this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2026
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California lawmakers unanimously pass Linux exemption from age-verification law — software distributed under the GPL, MIT, BSD, and Apache licenses are exempt (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 1 day ago by cm0002@lemy.lol to c/linux@programming.dev
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[–] Eldritch@piefed.world 50 points 1 day ago (6 children)

They added a voluntary field for date of birth. Very controversial. Not at all like the address field that had been there for years or realname. Those are completely uncontroversial somehow. Unfortunately it got added during all this uncertainty with all the user I'd government overreach. And people lost their everloving minds claiming it was some sinister forced Id check. It was not. But all the craze around it launched tens of already dead systemD forks.

[–] Danitos@reddthat.com 24 points 1 day ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (2 children)

Worth mentioning that California's and Brazil's age verification laws were cited as a motivating factor in the pull request, the pull request ~~author~~ merger works for Microsoft and the author also did similar pull requests in other open source projects.

Edit: it was the PR merger that works for Microsoft, not the PR author.

[–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago

the pull request author works for Microsoft and he also did similar pull requests in a other open source projects.

So he made several mistakes as part of a co-ordinated jumping the gun on boot throating, AND he's getting paid to make open source software worse?

[–] mabeledo@lemmy.world 1 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

The author does not work for Microsoft, nor he did add this field to “other open source projects”: https://dylanmtaylor.com/posts/2026-03-25-my-first-contribution-to-systemd

People just love to hate anything systemd related.

[–] Danitos@reddthat.com 4 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

The author does not work for Microsoft

My bad, it was the PR merger that works for Microsoft, not the author.

nor he did add this field to “other open source projects”

Yes he did. He did several PRs using/collecting that field:

People just love to hate anything systemd related

Agree, and I actually like systemd, but I don't see the relantionship between that and my comment.

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 6 points 1 day ago

Well, yeah, because they added it because of the law. That's not speculation, they said that's why they did. I agree, if it was there before it wouldn't have been out of place, I totally get you, but they said that it's something they should add because it might be required by law in the future.

[–] mobyduck648@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Probably doesn't help there's also the existing fault line of 'an init system shouldn't be doing x', systemd was always a magnet for partisanship.

[–] Eldritch@piefed.world 3 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

There will always be people thinking X shouldn't do y. But you're not wrong. Plenty of people absolutely just look for any reason to attack

[–] Eggymatrix@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

Not to mention death threats and whatnot

[–] psud@aussie.zone 1 points 1 day ago

I wonder if Linux had been included in the law, would it have criminalised lying in your profile demographics

[–] mabeledo@lemmy.world -2 points 1 day ago

It wasn’t the timing. People love to hate systemd for the dumbest reasons.