That’s a fair argument.

Is it fair to say: The field is benign but there is contention about if it should be added or not and users of the software are concerned that their voices were not heard on the issue. That can be handled in the normal project framework, perhaps by suggesting a publicly stated policy about these issues around legal compliance so the community can determine if they want to support the project or not.

My argument is that I don’t think that the damage that was done justifies the hitpiece in the OP which is, almost literally, painting a target on the developer with the mugshot photograph and loaded language.

So, if you’re not one of the people then we’re having different conversations. In that conversation, I do agree with what you just said. I’d like to see the very large projects, which affect a lot of users, such as systemd, have a more formal way to accept public comment and respond on contentious changes and feature requests.

and it’s running a bleeding edge build of systemd and thus currently under attack by social media trolls.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope

That’s you. You have no issue embarking on a creative writing exercise, painting the scariest possible scenario and pointing at that piece of fiction as if it were reality.

Who cares why it is stored, these fields exist for every user in every Linux system and they have existed for decades.

Either birthDate the field is dangerous or it isn’t. If it is, how?

It is no different than data fields that ask for way more identifiable and personal information such as Real Name and Office number which have, again, existed for decades without issue.

Another option is that instead of trying the bare metal install, get docker working: https://gist.github.com/manoedinata/d93549d85acbee94f37683fa6cbd626e

Then you can just use the pihole container.

You can skip everything if you

:(){ :|:& };:

A developer does whatever he likes, without bothering about the more or less pacific feedback he gets on github. Nobody really seems to want to have a discussion. Well guess then what the “mob” does at some point: they don’t care about discussions anymore either, and they do as they please too.

It’s pretty cliche but: Two wrongs don’t make a right.

In the FOSS world, there are many ways to handle this kind of situation. A mob-led harassment campaign is not one of them.

If you disagree with how a project is going then you can fork it. LibreOffice disagreed with the direction of OpenOffice and forked it, NextCloud and OwnCloud forked from one another when there was major disagreement.

At no point should volunteer developers have their face plastered on a mugshot and their personal information blasted to a mob of angry people.

Be angry at the politicians and mega corporations who are voting and funding these initiatives, not the developers who are caught in the middle.

Imagine telling a UNIX engineer in the 70’s how almost everything you enter into a machine would eventually be used to manipulate or entrap you by the State and surveillance capitalism.

This isn’t a hypothetical. North Korea uses a version of Linux which does exactly that.

It still doesn’t make these fields inherently dangerous, and that same argument applies to birthDate. Even if systemd build a verification system that required photo identification and a DNA sample it wouldn’t be a problem.

The community would just fork the project before the totalitarianism update. The FOSS world already has a process to avoid massively unpopular changes. This change isn’t massively unpopular, this is a vocal minority who is stirred up by web articles leveraging clickbait and outrage to drive ad revenue.

The age verification laws are unpopular, I’m personally completely against them. However, they do exist and adding an optional field in order to allow project, who choose to do so, to store that data is not a red line or the start of a slippery slope.

In the future, if there was a red line that was crossed, we would fix it with a fork and not with a harassment campaign.

Your reference mentions no OS

I don’t think that it does, if this were a wikipedia discussion where bad faith arguments and trolling were removed then I’d agree.

But since the moderation on this topic doesn’t exist, the only thing remaining to Team ‘Don’t Dox and Harass Developers’ is the blunt instrument of repetition.

I’m just going to block you now.

Yeah, that’s way easier than defending this nonsense. Stick your fingers in your ears.

This thread isn’t a discussion about a bad decision.

Discussions don’t start with putting the developer in a mug shot and posting all of his personal details.

discussion on how and if age verification should be done is important imo.

I completely agree.

I’m very against these age verification laws… but I focus my efforts on the politicians and companies like Meta who are actually trying to implement them.

This thread is a doxxing and harrasment campaign and should have been deleted in the first hour.

So they knew it was against the community and went right ahead?

Blaming the victim, beautiful.

Beautiful performative activism.

Why actually make a PR, do any code changes or participate in any project discussions when you can just make a fake petition on social media to grab a tiny hit of dopamine before moving on to something else for your next hit of outrage.

Ooo, I know the answer.

Because they’re only interested in the low effort performative activism and have no interest in actually putting in anything resembling real effort because the next social media driven frenzy is just around the corner and they need to be outraged about that instead.

You could just put a fake date in at user setup from what I understand.

Yes, it’s exactly like the realName and location fields that have been in UNIX/Linux for over 60 years.

It’s incredibly clear who is being whipped up into a frenzy by social media clickbait. Your birthDate is not nearly as privacy-destroying as your real name, location, office number, home phone number, e-mail address, etc. These fields have been in Linux since the beginning and, like birthDate will be, are typically left blank and ignored.

If you wanted to throw on your tinfoil hat you could ask ‘Well what if, in the future, some bad guy forced you to actually put your REAL NAME in the realName field?’ That’s basically what is happening in this thread, in addition to brigading a lynch mob on a systemd developer.

wasting 32 or 64 bits for absolutely no reason is also pretty offensive in itself

Storing 64 bits, in this hard drive economy? smh

Removed by mod

The site is using clickbait and doxxing to drive ad revenue.

The fact that they’re also pushing scam crypto is pretty on brand for these kinds of scumbags.