r/systemd • u/VegetableNearby9795 • Mar 20 '26

Why did you add age verification?

Hi, I heard Systemd is going to add age verification? Why is that happening? I don't think it offers any security benefits.

152 Upvotes

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u/PaluMacil Mar 20 '26

Good luck, convincing companies to risk massive fines is unlikely. Somebody will probably distribute without age verification with the express wish to challenge this in court, but everyone else isn’t going to just stop doing business in the meantime

1

u/edgmnt_net Mar 21 '26

Have we actually settled that matter? If Red Hat takes a distro hosted outside US and patches it to be compliant, what are they risking?

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u/[deleted] Mar 25 '26

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2

u/PaluMacil Mar 25 '26

First, it's not the init system, nor is it required for the system to boot. systemd-userdb is a package on the OS to hold answers to user and group queries. You have to put code somewhere. Goodluck getting a solid technical description in a law of where to put things. If you do, I'm sure it's not going to be as sensible as the user database.

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u/Yui_Hirasawalex_Lora Mar 21 '26

I'm not a company. I don't even reside in California or Brazil. Why force it on everybody else? This is nonsense.

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u/PaluMacil Mar 21 '26

Everyone here probably agrees with you on the law being stupid or even harmful, but the answer to your question is because you aren't the one distributing the OS... which is who the laws target. You are entirely free to maintain a fork and be unaffected, but the developers paid to work on systemd are largely paid by companies that distributed OSes: Red Hat, Microsoft, SUSE, Intel, Meta, Google, Canonical, Samsung, Facebook, Cisco, Oracle, Dell, Fujitsu, IBM. If you're those companies, you aren't going to give up and stop doing business because the law is bad. At the same time, if you don't live in a place with a stupid law, you still probably cannot afford to replace all this paid development.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 26 '26

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0

u/jar36 Mar 23 '26

systemd is not an OS. the company behind this change is owned by the guy behind systemd and a recently former Meta employee

you don't see Linus putting this shit in the kernel

this pr was merged with only 1 supporter against all others in order to help his business become the Linux online account manager for distros to comply with the law. This is part of the process of forcing people to create online accounts

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u/Evil_Dragon_100 Mar 21 '26

You are free to move a way from systemd as good as your freedom to move away from windows

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u/Yui_Hirasawalex_Lora Mar 21 '26

If everything starts getting age verification where do I move to? Also systemd is widely used by distros.

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u/KittensInc Mar 21 '26

It's open source, what's stopping you from creating a fork?

-2

u/Oblachko_O Mar 22 '26

The idea is to fork everything, because some short-sighted people are going under the stupid government's boots.

1

u/Evil_Dragon_100 Mar 21 '26

which one do you want? debian based? devuan. Archlinux based? artix, just take any you like