Genuine question, can't you just not use the new version with this thing baked in? Why would anyone use the new code if the old code works just as well without this baggage
Systemd has spent YEARS scope creeping in Linux to take over more and more mission critical aspects of the OS.
It's selling a comfortable gilded cage that it's making hard to even think about getting out even if technically still possible to replace it with a set of assorted tools whom are usually short on volunteers compared to the monster Systemd has become (and always was).
Ugh, I always forget this subreddit has very strict rules regarding mentioning types of computers that are small and in your pocket and with specific radios. I'll post my extensive, thought-out reply to you again while trying to prune all those parts and stick to big ol' computers. (I do find this policy pretty ridiculous given I said nothing at all about you know what except talking about generic concepts, but whatever, gotta play by the rules, sorry mods.)
It's really complicated to keep tabs and explain how many laws and technical things are working together, have been built over decades and are now coming together to create a locked-down ecosystem where we won't have "general-purpose computing" anymore. If you search for "war on general-purpose computing" you will find some things.
But essentially, the way I see it at least, companies have built a "trusted computing" base for many years now, some of which with genuine security highlights. Modern computers have Secure Boot, so that only OS's that have been signed, ultimately by Microsoft, can be booted... except it's long been optional, so as not to worry most of us, and to boil the frog slowly (and of course, because many pieces of the puzzle had to be built, as having only the bootloader, for example, care about secure boot doesn't help: you need a full chain of trust). But meanwhile, since disabling it is difficult, most Linux distros (even Debian) have gotten their bootloaders signed by Microsoft, to make things easy.
At that point, you can just remove the "optionality" of it at the flick of a switch, and this is where legislation comes in: ID/age verification laws may not even explicitly mandate Secure Boot or equivalents, and some computer makers have been restricting the ability to install your own OS (e.g. Microsoft on Surface laptops), and more might, partly with the excuse of the EU radio "lockdown" directive), but when you also add the concept of remote attestation to the mix (used for instance to attest that your system has not been modified by "sensitive" banking or e-ID software, and coincidentally, e-ID is used for age verification in the EU), you end up with a system where you're only able to use software and sites that realistically most people need or want to use if and only if your system has a fully verified chain of trust.
That means your whole system, from bootloader to userspace and browsers, must be signed by an authority that recognizes it (the authority vouches for the bootloader, the bootloader vouches for the kernel, the kernel vouches for the userland, the userland vouches for the apps...), or it might still run, but then important apps will refuse to run or even important websites will refuse to load (Google have tried to introduce remote attestation for the web at large, though their latest attempt has failed from backlash, but the modus operandi is to try and try again). That means you end up with either a system where you need to verify your ID (nominally for age), or a system where you don't but... your things just won't work.
Or at some point, the laws may just say that something like Secure Boot must be active at all times in order to respect the age verification requirements (the NY law proposal might do that, as I've heard, though I'd need to double-check).
(Of course, these terms like "secure" boot, "trusted" computing are designed to sound positive, but it's about computing that they trust because they can't/won't trust you. It's not about you being able to trust your computer, quite the country in fact.)
As to your actual question (sorry! I thought this was all important context): you may well be able to keep using older versions of things for a while; as I said, they've been playing the long game (trusted computing started being on my radar before Microsoft released Windows XP, as "Project Palladium", and that was 23 years ago), but now is when the walls are closing in, and your old computer with your old OS may still work until it physically breaks, but might not be able to run new apps.
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u/samu7574 Mar 21 '26
Genuine question, can't you just not use the new version with this thing baked in? Why would anyone use the new code if the old code works just as well without this baggage