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Surge in Systemd forks after the latest changes (github.com)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by pglpm@lemmy.ca to c/linux@programming.dev

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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):

paramazo/systemd "The systemd System and Service Manager without age verification"
ganitam/systemd "Systemd fork just before the Age Verification addition. Hoping more capable developers and maintainers do same.."
GSYT-Productions/systemd-fork "The systemd System and Service Manager, without the stupid Age Verification"
speedythesnail/unret arded-systemd "The systemd System and Service Manager, without the ret arded age-verification commits"
ta13579/systemd "The systemd System and Service Manager WITHOUT THE FUCKING AGE CHECKS"
r4shsec/systemd-no-age-verification "This is systemd but without the age verification made via pull request https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/40978"
Pingasmaster/fightthesystemd "Systemd without the nonsense: no age verification, no lighthouse built-in."
Jeffrey-Sardina/system "Liberated systemd -- no surveillance. Ever."
HaplessIdiot/systemd-saneagecheck "The systemd System and Service Manager with age verification bypass and polling rate options for said feature"
Queer-Coded-LGBTQ/systemd-fuck-california "The systemd System and Service Manager, but without age bs added in."
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.

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[-] hodgepodgin@lemmy.zip 145 points 1 month ago

Nothing more dramatic than Linux users angry-forking a repository

[-] zero_spelled_with_an_ecks@programming.dev 49 points 1 month ago

As somebody that uses valkey, I'm happy there's drama.

[-] EmK@lemmy.ca 51 points 1 month ago

Yup, and MariaDB, and LibreOffice, and Nextcloud...

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[-] randamumaki 94 points 1 month ago

It's almost like the latest changes are unpopular or something... /s

[-] bobby@lemmy.dbzer0.com 49 points 1 month ago

I don't like age verification either but that feature is optional and it's up to the OS distributor to use it or not. Picking a distribution that doesn't use it is easier than building your own distribution with a systemd fork.

[-] MartianSands@sh.itjust.works 47 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Optional as far as systemd is concerned, perhaps, but it's designed to support a whole suite of software which will expect it to be used.

They're also making dubious decisions about how it will be done, such as how they'll handle the fact that date of birth is PII and something advertisers will be delighted to know. The laws they're trying to support require very limited information, but they're storing far more than that and they've actively decided not to protect it properly.

However optional it may be, they're effectively defining the standard for what will be stored and how it will be accessed by all of the software which will use it

[-] bobby@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I will simply not store any data there. There is no need to resort to building my own distribution with a systemd fork, just as I don’t use this week´s Firefox fork because the shitty features of Firefox can be disabled with 1 click.

Using barely maintained forks because of optional features is a security risk.

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[-] codiak540@lemmy.ca 77 points 1 month ago

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.

[-] far_university1990@reddthat.com 31 points 1 month ago

We will watch your career with great interest

[-] fruitcantfly@programming.dev 24 points 1 month ago

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

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[-] robbo@programming.dev 24 points 1 month ago

well you've already won from the marketing point of view compared to the others because yours isn't a shit (lol) name

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[-] mech@feddit.org 71 points 1 month ago

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.

[-] fierysparrow89@lemmy.world 20 points 1 month ago

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.

[-] pglpm@lemmy.ca 20 points 1 month ago

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.

[-] mech@feddit.org 18 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

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.

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[-] codiak540@lemmy.ca 15 points 1 month ago

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.

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[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 14 points 1 month ago

Systemd isn't going to add age verification

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[-] mereo@piefed.ca 67 points 1 month ago

Let's be realistic. All these forks will get us nowhere because systemd has become a platform on which major components of the Linux system depend. KDE's new login depends on systemd, as does Gnome.

These forks are just a reaction to the latest addition. They will fizzle out.

[-] teft@piefed.social 55 points 1 month ago

That the Linux system depends on? No.

That your chosen distro depends on? Sure.

[-] mereo@piefed.ca 16 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Sure, if you choose a distro like Artix that doesn't use systemd, then yes. However, the major distros use systemd and will continue to do so because it is a critical component of Linux. Once the Linux kernel has finished loading into memory, systemd takes over in user space. Major distros cannot simply switch to a fork on a whim because they need to be completely sure that it is stable and will not cause any compatibility issues.

Let's not forget that Ubuntu, SUSE and Red Hat are used in professional settings, so they won't change to a fork.

[-] frongt@lemmy.zip 40 points 1 month ago

Linux ran just fine before systemd was created. It can be removed again. It's not a critical dependency.

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[-] z3rOR0ne@lemmy.ml 26 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Fair Warning: Long anti-systemd rant ahead.

Here's a list of some fine, totally usable, and well maintained Linux distros that don't use systemd:

Artix Linux (offers 4 different supported init systems)
Gentoo Linux (supports systemd/openrc, with documentation provided on how to manually support others)
Void Linux (uses runit)
Alpine Linux (uses openrc, most docker containers use this as their base)
Devuan (offers 5 different supported init systems)
Antix (offers 5 different supported init systems)
MX Linux (offers systemd/sysv init)

Honestly, I was on Artix for 8 years and am on Gentoo/openrc now (been about 6 months). I never really got the systemd hype. I don't even bother with it on my servers where I just run Alpine Linux. It's just...not really needed unless the dev of a particular DE or app doesn't know how to use basic GNU tools and/or doesn't know they don't need init for such and such feature.

Yeah yeah, systemd isn't just an init system. People make that argument all the time, but honestly, that's actually an argument against using it.

Systemd is poorly designed if the init component can't be separated out from it's various other utilities. If I could use systemd just as init, maybe it wouldn't be...y'know, crap. But no, it has to handle DNS, cron, logging, login managment, etc.

Again, no problem if the systemd devs wanted to make it a suite of optional tools, but init systems are and always will be best if their codebases are as tiny as possible while still being usable and secure. Init's only job is to fork other processes that the user specifies, that's it.

Honestly if some software uses systemd, I'm not likely to use it unless someone's paying me to. Heck, at work I use all sorts of shitty tools that frustrate me to no end in exchange for money.

But if I do happen to use software that requires systemd, on a system that I own, I'm likely to just go into the code, rip out the parts that utilize it, rewrite it, and recompile the binary because fuck that. Yes, I've done this. Most of the time, it's not that hard. But I can count on one hand the amount of times this has been necessary, because the maintainers of these non-systemd distros are able to write basic scripts that hook into the various init systems and you just use them.

And if some major DE like GNOME or KDE relies on systemd, I'd just say, fuck'em. There's plenty of DE's that don't and a multitude of WM's that never will, and good, they shouldn't.

Rant over.

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[-] teft@piefed.social 19 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

There plenty of distros that don’t use systemd.

Slackware and Mint DE come to mind.

Because systemd isn’t required for Linux. It’s just one popular init system.

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[-] confusedpuppy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 39 points 1 month ago

I use Linux Mint DE for steam games which I barely play anymore so this whole Systemd/age-verification mess has next to no effect on me. It's still really interesting to see everything play out in real time.

Speaking strictly as an outsider looking in, I still can't help but feel uncomfortable and slightly worried about what has happened already. People who seek authoritarian powers over others will always start small, even if it's "just a joke." Always pushing boundaries and normalizing new boundaries that are further away from freedom. It's never ending.

Fighting back against people who's only source of creativity or identity is labeling and categorizing other people is fucking exhausting. And they don't even make an effort for their one creative outlet either...

[-] warm@kbin.earth 36 points 1 month ago

It's hard to fight back because of all the people who down play everything as insignificance, "it doesn't affect me", "it's optional" or others.

It's happening in this very comment section too and every comment section where anything attacking our rights is mentioned. Our freedoms will be slowly eroded away, then these people will be affected and they will suddenly be surprised: "how could this have happened?"

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[-] Rekall_Incorporated@piefed.social 30 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

This is a stupid reason to fork systemd, this is an optional features. I can think of totally reasonable use cases/situations where such an optional feature makes a lot of sense.

Mind you, while I don't have children, I have no intent to restrict their usage of the internet. Teaching them critical thinking and providing them a broad cultural exposure seems like a much more productive approach.

[-] OrganicMustard@lemmy.world 16 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Merging something so conflictive and blocking the revert make it look suspicious, more after knowing Meta have invested billions on gettinh age verification everywhere.

Systemd has now vibed code and reviews, in the most critical process on most Linux machines. I see red flags.

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[-] communism@lemmy.ml 27 points 1 month ago

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?

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[-] robbo@programming.dev 23 points 1 month ago

the linux community is funny sometimes

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[-] Uncut_Lemon@lemmy.world 21 points 1 month ago

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.

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[-] gtrcoi@programming.dev 20 points 1 month ago

Every single one of these will fail. Every single one. Because none of them need to exist. The only purpose these serve is harassing the systemd devs for nothing.

These people are pathetic.

[-] nublug@piefed.blahaj.zone 24 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

'forks are harassment' lmfao weirdest weakest shit ever

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[-] curbstickle@anarchist.nexus 24 points 1 month ago

Pathetic is implementing age verification in the first place.

The laws are just authoritarian nonsense, and the same nonsense thats been fought against for decades. It had nothing to do with protecting children then, it has nothing to do with protecting children now, and merging given that context is a failure on the part of the maintainers.

I am enough of a dick that I will shift systems I'm responsible for over to Devuan, AntiX, MX, Alpine - hell, Gentoo if it came to it.

[-] death_to_carrots@feddit.org 18 points 1 month ago

But there is no verification. Just a standardized field in an optional component you can choose to ignore.

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[-] drmoose@lemmy.world 19 points 1 month ago

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

[-] rumba@lemmy.zip 24 points 1 month ago

It's not nothing, freedom is often taken by inches.

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[-] mrbigmouth502@piefed.zip 18 points 1 month ago

This is one of the beautiful things about open source. If the original devs do something stupid, the community can fork.

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[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 16 points 1 month ago

This is so incredibly dump

[-] circuscritic@lemmy.ca 15 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

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.

[-] PumpkinEscobar@lemmy.world 16 points 1 month ago

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).

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