[jmclnx]

And to add to this, proprietary OSs are about to get worse and can blame the politicians for it.

With these new age laws, these systems can legally ask for personal information, and I am sure as time goes, information required will expand.

As for Linux, seems systemd is all in on this, as for the BSDs, I doubt they will enforce these new laws.

[surgical_fire]

You can lie when it requests for personal information.

I always identify myself as "Conan, The Barbarian" when creating account.

[gostsamo]

why I should be the one bothering with that though? and what happens when it starts requiring internet connection and biometric age verification?

[intrasight]

In a couple years you won't have to bother with that. The device will connect to the ID chip embedded in your body when you're born. And this will be a one-time hard-wired coupling for that device when it is first turned on.

[surgical_fire]

Are you claiming Linux is becoming always online?

That's one hell of a claim.

[gostsamo]

if it is governmently mandated that it is, it might become, at least the user facing distros.

[surgical_fire]

The nature of Linux makes this pretty much impossible.

Say Ubuntu ships with some package for identity validation bullshit. What stops anyone from repackaging it and offering it without those packages?

[saltcured]

A bit of a tangent, but your worst case answer here is the culmination of all the secure boot and remote attestation concepts.

What would stop it is a combination of not being able to buy new hardware that will even boot the modified kernel, and not being able to get vintage hardware to connect to any public ISP etc. due to being unable to attest its validated boot chain information, signed by a required modern hardware OEM key.

So you would be stuck in some kind of underworld of vintage folks attempting mesh networking between themselves. Then, because of basic market forces/economics, there will be a dwindling amount of software that is able to run in such environments. It will become the esoteric realm of old-school hobbyists who don't need to run any commercial apps which require ABI/API features of the modern commercial OSs which require this boot chain of the modern commercial hardware, etc.

[laughing_man]

What they're trying to do is force web sites to require this "service". So if you're running Linux stripped of those packages, your browser will effectively be nerfed -- content hosted by companies doing business Europe or the Anglosphere would be unavailable or "kid safed".

Most people will eventually just give in when that happens.

[tsoukase]

They might force the Linux kernel to add a value 'age' to the couple username/password. Although in Europe OSS is exempt from age verification obligation.

[jmclnx]

of cource you can, but in the future ? Maybe you will be required to upload an ID.

[josefritzishere]

Is it too optimistic to hope that sanity will prevail and users will get treated with respect?