I studied at the PR in question and that’s not the conclusion I arrive at. Let me try to explain how this looks to me.
Also keep in mind, I do think we absolutely need to keep the political pressure on and push back on identity-gating policies with all our collective might. In that light the PR itself does the two things I’d absolutely require here: one, it allows the user to put whatever value they want in that field, including none at all, and two, it disallows all apps from reading that field without the user’s active permission.
Basically it’s a superficially valid implementation of a bullshit requirement that still leaves all the power in the user’s hands and therefore renders the requirement meaningless. Or in other words, a huge middle finger to the proponents of age-checking.
Mind you, I feel there’s also value in loud non-compliance and I’m glad some are taking that road – keep it up, folks. But I’m leery of demands that only one single approach be taken. This needs to be fought on every front we can. And to me the PR in question reads like an effective defensive move.
That’s something I wondered about the person who implemented this too, I wonder if it was an attempt to install a bare minimum to say “There. We did it. Leave us alone.” Instead of leaving it up to the government to force the issue, and he’s getting absolutely raked over the coals for it.
If that’s the case, I feel terribly bad about this backfiring so hard on him. I do think we should be putting up a lot more resistance before resorting to something like this though.
Some others have also suggested that this was done out of spite, however after reading the github I didn’t see anything said to support that. Are you sure you’re not reading something into this that’s not there?
I’ll be honest I haven’t dug into the GitHub transcripts.
Are you sure you’re not reading something into this that’s not there?
Absolutely not sure! In fact my first inclination leans towards the cynical “This is totally a pro-authoritarian virtue signal move.” Because that’s seemingly everything nowadays.
But also I know things are seldom as they first seem. So I’m at least curious about this guy’s actual motives. Coming out of nowhere just for this contribution is hecka sus though.
I don’t like any of it. I looked to the Internet and open source to escape that petulant normie-verse of endless rage and braindead legislation. And they’re coming to assimilate us like they do everything else. :(
Sorry I didn’t articulate myself well here at all.
What I meant was, I’ve heard this particular contributor’s history is slim to none, and suddenly he shows up and PR’s this age form into the kernel.
That’s what’s weird.
You’re exactly right, most of us probably haven’t looked at kernel PRs. Such a major component in such a major project isn’t really a “My first contribution” territory, right?
So it should raise some eyebrows when this guy just pops up and PRs it and it gets merged so quick.
I’m not the most brilliant at this stuff so I’m happily open to being educated here if I’m way off, though.
I “love” how everyone now recommends alternative/non-systemd distros, not realizing that those will have to implement exactly the same sooner or later. Systemd is just moving fast.
But systemd exists inside the US. What do you want, an optional field to be optional for the US? Then good news, the fucking optional field is already optional.
If you are an international organized collective without monetary goals - who the fuck cares about local law? What is the worst that can happen - threaten to jail a person that is using $LINUX_DISTRIBUTION?
You do realise there are many different jurisdictions om this planet, right? Some fight back more valiant against this shit than others.
Of course it’s still up in the air where which law will be introduced, but assuming every single distro or project has to follow the same laws is naive.
I studied at the PR in question and that’s not the conclusion I arrive at. Let me try to explain how this looks to me.
Also keep in mind, I do think we absolutely need to keep the political pressure on and push back on identity-gating policies with all our collective might. In that light the PR itself does the two things I’d absolutely require here: one, it allows the user to put whatever value they want in that field, including none at all, and two, it disallows all apps from reading that field without the user’s active permission.
Basically it’s a superficially valid implementation of a bullshit requirement that still leaves all the power in the user’s hands and therefore renders the requirement meaningless. Or in other words, a huge middle finger to the proponents of age-checking.
Mind you, I feel there’s also value in loud non-compliance and I’m glad some are taking that road – keep it up, folks. But I’m leery of demands that only one single approach be taken. This needs to be fought on every front we can. And to me the PR in question reads like an effective defensive move.
That’s something I wondered about the person who implemented this too, I wonder if it was an attempt to install a bare minimum to say “There. We did it. Leave us alone.” Instead of leaving it up to the government to force the issue, and he’s getting absolutely raked over the coals for it.
If that’s the case, I feel terribly bad about this backfiring so hard on him. I do think we should be putting up a lot more resistance before resorting to something like this though.
Some others have also suggested that this was done out of spite, however after reading the github I didn’t see anything said to support that. Are you sure you’re not reading something into this that’s not there?
I’ll be honest I haven’t dug into the GitHub transcripts.
Absolutely not sure! In fact my first inclination leans towards the cynical “This is totally a pro-authoritarian virtue signal move.” Because that’s seemingly everything nowadays.
But also I know things are seldom as they first seem. So I’m at least curious about this guy’s actual motives. Coming out of nowhere just for this contribution is hecka sus though.
I don’t like any of it. I looked to the Internet and open source to escape that petulant normie-verse of endless rage and braindead legislation. And they’re coming to assimilate us like they do everything else. :(
I’m fairly sure this is the first systemd pull request that many here have viewed. I wouldn’t say we’re coming out of nowhere.
Sorry I didn’t articulate myself well here at all.
What I meant was, I’ve heard this particular contributor’s history is slim to none, and suddenly he shows up and PR’s this age form into the kernel.
That’s what’s weird.
You’re exactly right, most of us probably haven’t looked at kernel PRs. Such a major component in such a major project isn’t really a “My first contribution” territory, right?
So it should raise some eyebrows when this guy just pops up and PRs it and it gets merged so quick.
I’m not the most brilliant at this stuff so I’m happily open to being educated here if I’m way off, though.
I agree that not everything is what it seems at first, I just fear it’s wishful thinking in this case.
Yeah, I fear you’re right. Evidence doesn’t point to benevolence here.
I “love” how everyone now recommends alternative/non-systemd distros, not realizing that those will have to implement exactly the same sooner or later. Systemd is just moving fast.
You only have to implement it if you care about a stupid law. Fuck.The.Law.
Best lawyer ever
Just don’t care about the stupid law!
us law doesnt existvputside the united states. systemd is not a corporation, its open source code.
But systemd exists inside the US. What do you want, an optional field to be optional for the US? Then good news, the fucking optional field is already optional.
If you are an international organized collective without monetary goals - who the fuck cares about local law? What is the worst that can happen - threaten to jail a person that is using $LINUX_DISTRIBUTION?
No, they threaten to jail the creator of $LINUX_DISTRIBUTION. I think the best stance is Arch’s current stance of doing nothing and saying nothing.
And WHO does they want to jail? If its an operation that is distributed all over the world…
I don’t want Linus to go to jail :(
No they wont, because this is open source and fuck corporate tracking and identification.
You do realise there are many different jurisdictions om this planet, right? Some fight back more valiant against this shit than others.
Of course it’s still up in the air where which law will be introduced, but assuming every single distro or project has to follow the same laws is naive.