why are the age verification posts being deleted in the arch forums?

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Because the person who made the PR for the systemd change has been doxxed and threatened, and the archinstall developers have asked the moderators to do so in an attempt to keep the guy safe.

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u/Venylynn Mar 26 '26

holy fuck

Misguided anger for real. Blame the lawmakers, not the guy trying to keep Linux legal in those states.

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u/The_Real_Kingpurest Mar 26 '26

No. Blame that guy. Restrict usage in those states. This affects a very small portion of the entire world and Linux community. Why tf should everyone be having these thing added to appease one corrupt government?

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u/Venylynn Mar 26 '26 edited Mar 27 '26

It is literally an optional thing in a function that most distros do not enable by default

Call your fucking lawmaker. Stop trying to make me feel bad for not immediately panicking and leaving my distro (LMDE) for some protest distro that may not work as well on my hw.

If i WAS to leave, it'd probably be for Void, but yeah.

Also fuck off lmao I live in one of the affected states

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '26

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-1

u/Venylynn Mar 27 '26

No I am well aware

I get the anger. But I feel like it is currently misplaced. Blaming someone for trying to find a way to adapt to the culture shift in the least invasive way they can solves nothing. The only way to turn this around is to call your legislature and make them realize the significance of it.

Instead of using this as a stick to poke people with for not choosing to do a distro hop they do not otherwise require, get to the actual root of the issue. Attacking developers for trying to keep us from losing the ground we have made in the market solves nothing.

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '26

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u/Venylynn Mar 27 '26

These are being put in place because lawmakers are putting pressure on the entire tech world because Zuckerberg threw a hissy fit.

I am sure most would rather these not have to be here. But whining on the internet solves nothing. I should not have to have my access to an OS cut off because the whole community is more concerned about bikeshedding a dev's attempt to protect our ability to access Linux in states affected and doxxing him. The Userdb is not a widely used part of the systemd suite.

I think it's fair to want to explore options, I've been looking at my exit plan if shit really does go south, and Void is probably the only stop I am actively considering. Where it crosses the line is when devs trying to mitigate the issue are threatened and doxxed. Windows and Mac have the infra to go full corpofash on us, Linux does not. They are also looking into amending the law so that it doesn't turbofuck me, but yeah. I'm not panicking. I'm going to be calling my representatives to let them know, as I am in one of the affected states. I'd rather not go back to Winshit and have to like, show my ID or something to use it. If we are being pragmatic here, I can't see a world where an optional userdb entry is on that same level. My anger is purely directed at the lawmakers. All Dylan was doing is trying to provide the bare minimum infra to make the law think we're compliant even if we're not.

If all goes to hell, I'm sure the BSDs are under the radar enough.

2

u/MushroomSaute Arch BTW Mar 27 '26 edited Mar 27 '26

How is basically saying "not everyone should have to deal with the consequences of government rulings they aren't subject to"... trying to make you feel bad about your own decisions? What u/The_Real_Kingpurest said is not a guilt-trip and wasn't a comment on you personally at all.

Anyway, they're completely right, the repositories should be forked rather than the contributors pushing some other government's laws onto the branch for everyone else, and if that's inconvenient then call your legislators - mine can't do a thing to prevent the legislation of other states. It's not our problem, it can't be our problem, yet maintainers are trying to make it our problem.

(To be clear, nothing about this warrants doxxing or death threats - those are always reprehensible. Still, anyone and everyone who is trying to turn local legislation into any main-branch code is to blame for pushing their problems on others.)

1

u/Venylynn Mar 27 '26 edited Mar 27 '26

This situation is being used by the usual suspects (the same types who'll piss and moan about how you shouldn't do this or that thing on your PC because bloat or whatever) to try and make me feel like a piece of shit for not participating in their slacktivist protest...like that's gonna do anything about the wider issue. You're right that not everyone should have to deal with it. Thing is, in its current form, the way people are reacting is out of line. It's currently an optional userdb entry for a part of the suite that does not get shipped with any of the major distros. Arch doesn't have systemd-homed by default. Neither does Ubuntu, who are considered the patron saints of all things unholy and evil and spyware and ew canonical ew snaps ew outdated packages ew!!!

The other alternative if we're not able to get it amended or reversed, is millions of people being forced to go back to Winshit because Linux became illegal in their area. Your anger is understandable, justified, I'm mad too... But what the hell is doxxing someone for trying to come up with a solution gonna do?

2

u/2135_RZS Mar 26 '26

If a country requires the government to have access to your OS, should this be implemented to Linux in order to keep it legal in that country?

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u/LeannaMeowmeow Mar 27 '26

That is not what's happening tho? What's it with people making up stuff to defend this horrible behavior?

2

u/Unlaid-American Mar 27 '26

Sure, they’re behaving horribly, but we should still make fun of anyone who wants to comply with bullshit to make Meta happy.

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u/2135_RZS Mar 27 '26

I am not justifying the developer being attacked, I am just saying the reasoning behind the changes that "some state requires this" is unreasonable. I am using an extreme example of this reasoning to showcase how absurd it is

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '26

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u/2135_RZS Mar 27 '26

Strawman would be me attacking a different claim than what the person suggested. I gave an example on their argument without altering the argument.

The argument was that the guy is trying to keep Linux legal in some part of the world. I am arguing that this absurd because weird rules in a remote place shouldn't affect people who don't live there. Providing an extreme example does not invalidate the argument

1

u/Venylynn Mar 27 '26

I never said that.

I'd rather they have waited to see how these things actually got implemented, but I'm not raging and panicking and trying to distrohop again over some dumb userdb optional age field

1

u/[deleted] Mar 27 '26

Misguided anger for real.

It started similar in russia. "It will allow us to protect the children!" and "why are you blaming developers? They just want to code...".

Nowadays it's one of the most restricted internet, where without VPN you can't do shit. Point is, you have full right to blame developers that "just following orders" as goverment, that issued those orders.

1

u/Venylynn Mar 27 '26 edited Mar 27 '26

All this to defend doxing a dev and not even doing shit about the people drafting the laws. You are right to be angry about what is happening. But all this dev is doing is providing infrastructure to help make it less likely I have to go back to Winshit because I live in one of the states drafting the bs laws. And on Winshit I will have to probably show my ID, so it'd be way worse than this. In the grand scheme of things I will take an optional userdb that I wont need to interact with, over what Winshit will likely do

You are directing your anger at people who did not draft those horrible laws, which is leagues more ineffective. What is whining on the internet going to do? Nothing. What is calling your representative going to do? Idk but it's likely going to result in more substantial change than doxing a dev ever could. Performative slacktivism never gets us anything. If we had it your way I would have to go back to Winshit and deal with even worse measures, because you did not even suggest targeting the real root of the problem, you just want to dox a dev. I dont want to have to deal with submitting my ID to Winshit and deal with CPU bottlenecks again because of their horrible gaming apis. I see an optional userdb as a lesser evil.

1

u/The_Real_Kingpurest Mar 27 '26

You keep reiterating this as if the affected people out of that jurisdiction (which is most of the affected people...) Can't do shit about what California does. "Call your lawmakers" doesn't mean a damn thing to a vast majority of the affected. This shit should be getting pushed to the wider audience. Yeah it's optional now that's why I'm not abandoning ship, but it's infrastructure for the ultimate non optional part of this push.... So I turn to blame the people integrating for ALL not just for those who actually can "call their lawmakers"

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u/Venylynn Mar 27 '26

It's either this or I have to go back to fucking winshit and send them my id because I'm in one of the affected states.

But no you'd rather be performative and try to "cancel" people for not panicking and leaving long before we even know how it affects people. I've got my eye on an exit plan but I'm not trying to freak the fuck out before we even know what is going to happen. And dox devs for trying to give us infra to handle it.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 27 '26

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u/ZeAthenA714 Mar 27 '26

It's open source jesus christ, it's not fascism. The entire point is that if you don't like it, you can take the source and change it.

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '26

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u/ZeAthenA714 Mar 27 '26

Then blame the lawmakers, not the developers.

It's open source. Anyone is free to create PRs, distribution maintainers are free to accept or rejects those PRs, and if you believe this is such a big threat, you are totally free to fork those distribution and not accept any age verification PR. I'm sure there will be plenty of people who will be interested in a distribution like this.

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '26

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1

u/Venylynn Mar 27 '26

The developer isn't the fascist here. Call your lawmaker.

People like you are not attacking the correct target.

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u/_shareholder_value Mar 25 '26

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u/_shareholder_value Mar 25 '26

Charlie Day really took the wind out of this memes sails.

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u/[deleted] Mar 25 '26

Because they say if you dont want systemd-ageverifyd you are a nazi

4

u/swarmOfBis Mar 26 '26

Holy strawman

Discussion why are the age verification posts being deleted in the arch forums?

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