this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2026
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This is getting blown way out of proportion.
What’s being described right now is just an optional date-of-birth field. It doesn’t block installation, it doesn’t require verification, and it doesn’t change how the OS actually works. It just exists, and you can ignore it entirely.
The leap to “this is step one toward needing a passport to install an OS” is a classic slippery slope. It jumps from a harmless, non-enforced field straight to full identity verification with no actual mechanism connecting the two.
More importantly, this ignores how Linux works at a fundamental level.
Linux is open source, which means the code is public and can be modified by anyone. If any distribution ever tried to enforce something invasive like identity checks, that code would be stripped out almost immediately and redistributed as a fork. People already fork distributions over far smaller disagreements than this, and users would migrate just as quickly.
For this scenario people are worried about to actually happen, the entire ecosystem would have to move in lockstep and the community would have to abandon one of its core principles overnight. That’s not a realistic outcome.
Being skeptical of regulation is reasonable. Treating this like the beginning of mandatory identity verification at the OS level, especially in the Linux world, just isn’t grounded in how the technology or the community actually operates.
The timing is dogshit.
It's giving an inch. We shouldn't be doing that. We should be fighting tooth an nail against every single aggression against our privacy. They've already taken far too much.
Were have you been the last few years or so? We're not just "going down" one slippery slope after another, we're speeding down them.
Classic Authoritarian Log Flume
What is the use case for that field? I do not see it as being used as anything else than a stepping stone towards age verification.
this is the correct way to frame this issue. it serves no purpose other than to support things that are further down a slope
I wonder if a fork becomes successful, or if traditional init based systems make a comeback
enterprise users obviously won't give a shit about any of this, and will keep using redhat or amazon linux or whatever
Seems like you don't really need to fork the system until someone applies DOB field in a meaningful way.
Even in such a situation, I would suspect the short-term solution is simply a patch or crack to neuter the functionality that the DOB field is supposed to implement. A full fork seems unnecessary, even counterproductive, since it would define your OS as meaningfully distinct (and noticeably out of compliance) with a standard installation.
with mass adoption of enshitification. and with the world in general. calling things a slippery slope fallacy is a long and losing gamble.
if the field was put in because of a law, then it’s for a reason, if the data isn’t important, or enforced, then it is useless and should not have been added.
I wonder if it was put in for the same reason CA passed a self-reporting law recently. I wonder if it's an attempt to repel through malicious compliance far worse age verification that's forced at a federal (US) level.
Commentary like this is exactly what grinds my gears.
This isn’t analysis, it’s implication, conjecture, and conspiracy framed as insight.
The age verification laws are objectively bad. They do nothing meaningful to protect children, degrade the quality of the internet, and hand more authority to a government that already has too much.
But your line of argument is also flawed. I’ve already stated my position clearly. Repeating “it’s probably worse” adds nothing of substance.
More importantly, the fundamental architecture of Linux makes this entire premise irrelevant. It is open source and inherently resistant to centralized control. Governments can pass whatever laws they want; they cannot meaningfully enforce them at the system level in an ecosystem designed to be forked, modified, and redistributed at will.
the laws are bad, and you can push fighting for anonymity and freedom down the road because letting the camel stick its nose under the tent don’t bother anyone, and it’s too easy to just ignore…. but the laws are made for a purpose, and they will change. and uh oh, the camel has flipped the tent, you can’t fight to remove it because now systems are built around it being there. now it’s a much harder fight because we didn’t fight when it was easy.
again after seeing everything that has happened you call sounding the alarm for this as a slippery slope… i am sorry, but i question either your motives, or your foresight.
If that is the case, explain why is it being implemented in the heat of mass age verification? What is the motive?
The motive is mass government surveillance obviously.
But like with many things in our government federally and statewide, these people don't actually understand how the technology functions. They can make all the laws that they want and Linux will still remain an open source software.
Thanks for the explanation. What you have described is not different to the manner in which I understand the situation as well.
My concern is that (despite your good intentions) your previous comment may have the unintended effect of making light of the situation we are all in.
The 'field' we have the privilege to ignore now id a mandatory requirement for a passport and iris scan tomorrow.
My first thought is to not sit still and accept the new law - rather, to empower everybody here to write to their legislators to block or reverse these gross violations of privacy. May Linux developers have already expressed willful non-compliance to the law. Show we not get behind these developers and organisations (like the EFF) and demand a repeal?
I however apologise if I have misunderstood your intent. But one thing is for sure, if we do not put up a fight at present, then the future is already lost.
Dawg. That's what I'm saying. There's nothing to fight against. The fundamental architecture of Linux prohibits age verification completely.
The devs adding in the birthday field was the simplest way to placate this new law. They know there's going to be a fork where it is removed.
In this instance the new law will destroy itself. I doubt there will even be any enforcement of it.
We're worrying about the wrong thing dude. This is a non-issue.
"The fundamental architecture of Linux prohibits age verification completely"...until the next law erodes that privilege altogether.
I hope you are right. And for all our sakes, I really hope I am wrong.