Some of you need to watch this video, and hang your head in shame.
Dylan Taylor has been receiving constant harassment, including threats to his life and safety, for actions done collectively by SystemD. The article by Sam Bent was explictly mentioned as part of the harassment campaign, and rightfully so.
I don’t think enough people realize that this is catastrophically bad. It’ll discourage people from becoming open source developers, it’ll discourage people from using Linux, and it’ll discourage legislators from taking the Linux community seriously.
If you ever wished ill upon another human being for complying with a relatively inconsequential law, you are better off never touching a computer again. The Linux community has collectively gone so far beyond what is acceptable here.
Adding a birthday field is not privacy invading in itself the same way brandishing a knife is not assault in itself.
Context matters. I’ve held knives before and it was completely inocuous. I’ve used knives to chop vegetables, to spread butter, to carve something out of wood, etc. If I pulled out a knife while in a heated argument with someone that’d be a whole other story, and I don’t think “I was just holding the knife, is it illegal to hold knives now?” would exonerate me from accusations of intent or threat to assault someone.
In any other context adding a date of birth field would be inocuous. You’re not required to use it after all. But in this context as I understand it, it is explicitly infrastructure for age verification, even if it is not age verification in itself.