A single pull request turned a quiet open source contributor into the unlikely target of one of the Linux community's most heated controversies. We interacted with Dylan Taylor to hear his side of the story.

I draw the line at when a third party internet-connected service is doing validation of ID. Let’s be honest though, I strongly believe such a thing isn’t possible on a FOSS operating system environment unless they could control what was bootable on the device at a firmware level, enforce signatures to ensure that you couldn’t boot something unrestricted, remove the ability to be root, and block LD_PRELOAD so signals couldn’t be faked. There’s probably more ways to circumvent that.

What I’m trying to say is real ID verification on Linux would be awfully hard to implement, and I guarantee you, nobody would put up with it. They’d fork to a version that doesn’t have it immediately as a protest. Right now, we’re considering implementing something akin to the date pickers that were ubiquitous when signing up for internet services in the early 2000s where it’s just an honor system.

  • BoofStroke@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    5311·
    2 months ago

    I think a birthday field in Pam or passwd would be fine. It’d be cool to have a happy birthday motd on login.

    But it doesn’t belong in what should be an init system. Much of the scope of systemd beyond an init system is the real issue. Resolved for example. Fuck poettering.

    • anyhow2503@lemmy.worldEnglish
      216·
      2 months ago

      Don’t like systemd-resolve? Fine. I get that plenty of implementation details are incomplete, suck or have caused friction with other software. On the other hand it’s a really useful tool for dynamic split dns handling, which is why I like using it. You can disable it, I’ve done so on some workstations and servers, because of poor choices in internal domain names leading to mDNS issues, knock yourself out.

      Don’t think it should be part of an init system? It really isn’t. I wouldn’t call systemd just an init system to begin with, though that was the initial project goal. Most of its parts are reasonably well separated or at least highly configurable for a service layer. I genuinely think it’s completely insane to have DNS resolution in libc, but people have gotten used to that. Systemd-resolved is completely inoffensive in comparison imho.

      Don’t like systemd as a whole? Use a distro without it. It really is that simple. Everything has been discussed - at length. Wars have been fought. At this point, change will only come if the complainers actually sit down, shut up and do some work towards their goals.

      Sorry this turned into such a rant, most of this isn’t even directed at you, this situation just annoys me. Especially this poor guy getting death threats on GitHub because someone riled up all the asshats in the community who have no idea how any of this works. Maybe they should focus their energy on the political forces pushing the California legislation that started this whole mess? I’ve been tired of this stupid debate for years now. I feel like it’s mostly carried by people who have no idea what they are talking about these days.

      • corsicanguppy@lemmy.caEnglish
        115·
        2 months ago

        I wouldn’t call systemd just an init system to begin with, though that was the initial project goal.

        Scope creep. You’re describing scope creep.

        • anyhow2503@lemmy.worldEnglish
          104·
          2 months ago

          No, though parts of systemd have a scope creep issue, that’s not what I’m describing. I’m talking about Poettering deciding to create a service layer for Linux after stealing some ideas from MacOS. Reducing that to “scope creep” is misleading at best and feeds into the “systemd is a monolithic application” concern trolling at worst.

        • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          2·
          2 months ago

          it is quite obviously not scope creep, as the systemd init system does not contain a DNS resolver.

          the systemd family of tools does contain one, because the creators decided to create one with functionality not existing in alternatives. but the init system does not have a built in DNS resolver.

    • Semperverus@lemmy.worldEnglish
      83·
      2 months ago

      We should push to switch to runit or something, and dnsmasq+Network Manager as the golden standards.

    • FauxLiving@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1817·
      2 months ago

      How does systemd having an optional birthDate field prevent children from having a computer?

      It also has fields for ‘Real Name’ and ‘Location’ (and has since the 1960s) without any problems. Most people don’t even know that they exist because they’re optional.

    • Yttra@lemmy.worldEnglish
      619·
      2 months ago

      Because the majority of parents can’t parent and risk frying their kid’s brain? Not the computer’s problem, sure, but still pretty common…

      • Calfpupa [she/her]@lemmy.mlEnglish
        33·
        2 months ago

        Counterpoint: it also allows children to learn outside of what their abusive parents allow them to see. I only escaped christianity because I had access to computer and a library, and most kids don’t have access to a library today.

        • Yttra@lemmy.worldEnglish
          33·
          2 months ago

          I also grew up in a similar situation (abusive parent, evangelical), but it’s a real gamble what with the default leanings of the algorithms I see these days, and I’ve seen enough kids fall deep into alt-right pipelines because of it. It’s not all doom, but I think we were pretty fortunate…

          On top of my main authority figure being physically and verbally abusive, talking to normal people and asking my parents questions they couldn’t answer about religion were what got me out. I do understand that everyone will have different situations, freedoms, and experiences, though. It might be easier for me but harder for someone else, or vice versa.

        • Yttra@lemmy.worldEnglish
          51·
          2 months ago

          I grew up in that situation so believe me, the abusive parents are going to find a way to be abusive regardless.

          Ignoring how impractical it would be to accurately enforce, said parent would simply… not give them computer access to the outside world at all, or just change a password. In my case, they tried to limit access using router mac address rules 🤣

  • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.worldEnglish
    344·
    2 months ago

    Right now, we’re considering implementing something akin to the date pickers that were ubiquitous when signing up for internet services in the early 2000s where it’s just an honor system.

    If you implement that, I switch to a fork that removes it.

      • FauxLiving@lemmy.worldEnglish
        511·
        2 months ago

        Any systemd fork or distro that exists just to remove the birthDate field will be dead in a few weeks.

        There ain’t no way someone is going to maintain an entire fork and distro to remove one optional field in a user’s profile.

        • Yttra@lemmy.worldEnglish
          9·
          2 months ago

          I mean, it’s also one field. Wouldn’t be hard to automate its removal and do a quick test.

          • FauxLiving@lemmy.worldEnglish
            32·
            2 months ago

            Sure, it’s very easy to remove.

            It’s also very easy to ignore and not use. A lot easier and less security comprimising than downloading and compiling a custom fork of systemd from an untrusted source.

            These ‘forks’ are performative activism and not a serious attempt at maintaining a systemd fork. Once the outrage mob moves on to the next target the forks will disappear.