I believe those other init systems we’re in the right to, but that’s only because they are JUST init systems. systemd can because it doesn’t just provide an init system, it provide a suite of tools for Linux system management. Something like userdb would have to be implemented by another tool, where they could actually implement BirthDate if they so choose to (and probably should for it’s continued existence).

Unfortunate. However, it seems that is snapd’s fault. Here’s the important part from the article:

Ubuntu automatically deletes old files from the /tmp directory after a certain number of days. During this cleanup, an important directory used by snap-confine may get removed.

Ubuntu configured systemd-tmpfiles to clean out /tmp after some days. That’s why the issue is only present in Ubuntu systems. Therefore, systemd was doing it’s job, and it just so happened to create the perfect conditions for a vulnerability in Ubuntu.

Homosexual activity is illegal in Uganda. If they pass a law saying your OS should track that, is it moral for developers to enable compliance with it? Or do developers have a moral duty to at least not go out of their way to enable that bullshit, even if they risk a gajillion dollar fine?

I have so many qualms with this comment alone. Concurrently, I am not sure how to articulate them. This text might be a bit messy as a result.

To begin, of course it wouldn’t be moral. Purposely complying with discriminatory laws is not at all a good thing. I don’t think systemd will even bother adding such a thing, even if it was against the law in Uganda. The difference between a country like Brazil asking for the date of birth for a user and Uganda asking for the user’s sexuality is:

1. The latter has not happened, and probably will not happen; Uganda has much better ways of finding out if someone is gay without the OS needing to say that.
2. Uganda’s law is much less important than laws in 2 (potentially 3) different states in the US, Germany1 and Brazil.
3. While it could be said that age-gating material is discriminatory, Uganda’s hypothetical law is much more likely to risk lives. systemd would not want blood on their hands.

I imagine you put thought into your hypothetical to see where it stands, but I would advise putting more thought into it. Stuff like this will drain both our energy.

Is it cool if we start implementing tools to track users’ race and sexual orientation for the explicit purpose of complying with some country’s laws about those too?

I cannot think of a law which could impact a significant portion of users like Brazil, Colorado or California, which tells operating system providers to store the race or sexual orientation of a person. Unless that time comes, why should they bother implementing that? That, in contrast to a birth date which you may provide, is complying in advance to future laws against such people, and is therefore wrong.

Or is it maybe the job of free software to defy oppressive systems?

Here’s a better question: why should we encourage free software developers, who only make money from people donating to the project they are working on, to purposely defy the law and potentially net them a million dollar fine? Are we sending a message, or are we just dooming ourselves?

This should give you a clue.

Gemini is a new internet technology supporting an electronic library of interconnected text documents. That’s not a new idea, but it’s not old fashioned either. It’s timeless, and deserves tools which treat it as a first class concept, not a vestigial corner case. Gemini isn’t about innovation or disruption, it’s about providing some respite for those who feel the internet has been disrupted enough already. We’re not out to change the world or destroy other technologies. We are out to build a lightweight online space where documents are just documents, in the interests of every reader’s privacy, attention and bandwidth.

Other inits aren’t even commenting, let alone complying.

This would be a fair point, if systemd wasn’t more than an init system. While a service manager (init system) is included, systemd is a system manager. OpenRC, runit, and other init systems do not need to comment because their only task is to mount the necessary file systems, setup the device manager, and start daemons1. systemd as a system manager not only needs to manage services, but it also needs to manage devices, logs, the hostname, etc.

Does this mean systemd is not bloat? Not at all, but it is not as fat as you think it is. Your system could honestly be fatter without systemd if you try to replicate everything it does with external applications. Does this mean systemd should also be justified to add an optional field for your date of birth? I guess I would say it’s weird on it’s own. However, given the context, I believe they are doing what they can.

I’ll start off my comment with something everyone can agree on: the age verification laws absolutely sucks. It’s a surveillance law masquerading as a means of “protecting” children. It also completely undermines free and open source projects, and therefore, protected speech. The fact systemd had to add a BirthDate field is unfortunate, however, I would blame the lawmakers for creating the law that the developers of systemd now have to comply with.

I’m okay with the implementation. It is an optional (meaning you have to add it yourself) field which only specifies the date of birth. It doesn’t seem to be at all invasive, nor does it attempt to “verify” it at the moment. Granted, anything is possible, but I don’t think there’s a good enough reason why systemd would EVER feel the need to add age verification. Before you say anything regarding corporations, please answer this: why would a corporation add age verification to a system manager their servers depend on? How will that profit them?

I get why people are angry, but I think this anger should be funneled towards the lawmakers pulling off nonsense like this. Fight those who are actively trying to take your rights away. Bullying software developers for complying to international laws will lead to nothing but hate.