[SahAssar]

Facts:

There is and has for a long time been a field for full name.

There is now also a field for birthdate.

You are free to fill out neither or either.

Neither have a strong technical reason to be filled.

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Your position:

You have no problem with the full name, but do have a problem with the birthdate.

You also agree that the field that you have no problem with (full name) is more sensitive than the one you don't (birthdate).

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Have I summarized the situation correctly?

Do you not see the discrepancy in your position?

[worksonmine]

> Have I summarized the situation correctly?

No, I don't care about either. It can be argued the full name is technically useful for the system administrators on a multi-user system, but I digress. They can add whatever field they want as long as it's optional.

I do however have a problem with regulating what an OS is required or allowed to do and what it has to collect and expose. Linux wasn't created in the US and there's no reason to comply with the California regulators. Will an empty birthdate field really comply with the law? Is that a fact as you claim?

> Do you not see the discrepancy in your position?

I see you reading more than what I'm actually saying. Breath and re-read what I've said and you will notice that I haven't (until this comment) mentioned my position.

While you're at it maybe answer the questions I asked you instead of replying with more questions, I'll quote them for you:

>> Do you think it's a good idea for operating systems to comply with 1 or 2 exceptionally retarded state laws? The full name is as far as I know never exposed to websites right?

[SahAssar]

> Do you think it's a good idea for operating systems to comply with 1 or 2 exceptionally retarded state laws? The full name is as far as I know never exposed to websites right?

I think it's a good thing for OS'es to have the capability to comply with laws when it does not impose undue burden on users or developers. This is to avoid there being 40 different forks/patches of a system that would probably be less transparent than having it in the upstream project.

Whether that capability is activated should always be optional. This field is optional.

Regarding this info being exposed to websites is not up to systemd. If for example firefox were to expose this info to websites without my consent I'd support a fork of firefox or stop using firefox.

As long as the info does not leave my computer I feel it is fearmongering to call it mass surveillance.

[worksonmine]

> Regarding this info being exposed to websites is not up to systemd. If for example firefox were to expose this info to websites without my consent I'd support a fork of firefox or stop using firefox.

> As long as the info does not leave my computer I feel it is fearmongering to call it mass surveillance.

You have to consider the timing and context of the change. What systemd does here is enabling Firefox to share that data (I'm guessing they'll be the last to comply though, Chrome and Safari will jump on it). If you would choose a fork of Firefox over Firefox exposing your data to websites, why are you so eagerly defending systemd exposing the same data to applications?

I tend to apply the same principles to all and react as soon as possible instead of waiting until it's too late. What use is there even of the field if it only stays on your machine, I assume you remember your own birthday?