The latest changes implemented in the Systemd repo, related to or prompted by age-verification laws, have made many people unhappy (I suppose links about this aren’t necessary). This has led to a surge in Systemd forks during the last days (“surge” because there have always been plenty of forks). Here are some forks that explicitly mention those changes as their reason for forking (rough time ordering taken from the fork page):
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paramazo/systemd “The systemd System and Service Manager without age verification”
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ganitam/systemd “Systemd fork just before the Age Verification addition. Hoping more capable developers and maintainers do same…”
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GSYT-Productions/systemd-fork “The systemd System and Service Manager, without the stupid Age Verification”
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speedythesnail/unret arded-systemd “The systemd System and Service Manager, without the ret arded age-verification commits”
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ta13579/systemd “The systemd System and Service Manager WITHOUT THE FUCKING AGE CHECKS”
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r4shsec/systemd-no-age-verification “This is systemd but without the age verification made via pull request https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/40978”
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Pingasmaster/fightthesystemd “Systemd without the nonsense: no age verification, no lighthouse built-in.”
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Jeffrey-Sardina/system “Liberated systemd – no surveillance. Ever.”
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HaplessIdiot/systemd-saneagecheck “The systemd System and Service Manager with age verification bypass and polling rate options for said feature”
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Queer-Coded-LGBTQ/systemd-fuck-california “The systemd System and Service Manager, but without age bs added in.”
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Codiak540/unshitted-systemd “A fork of systemd aiming to strip the Age verification. Sue me california.”
Hopefully the energy of this reaction won’t be scattered among too many alternatives, although some amount of scattering is always good.
Nothing more dramatic than Linux users angry-forking a repository
As somebody that uses valkey, I’m happy there’s drama.
Yup, and MariaDB, and LibreOffice, and Nextcloud…
Tbf, MySQL/Maria is just worse than Postgres overall, and wasn’t LibreOffice because OpenOffice is just discontinued?
Hi! I’m actually the creator of unshitted-systemd (the one at the bottom of the list). I had my eye on systemd for a few weeks due to the whole AI code fiasco, but the second my friend DM’ed me saying “they just added age verification” I said “I’m forking it”, forked it, stripped the DoB field, and submitted a PR
Not even an hour later my PR was closed due to being “Spam”.
So I went further, stripped all the AI code, the realName field for User Accounts, and started fixing issues that haven’t been fixed by systemd themselves. I also saw a 4.5 second boot time speedup from installing mine. I have NO IDEA how, but it’s happened.
I plan on going further and taking out parts that go against user privacy and control over their system (I.E: systemd makes the /etc read only by default, I’ve removed that code in my fork)
I can’t do this on my own though, if anyone wants to help, please let me know! you can email me at codiak540@bbs.4d2.org, or contact me through github. You might be able to DM me on this platform idk I’m new to it, and my discord is @codiak540
If the original description hasn’t made it clear, I’m not afraid of California. I don’t live in California and as such believe I am not subject to their stupid laws. Keep that in mind if you’re considering helping me.
I also saw a 4.5 second boot time speedup from installing mine. I have NO IDEA how, but it’s happened.
If I saw a speedup that I didn’t understand, then I’d worry that I had accidentally broken something. It’s easy to get speedups by not doing things correctly
well you’ve already won from the marketing point of view compared to the others because yours isn’t a shit (lol) name
Lovely!
I wanted to fork too but wanted a more carefully planned one (avoid reverting the new time utility names in case they will be re-used in the future & to make syncing newer changes from upstream straightforward otherwise it will not be a one-to-one replacement)
I would love to help with your fork, allocate a worker to build a binary from the CI, create an AUR package (I already studied the systemd arch package a little bit), start using the fork and hopefully with some PRs too. Discord is blocked where I am so it would be cool to have a matrix group / space for this effort and let’s see how far we can push this. Because if this doesn’t work, I will be moving to Artix or Gentoo 100%
I saw a fork coming when the AI drama started, good on you. Don’t have the time budget for it right now, but you should contact the other fork devs, maybe you could join forces.
Systemd still has no age verification, so all those forks are absolutely pointless.
If and when Systemd adds age verification, I’ll move away from it.
But the recent change adds literally nothing. Just leave the field blank, like you always did with those for your home address and full name.
The age field is malicious compliance. It satisfies the letter of the law while being completely and deliberately useless for its purpose.I think there is an intention to convey a clear message. I will be warching the distro’s. Red Hat, being an IBM company, will probably back this age verification farce. I’m not so sure about the community distro’s like Debian or Arch. Maybe even Ubuntu will stop short.
Despite being a minor technical feature, I think this will have a disproportionate response from people.
It doesn’t work quite that way. Typically you have a sequence of very small changes, all “innocuous”, that lock you more and more into the previous ones. When you suddenly realize that the cumulative change is bad, you also find it’s very difficult to “move away from it”. This is why it’s important not to give away a single inch, from the very start.
That’s simply not true in this case.
With age verification, there’s a very clear cut-off point that you can see and act upon:
Age verification is when you’re required to verify your age.
Not just enter a number.And the way to fight against this law isn’t to “boycott” systemd.
Literally no one will notice. It’s free, so using it doesn’t support it.
And no one even knows whether you use it or not.That’s why I think the law is bad, but it doesn’t really apply to open source software. You see the actual limit crossed, you can still fork the version from before that.
Even the law itself, as it stands, is pretty alright. It’s effectively just a parental control system, the OS needs to provide the user age to applications, but that age is just whatever you type at install, without any verification. In general, if enough applications implement it, that’s not a bad system to help protect kids without invading anyones privacy. Of course, it can be circumvented by the kid installing the OS themselves, but that possibility is a feature, not a bug.
The problem there is the slippery slope though.
Except that this change doesn’t lock us into age verification at all. On its own it’s harmless. There are still steps ahead before it’s actually difficult to evade. And sure, we are heading that way and it only makes sense to be prepared for the steps towards the next steps of age verification laws. It really isn’t magic to comply with these small steps, as long as they themselves don’t present a treat, be aware of the bigger picture and still do the work to prevent the actual OS-level age verification.
Systemd isn’t going to add age verification
!remindme 1 year
This isn’t Reddit
/whoosh
The age field is one step closer to age verification in a program that already has made it more than clear that they don’t respect their consumers. Not only that but it also opens the door for other distro’s to force age verification.
a program that already has made it more than clear that they don’t respect their consumers
Could you elaborate on this? I don’t get it.
I don’t know why we downvoted the correct answer.
It sucks and is stupid but the alternative is banning Linux. You wanna have ICE knock on your door for “harboring a foreign operating system that doesn’t comply with the Christlike values of patriotic Americans”?
I take it when someone tells you to suck their dick, you immediately drop to your knees and start sucking. No other option but to comply, right?
It sucks and is stupid but the alternative is banning Linux.
Good. Have it banned in the one state that probably relies on it the absolute most. Silicon Valley would start to implode and the law would be changed very quickly.
They will not ban it on Servers or for Corporate use, but ban it in youth Centers, in schools, in public libraries, and everywhere else where kids could have access to Computers. This will create another generation of people who only know close source Systems, most likely from Microsoft, who will have no issues with making their Systems compliant to the bindig laws.
They will not ban it on Servers or for Corporate use
That’s the thing, the law doesn’t differentiate.
as far as I read the law, but i am neither a lawyer or even american, are those Option only needed for Systems with users and a user, as defined by the same law, is
(i) “User” means a child that is the primary user of the device.
The law says nothing about Systems that don’t have such a “user”, or at least i could not find anything.
So, there could be a valid argument that the law does differentiate.
- Providing courses for kids to learn linux? Not longer possible
- Providing older, but still perfectly fine running, Computers with Linux to low incoming or otherwise in need families? You are now a criminal!
Systems have to be ready and in place when the law becomes bindig and active, it is to late to beginn with the work then.
Look at how Trump got these stupid Americans pacified and scared to resist for even the smallest things.
“B…b…bUt wHaT iF IcE cOmeS”
LMAO
Good luck trying to maintain the mammoth that is systemd… why not just switch to an alternative init system and focus your efforts on contributing to those, instead of trying to single-handedly maintain such a huge codebase?
You got any good tips on alternatives?
If you want something more featureful, OpenRC is decent.
I usually use runit, which is much more lightweight, which I like.
You can try out distros with different inits in VMs and see what you like. Or if you’re the distro-hopping kind, just distro-hop.
I don’t know. I don’t think I’ll ever leave Arch as long as it’s available.
Btw
🫡
It’s more the question of why is everyone folding to this age verification nonsense. One dumb state makes a law, now everyone is bending over backwards to comply. A state full of corruption no less, like what are the alteria motives.
Maybe parents should start, parenting their kids, rather than making the government parent them.
alteriaulterior motives🤝 Maybe “government
parentbrainwash them”.Because it is not only one dumb state but also multiple countries with such laws, either already active or as plans.
the linux community is funny sometimes
Yes, this whole thing is very silly. Linux installers ask for your full name already. You can just make one up. Same with the birthday.
The slippery slope total surveillance state paranoia is hysterical.
As someone who has used Linux for over a decade, I have no idea how I would even go about replacing Systemd on my computer; even if I wanted to.
Ageless Linux, now that’s something I can get behind: a script that I don’t understand, to accomplish something I think I might need, or just think is neat.
Unfortunately, I don’t use a Debian based distro, so I’m SOL on that front as well.
For arch… generally if there’s a core/extra official package, there can be alternatives in the AUR that list the system package as a “provides” alias.
From a quick AUR search, the systemd-liberated-git package is already up there. To replace systemd you’d install the AUR package which would tell you it conflicts with the official/core systemd package and ask if you wanted to replace it. If the package maintainer has everything right, it should just work.
Personally I’ll wait to see if a viably stable and well-maintained fork of systemd without age stuff shows up and switch once it sounds problem-free(ish).
I use Fedora, and honestly, I’m not even going to look for alternatives or work arounds unless and until my system actually tries to verify my age.
But that’s good to know, thank you. I imagine that if I do have to dump Fedora, I will probably go to an Arch based system purely for the AUR.
Rewrite in Rust when?
Fuck rust, rewrite in assembly when?
There is this neat tool that can automatically convert C to Assembly
This is so incredibly dump
Out of the loop:
The systemd project merged a pull request adding a new birthDate field to the JSON user records managed by userdb, in response to age verification laws in California, Colorado, and Brazil.
Lennart Poettering clarified that this is an optional field in the userdb JSON object — not a policy engine, not an API for apps. It just defines the field so it’s standardized if people want to store the date there, but it’s entirely optional. Systemd itself does nothing with the data.
What a nothing burger
It’s not nothing, freedom is often taken by inches.
In response to German purity laws, IBM has added an optional field to their citizen database. It just defines a field “Is Jewish” so it’s standardized, but entirely optional. IBM does nothing with the data.
What a nothing burger.
Not to discourage anyone, but a big problem with maintaining a systemd fork is how much the “init” covers. But it’s encouraging to see see just how many people are attempting a fork, if they join forces it could doable.
Worst case scenario there is alternative init systems that don’t have the kitchen sink
As long as it’s offline I don’t see a problem of implementing this. It’s a nieche use case, but why not? No program has to use the interface. It does what’s on the can: If I have a kid with a user not in wheel, it can install stuff on user level but might be “safe” from programs it is not supposed to use. Are people saying this is a slippery slope?
I don’t see any difference with a law saying that you must have a camera installed in your house to potentially check what you do (or what your child does). It’s my house, I decide whether I want a camera installed.
If someone tells me they’re going to put a camera but it’s innocuous because it’s off, or because I can decide whether to turn it on, or because I can point it in any direction I like (toward the wall), well they completely miss the point: it’s my house, if I don’t want a camera in there, then no camera goes in there. That’s my basic right as a human being, and any individual or entity or government that tries to force something like this, automatically loses its legitimacy. Its “laws” are immoral and therefore void. I don’t care being then branded as “anarchist” or as “criminal”. Welcome are all “criminals” from the past that fought and broke unjust laws in order to fight for human rights. I’m not a Russian, bowing my head and complying. Better dead. My grandchildren should not grow up in such conditions.
Likewise, my personal laptop is mine and I decide what does go and what doesn’t go in it.
They should make the API call for apps to query that value a per-system/boot randomly generated signature, so it’s impossible to use while also complying with the law.
Personally I do not want to comply with the law. It’s a law that violates my basic rights as a human being, and any tools that favours it or try to comply with it become tools that commit the same violations. My laptop is mine, I decide what goes in it, and nobody has any right to force any software in it, no more than they have any right to put a camera in my house to check what I do. When “laws” violate human rights, what counts is not what’s the “legal” thing to do, but what’s the moral thing to do.
Today we would be in a Russia-like state if people had not actively resisted, broken, and refused to comply with unjust laws.
I’m mostly interested in how will they handle giving the info to apps. If it’d let me to block or fake the request depending on what I currently need (just prompt me every time an app asks, and let me choose the bracket), I’m good.
Tbh, most sites that are slowly getting targeted by age verification laws are things I’m kind of addicted to and have been trying to drop for a long time. A “scan your face or id” dialog would be a good reminder to finally cold turkey it. It’s one of the things I hate more than however much I need their platforms.
Wait… Is this what that notification was about
systemdwhen I upgraded my system just now? Fuck me… Although, if I correctly understand the current state of things, those California laws aren’t enforced bysystemd. That’s up to applications run on top of asystemdsystem.systemd“just” provides the data point “age”. Right?Regardless, let’s hope some of these forks collaborate and consolidate!