Someone Forked systemd Over Its New Birth Date Field (linuxiac.com)
- Reference: 0184024298
- News link: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/26/06/22/0144240/someone-forked-systemd-over-its-new-birth-date-field
- Source link: https://linuxiac.com/someone-forked-systemd-over-its-new-birth-date-field/
> A new systemd fork has appeared with a specific purpose: removing systemd's recently added support for storing a user's birth date in JSON user records.
>
> The fork, called Liberated systemd, published its first tagged release as v261 shortly after the [2]official systemd 261 release . In other words, the fork follows upstream systemd while reverting the change that added the new optional birthDate field.
>
> Importantly, this is not a new init system, a wider redesign of systemd, or a general-purpose alternative to the upstream project. Its stated purpose is to remain close to upstream systemd while removing what the author describes as "surveillance enablement"... The author recommends testing the fork in a virtual machine before using it on real hardware and warns nightly builds are more likely to be unstable than named releases.
[1] https://linuxiac.com/someone-forked-systemd-over-its-new-birth-date-field/
[2] https://linuxiac.com/systemd-261-lands-with-cloud-imds-tpm-and-network-updates/
Does systemd want to wish us happy birthday now? (Score:2)
Aww, that's sweet!
Re: (Score:3)
No, SystemD wants to grow up into a REAL despotic gatekeeping process that locks you out of your own hardware for idiotic reasons that only its developer thinks are important, just like the big corporate offerings do!
Its just a humble bit of free software with big dreams! Wont you love it?
[massive sarcasm]
Less smarmy, I feel that this is just more of the same basic mindset from the systemD development folks. They have yet to find an onerous feature that they have been unwilling to embrace, and then angrily
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
That's ok, I need the discipline anyway, Sometimes I set my VPN location to TX just so I can't look at porn.
Re: (Score:2)
It also blocks all those dildo popup ads when I'm looking for pirate software!
Thank goodness for Texas!
Re: Does systemd want to wish us happy birthday no (Score:2)
Good tip
Re: (Score:2)
Note that this bill has not passed yet, and certainly could be amended to remove the exemption for open licensed OSes in the senate. That said, this seems like it would be a fairly easy thing to add as a compile-time option in systemd, and have it off by default until 1/1/2027.
Re: (Score:2)
> "SystemD wants to grow up into a REAL despotic gatekeeping process that locks you out of your own hardware for idiotic reasons that only its developer thinks are important, just like the big corporate offerings do!"
Even if present, there is nothing requiring the user actually use a birthdate field. Or that it even be accurate. Could it be a slippery slope? Maybe. But FOSS, like Linux, is ultimately not controlled by corporate dogma or government whims, so it is unlikely that use of the field could b
Re: Does systemd want to wish us happy birthday no (Score:1)
Naw it's so it can set off the thingie on your hand when you turn 25...
Give my my SysVInit (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm still salty about the switch to SystemD in the first place. I grew up on the simplicity of Linux's three tenets:
1. Everything is a file
2. Everything should be kept as simple and discreet as possible
3. Text (ASCII) based files wherever possible for configs and logs
SystemD came along and just blew all three of those out of the water and made it look and act more like Windows with its complications. And now it's pushing non-needed items like Birthdate into the core functions.
Re: (Score:2)
You can always .... fork it.
Re:Give my my SysVInit (Score:4, Insightful)
> "I grew up on the simplicity of Linux's three tenets:"
Those are actually Unix tenets, that Linux just inherited.
But yeah, I generally hate the idea of systemd because it is trying to be all things and in ways that make understanding and configuring things more difficult.
Re: (Score:2)
I am not salty. I just run all my Linux systems without the systemd trash. Has saved me from having to do emergency patches several times now.
Re: (Score:3)
So systemd-the-init-system is that. Arguably having straight-forward config files rather than wildly-varying shell scripts for startup is much cleaner. For example, since systemd can handle non-daemonizing programs cleanly, it makes throwing together a script to do something much easier (no daemonization necessary, can just run, if it fails for some reason systemd can automatically restart it if configured, etc.).
systemd-the-project is bloated in all the things they've added, but systemd-the-init-system is
Re: (Score:2)
Go right ahead. This is Linux after all. You are free to build it however you want.
Re: (Score:2)
I expect SystemD was originally created because someone looked at Apple's LaunchD and decided they wanted a GPL-compatible alternative. But it certainly has metastiz... I mean, expanded a lot since then.
I'm sure it's just like a 1990s BBS (Score:2)
SystemD just wants to know when you're old enough to hit on. The next field to be added will be relationshipStatus.
Why not ... (Score:2)
just entering a valid 18+ random date? The real issue will arise when applications start requiring that date to be verified (and the fork won't help then, either).
Re: (Score:2)
> "The real issue will arise when applications start requiring that date to be verified (and the fork won't help then, either)."
Bingo.
Except it won't be FOSS applications. It will be on-line crap. Having the field or not doesn't matter at all. It will be a whole matter of "chain of trust" again, where you don't actually own or control your own system. Linux/FOSS will not meet that requirement and will be rejected. Just like it is rejected in a small amount of DRM games than want to control your syste
You'll end up with an empty repository (Score:2, Insightful)
once you start deleting things that are not supposed to be in systemd.