Dylan M. Taylor is not a household name in the Linux world. At least, he wasn’t until recently.
The software engineer and longtime open source contributor has quietly built a respectable track record over the years: writing Python code for the Arch Linux installer, maintaining packages for NixOS, and contributing CI/CD pipelines to various FOSS projects.
But a recent change he made to systemd has pushed him into the spotlight, along with a wave of intense debate.
At the center of the controversy is a seemingly simple addition Dylan made: an optional birthDate field in systemd’s user database.
Lawyer up? Who are they going to sue? Most Foss projects are not a legal entity.
For the few that are (eg connnical) they can just move the org to Canada or Mexico or wherever in Europe that doesn’t have insane laws.
Everyone continues to work remotely. It’s easy.
They will get kicked off Github by Microsoft when they get somthing in the mail by the state of California for hosting content that vilolates the law.
So they push to codeberg. What’s your point?
Git is decentralized. You’re not citing a problem that can’t be fixed in a few hours.
That is literally my point. But i think you’re underestimating how difficult a task like that is not only just to migrate but also to learn new tools, if it were so easy, why haven’t they done it yet? Not to mention the servers and fiscal activity done in the US that will also be targeted and moving to places like the EU where they are already implementing ID verification laws isn’t a good idea. They’d have to move them to other countries that are less likely to do such a thing, but there are no guarantees those countries will stay safe. So do you think the devs would rather do all that or add an age field that is stored locally? If the laws get worse (which they very well might), we should start funding campaigns that try to fight these laws through legal means and through awareness, this is personally what I think is the best idea but I’m open to hearing other methods. Getting mad at this one guy is doing nothing and if anything, will make devs not want to maintain these projects.