this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2026
191 points (94.8% liked)

Linux

12925 readers
485 users here now

A community for everything relating to the GNU/Linux operating system (except the memes!)

Also, check out:

Original icon base courtesy of lewing@isc.tamu.edu and The GIMP

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Ategon@programming.dev
anzo@programming.dev
dwraf_of_ignorance@programming.dev
191
Surge in Systemd forks after the latest changes (github.com)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by pglpm@lemmy.ca to c/linux@programming.dev
177 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 3 points 9 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 8 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] motogo@feddit.dk 0 points 4 hours ago (1 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?

[–] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 3 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Complying in advance.

[–] DarkMetatron@feddit.org -2 points 2 hours ago

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

[–] communism@lemmy.ml 14 points 22 hours ago (5 children)

Good luck trying to maintain the mammoth that is systemd... why not just switch to an alternative init system and focus your efforts on contributing to those, instead of trying to single-handedly maintain such a huge codebase?

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] mrbigmouth502@piefed.zip 3 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

This is one of the beautiful things about open source. If the original devs do something stupid, the community can fork.

[–] pglpm@lemmy.ca 1 points 15 hours ago

Amen!

[–] SabinStargem@lemmy.today 1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Hopefully, someone makes a "False Verification" module that can replace surveillance systems like this. I am expecting to someday use SteamOS Desktop, so being able to rip out the "legitimate" verifier and replace it with one that doesn't work or allows for faked personas, would be good.

Mind, it would be far better if the verification bullshit NEVER takes off. Hopefully one of these alternatives would put SystemDOGE to sleep.

[–] fruitcantfly@programming.dev 5 points 10 hours ago

There is no verification and there is no surveillance: You can enter whatever value you want, or no value at all.

It’s exactly like the other personal information (full name, location, phone numbers) you can enter, when you create an account using standard tools on Linux

[–] Mikina@programming.dev 3 points 17 hours ago

I'm mostly interested in how will they handle giving the info to apps. If it'd let me to block or fake the request depending on what I currently need (just prompt me every time an app asks, and let me choose the bracket), I'm good.

Tbh, most sites that are slowly getting targeted by age verification laws are things I'm kind of addicted to and have been trying to drop for a long time. A "scan your face or id" dialog would be a good reminder to finally cold turkey it. It's one of the things I hate more than however much I need their platforms.

[–] AeonFelis@lemmy.world 3 points 18 hours ago

Rewrite in Rust when?

[–] Uncut_Lemon@lemmy.world 7 points 23 hours ago (4 children)

It's more the question of why is everyone folding to this age verification nonsense. One dumb state makes a law, now everyone is bending over backwards to comply. A state full of corruption no less, like what are the alteria motives.

Maybe parents should start, parenting their kids, rather than making the government parent them.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 3 points 13 hours ago

~~alteria~~ ulterior motives

[–] pglpm@lemmy.ca 1 points 15 hours ago

🤝 Maybe "government ~~parent~~ brainwash them".

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] codiak540@lemmy.ca 44 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Hi! I'm actually the creator of unshitted-systemd (the one at the bottom of the list). I had my eye on systemd for a few weeks due to the whole AI code fiasco, but the second my friend DM'ed me saying "they just added age verification" I said "I'm forking it", forked it, stripped the DoB field, and submitted a PR

Not even an hour later my PR was closed due to being "Spam".

So I went further, stripped all the AI code, the realName field for User Accounts, and started fixing issues that haven't been fixed by systemd themselves. I also saw a 4.5 second boot time speedup from installing mine. I have NO IDEA how, but it's happened.

I plan on going further and taking out parts that go against user privacy and control over their system (I.E: systemd makes the /etc read only by default, I've removed that code in my fork)

I can't do this on my own though, if anyone wants to help, please let me know! you can email me at codiak540@bbs.4d2.org, or contact me through github. You might be able to DM me on this platform idk I'm new to it, and my discord is @codiak540

If the original description hasn't made it clear, I'm not afraid of California. I don't live in California and as such believe I am not subject to their stupid laws. Keep that in mind if you're considering helping me.

[–] fruitcantfly@programming.dev 11 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

I also saw a 4.5 second boot time speedup from installing mine. I have NO IDEA how, but it’s happened.

If I saw a speedup that I didn’t understand, then I’d worry that I had accidentally broken something. It’s easy to get speedups by not doing things correctly

[–] teft@piefed.social 2 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Or i’d start looking for backdoors in the old code.

That’s similar to how the backdoor in xz was found. A slightly slower connection caused by obfuscated payloads tipped off a developer to find out what caused the slowdown. His was half a second lag so i’d really be curious what would cause 4.5 seconds.

[–] fruitcantfly@programming.dev 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

That’s a lot less likely to be the case; I am aware of just one example of what you describe, and that’s the example you give, whereas I’ve “sped up” my own code many times, by accidentally breaking stuff.

Rather than assume the presence of backdoors, the rational thing is simply to work out why you are seeing a difference in performance, and to determine if you fixed something by accident, or (the more likely scenario) if you broke something by accident

[–] Chakravanti@monero.town 1 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

You're saying to not assume the presence of backdoors out of some discipline to avoid fear.

That's absolute nonsense. Fear isn't real even when your imagination is so child-like you can't discern the difference. How the fuck did you learn to "code" without the basis logic of living paradox validation hash? You can't even learn math til you get past that and you talk about treating people with some kind if child like care handling.

Paranoia doesn't have fear because fear isn't real, let alone when conducted for the sack of logic feeding imagination meaningful scope of direction observation eyes to discern "bugs" regardless of it being intention all or accidental.

Intention doesn't exist in a coders read manual over others even when patterns of any volume arise. You don't know what people are anymore when you read code. I would say end of story but there wasn't one to begin with. You were already distracted hashing out against way to many of the same such handled by unchecked hashes with the words you use.

Like money. Intent may be real but unless it's you it doesn't matter and even then, then it's not, now is it?

[–] robbo@programming.dev 13 points 1 day ago

well you've already won from the marketing point of view compared to the others because yours isn't a shit (lol) name

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Mikina@programming.dev 1 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

They should make the API call for apps to query that value a per-system/boot randomly generated signature, so it's impossible to use while also complying with the law.

[–] pglpm@lemmy.ca 4 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

Personally I do not want to comply with the law. It's a law that violates my basic rights as a human being, and any tools that favours it or try to comply with it become tools that commit the same violations. My laptop is mine, I decide what goes in it, and nobody has any right to force any software in it, no more than they have any right to put a camera in my house to check what I do. When "laws" violate human rights, what counts is not what's the "legal" thing to do, but what's the moral thing to do.

Today we would be in a Russia-like state if people had not actively resisted, broken, and refused to comply with unjust laws.

[–] robbo@programming.dev 13 points 1 day ago (16 children)

the linux community is funny sometimes

load more comments (16 replies)
[–] hodgepodgin@lemmy.zip 86 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Nothing more dramatic than Linux users angry-forking a repository

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›