Post #1624346

2026-03-21 01:38 UTC

@k3ym0 could it be done theoretically? Sure. But on systemd, that'd be a huge task to maintain. And the systemd folks say "oh, this PR is just an optional part of the user account system, we're just making a common API for anyone who wants to add it for any reason". They build the tracks and plead innocence as to what is in the trains.

Replies (5)

@yrrsinn@chaos.social 2026-03-21 01:57

@wwahammy @k3ym0 I found this a good write-up https://www.sambent.com/the-engineer-who-tried-to-put-age-verification-into-linux-5/

Open ##1624347
@lukeshu@social.coop 2026-03-21 05:06

@wwahammy @k3ym0 So the age verification stuff is beyond terrible. But the systemd PR specifically seems like a weird one to get worked up about? It does 2 things: 1) The schema-docs for the the userdb JSON, which already allows you to add arbitrary user-defined fields in addition to the pre-defined fields, now define an optional "birthDate" field to be to be a "YYYY-MM-DD" string. 2) Added a flag to `userdbctl` (edit: `homectl`, actually) to be able to set the field from that command, instead of having to edit the JSON some other way. Like, I already deal with multi-user systems where "hobbies" is a field in there. I don't see the harm in saying "If you wanna add a birthDate field, it should be 'YYYY-MM-DD' and not seconds-since-epoch or something". The polkit stuff? Makes my gut churn.

Open ##1624396
@dzwiedziu@mastodon.social 2026-03-21 09:33

@wwahammy Technically you could build without the offending functionality, but would you want to use something designed with so much user-hostile intent? @k3ym0

Open ##1624407
@hasani@my-spaces.social 2026-03-21 12:48

@wwahammy @k3ym0 Aaaand this is the kind of shit that was brought up when SystemD came to being. That Pottering (RedHat) just did whatever they wanted and forced changes across the entire FOSS ecosystem. And Lennart blocking the merge to revert the merge is just icing on the fucking cake. And here we are yet again getting a feature pushed across the ecosystem without debate or consensus, driven by a small group of devs with commit access

Open ##1624408
@StrangeNoises@mastodon.social 2026-03-21 14:13

@wwahammy @k3ym0 “that’s not my department,” says Werner von Braun….

Open ##1624409