THAT law and it's copies here and abroad
forum.artixlinux.org
THAT law and it's copies here and abroad

Per the very first reply on their thread discussing it in their forums, which I linked directly to for the post title:

We’ll NEVER require any verification or identification from the user.

However, what’s gonna happen should the attempts to age-gate the XDG portal screw over alt-init distros like Artix too? My guess is maybe they start blocking regions which force age gating like Arch Linux 32 is doing.

  • juipeltje@lemmy.world
    19·
    1 day ago

    In this case Artix already is a systemd-free distro, but this is part of why i think it’s a bad idea that systemd is wanting to implement the age verification crap, cause i think the distro should be allowed to decide if they want to comply or not. Feels like distros that use systemd will be forced to comply unless they change init, which is probably a pain in of itself.

    Btw, what does the desktop portal actually do? I’ve installed a lot of programs over the years, including flatpaks, and i never seemed to need it. I hope it stays that way considering they’re implementing this shit too.

    • FauxLiving@lemmy.world
      7·
      22 hours ago

      Systemd isn’t implementing age verification.

      They added the ability to store the data because the xdg-desktop-portal team added the ability to set an age and that requires a place to store the data. No component ‘verifies’ the age, it’s a data field that you can enter whatever you’d like into.

      From https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/40954 :

      Stores the user’s birth date for age verification, as required by recent laws in California (AB-1043), Colorado (SB26-051), Brazil (Lei 15.211/2025), etc.

      The xdg-desktop-portal project is adding an age verification portal (flatpak/xdg-desktop-portal#1922) that needs a data source for the user’s age. userdb already stores personal metadata (emailAddress, realName, location) so birthDate is a natural fit.

      Full date rather than just birth year: birth year alone has up to ~12 months of imprecision at age boundaries, which could misclassify a 17-year-old as 18 or vice versa.

      • juipeltje@lemmy.world
        20·
        22 hours ago

        Sure, but they both seem way too eager for my taste to go along with this nonsense, and if you refuse to implement this, you don’t need a place to store it either. I suppose it’s nice for the distros that do want to use it.

        • FauxLiving@lemmy.world
          6·
          22 hours ago

          they both seem way too eager for my taste to go along with this nonsense

          Based on what? They have specifically addressed the issue and it does not read like they’re eager to have this forced on them by state laws.

          https://blog.system76.com/post/system76-on-age-verification

          We are accustomed to adding operating system features to comply with laws. Accessibility features for ADA, and power efficiency settings for Energy Star regulations are two examples. We are a part of this world and we believe in the rule of law. We still hope these laws will be recognized for the folly they are and removed from the books or found unconstitutional.

          • juipeltje@lemmy.world
            5·
            19 hours ago

            That’s system76, not systemd. System76 is atleast trying to see what they can do (or rather can not do) and are in talks with legislators to see what this actually means for them (if it ends up meaning anything at all, apparently open sourse systems could be exempt from it). I’ve also seen discussions on nixos discourse to see what the best course of action is, and they are also not planning on just folding, but instead looking to bypass the issue. Meanwhile systemd already has the commits ready it seems, no questions asked.

            • FauxLiving@lemmy.world
              1·
              19 hours ago

              That’s system76, not systemd.

              Yeah oops, I’m just dumb.

              Meanwhile systemd already has the commits ready it seems, no questions asked.

              Because it’s a trivial addition that was requested by a large user of systemd.

              I don’t like these laws either, but they do exist. Go after the politicians who’re making them. Don’t go after the, volunteer, developers for not making a political stand on your behalf.

              It’s an optional field, unverified, unenforced and in the worst case, this is open source software so you can simply revert that PR and build it yourself without the extra field or if you feel super strongly about it you can fork the project.

              Heaping ire on the development team is the part that I’m taking issue with.

              • juipeltje@lemmy.world
                6·
                19 hours ago

                When did i go after the developers? I never attacked them personally whatsoever, i just voiced a concern. At the end of the day they can do what they want with the project. I don’t even use systemd nor xdg-desktop-portal myself, so this doesn’t affect me (atleast not yet).

    • P03 Locke@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      4·
      24 hours ago

      In this case Artix already is a systemd-free distro, but this is part of why i think it’s a bad idea that systemd is wanting to implement the age verification crap, cause i think the distro should be allowed to decide if they want to comply or not. Feels like distros that use systemd will be forced to comply unless they change init, which is probably a pain in of itself.

      Where do I install an Ageless-style patch to force flagrant non-compliance for systemd distros?