>"The real issue will arise when applications start requiring that date to be verified (and the fork won't help then, either)."

Bingo.

Except it won't be FOSS applications. It will be on-line crap. Having the field or not doesn't matter at all. It will be a whole matter of "chain of trust" again, where you don't actually own or control your own system. Linux/FOSS will not meet that requirement and will be rejected. Just like it is rejected in a small amount of DRM games than want to control your system.

At least with the DRM crap, it is not government-related/mandated, so market pressure can be brought to bear on such companies trying to force it. Especially relevant as the Linux "market" keeps growing and starts carrying more clout.

>"SystemD wants to grow up into a REAL despotic gatekeeping process that locks you out of your own hardware for idiotic reasons that only its developer thinks are important, just like the big corporate offerings do!"

Even if present, there is nothing requiring the user actually use a birthdate field. Or that it even be accurate. Could it be a slippery slope? Maybe. But FOSS, like Linux, is ultimately not controlled by corporate dogma or government whims, so it is unlikely that use of the field could be mandated. As long as it is up to the system owner how it is used, that should be good enough.

>"I grew up on the simplicity of Linux's three tenets:"

Those are actually Unix tenets, that Linux just inherited.

But yeah, I generally hate the idea of systemd because it is trying to be all things and in ways that make understanding and configuring things more difficult.

>"So when the battery dies, you can throw the whole device away!"

Indeed. And then it is also extremely difficult to try and recover the battery for recycling, as well, I assume.

So these devices become toxic, non-reusable, non-fixable, highly flammable, dangerous messes.

>"In no way is it a "first class" anything when it's only for GNOME and only in a snap. [...]There's a 0% chance I'm going to use GNOME or snap."

^^THIS

If it were a project that mapped to many/all Linux distros, using a native package (not container, especially not a SNAP container), worked on any Linux desktop environment (and yes, X11 too), then it would be far more interesting. I might even check it out and give feedback.

>"Must be incredibly relevant. You went out of you way to post how it doesn't affect you."

I am probably not the minority in the views of relevancy and I specifically wrote it could be useful for some people. But, whatever :)

I use Linux on everything. So how relevant is Canonical's announcement for me?

1) I don't use Gnome
2) I don't use Wayland
3) I don't use SNAP
4) I don't use Ubuntu
5) I have no use for desktop dictation since I can type much faster than speaking something, then reading it all again to edit and correct all the mistakes and add all the missing punctuation/etc.

At least they kept it "local" and perhaps some people might find the tool useful. So wake us up when it is a real/native package, can be used on any Linux, on any DE, on any GUI.

>"Mass debt is profitable to the ones pulling the strings of our government."

Actually, it is much more profitable for the colleges/universities that rake in tons of zero risk money and have zero accountability for their admitting and spending/charging behavior.

>"No but if the borrower can't get a good job there should be cause of action for Warranty Act claims against the college. Extremely few people go to college with the expectation of borrowing to be unemployable. "

THIS

The colleges/universities should be held at least partially financially responsible for loan-enrolling so many people who probably are not ready or suitable for college (or at least THAT college) and are destined to either pick a useless major, or drop out. The colleges currently have ZERO risk, and their behavior and spending/pricing exactly matches that reality.

>"If they can borrow money against those "unrealized gains" - a major source of wealthy people's cashflow - then they can tax those "unrealized gains."

That is the cart pulling the horse.

The problem is borrowing against unrealized gains to avoid income tax, so fix THAT. Then they will get taxed on that action, or on selling holdings which does create realized earnings and that will be taxed.

>"Are you a temporarily embarrassed billionaire?"

If I were, would I be bothering to post on Slashdot as a pass-time? But, no, I wish I had such a problem.

>"Wonâ(TM)t someone think of the poor billionaires?"

So easy to "other" them and do whatever we want to them?

But this will just drive all the highly rich right out of the State and they will take all their spending, companies, employment, holdings, other taxes, etc with them. I am all for closing loopholes, like the creation of tax-free "income" by borrowing against unrealized assets. But taxing them like that is just wrong on many levels and sets a really bad precedence.

>"colloquially known as the billionaire tax, would levy a one-time 5% tax on any California resident worth more than $1bn."

If it goes through and eventually becomes law, who really believes this will be a ONE-TIME ever tax on the UNREALIZED wealth of individuals?

>"Unfortunately my bank has recently decreed that customers can't log into their online banking without first authorizing it thru their app."

If any of my banks (I use 3) required that, I would complain loudly and then close the account, making sure they knew why. Seriously. I don't want to "bank" on my phone, and I don't want use some bank's stupid "app" just so I can log into a website on from my desk. If they want increased security, then they should allow standard TOTP and I will use whatever off-line/non-cloud authenticator I choose, like Stratum.

>"I think that's kind of the point behind this - to unplug from social media and information overload, but"

But for the same price, you could have a much, much better phone, run anything you want/need, and CHOOSE not to install social crap like facebook, instagram, twitter, etc. And CHOOSE not to go onto stupid time-wasting sites in the browser? T9????? Seriously?

And why would one want to block Email? How is that doomscrolling, addicting, or forever distracting?

>"I guess that's no longer possible."

I have answered this question numerous times on Slashdot (presumably for the same few people reasking it over and over for some reason). They disabled the ability to remove update notifications in the Mozilla-downloaded packages. That is very likely never going to change.

If you are using Linux with a distro package, it will get updated easily through that and there will be no notifications inside Firefox, itself. I have no idea about MS-Windows or other platforms. If you don't want to update, then set a policy to turn off updates (applies to either mainline or ESR). In Linux, put:

{
    "policies": {
                "DisableAppUpdate": true
        }
}

into $INSTALLDIR/distribution

There is something similar for MS-Windows registry stuff, I believe.