jones!
I guess such a response can only come from the head of a "rioting pacifist". You turn up at the protest but always keep a distance of 50 yards from the crowd so you can say you were part of something while having done nothing. It's exactly people like you who would have told critics of Franco that they're delusional and would report people for going outside to catch a breath of fresh air during martial law. All the while broadcasting your liberal virtues of pacifism and political action in all directions.
You are someone who couldn't get into the NSA and all the other cool agencies, or your country's equivalent should you not be US American. No badge, no ID number, no nuthin' - just your computer and you. Should you actually work for the govt. then that reflects rather poorly on the government; You are an awfully unconvincing propagandist. Incapable of reading comments and engaging clearly in serious discussions. I would fire you if you astroturfed for me. God knows, you are so shit at it that I think you are an LLM.
WTF are you on about?
I'd be happy to engage in serious discussion but you're working on Alex Jones level, veins throbbing over an optional field in systemd