cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/62271427
For those interested, the Systemd release that’s planned to include the controversial ‘birthDate’ field to user records, complying with age-verification laws, is v261 (see ‘milestone’ in the pull request). This release seems to be planned for May.
The current release, from some hours ago, is v260.1. I see that Ubuntu Noble (24.04) just updated to v255.
what difference does it make to you if you don’t mind me asking
Legislators: propose a law that mandates age verification in operating systems
Distros: what’s that? Public discussion? No we don’t need that! Look! We’ve already done it! And you haven’t even passed the law yet! Does it cover non-commercial software? We don’t know or care!
Legislators: wow we didn’t realise it was as easy to regulate open source as it is for commercial software! Now how about we get that client side scanning and software attestation into your nerd shit? You all have TPMs now yes?
I know there is a lot of misleading information online regarding this matter so please allow me to write down my version and feel free to correct me.
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The law - as it is now - doesn’t require any actual verification, it just wants OS to require users to provide a birth date. You - as a user - can put whatever date your heart desire. The purpose is that parents performing OS setup for their children could input their correct date of birth so that apps know that a minor is using the PC not an Adult.
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Systemd provides field for you to store your birth date. It is an optional field and it will obviously be blank in your system unless you dig around to find out how to set it.
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The ones who would enforce the date of birth thing is installers of various Linux distribution who wish to comply. ArchLinux has an open merge request that would require providing a birth date (again no verification, you put what you want)
Happy to provide links to support any of my claims above
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