Late Night Linux – Episode 378

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Hello and welcome to episode 3.7.8 of late-nightlinux recorded on the 23rd of March, 2026.

I'm Joe and with me and I're failing.

I have a new phone.

Graham, good evening.

And Will.

Hello.

It's not a new phone, failing.

It's an old pixel.

It's an old new phone to me, though.

Even though I haven't actually done it yet, but I will.

But I also am crying because my old phone won't be there anymore on a shame.

Before we get going, a plug that on-camp is in just over a month.

So this is in Manchester on April 25th and 26th.

It's a free culture on conference.

So there is a schedule track, which is now public,

but you can just turn up and propose a talk and do it if people want you to.

And there'll be social events and drinking, that sort of thing as well.

So yes, come to Manchester, April 25th and 26th.

Everything is at oggcamp.org, all the details.

And while I'm at it, it's another plug for the piss-up that we're going to have

on Saturday the 27th of June from 6pm until late at the shipwrites arms,

which is just next to London Bridge in London.

That's much less formal.

There's no talks or anything like that.

It's just go to the pub, have a few drinks, have a laugh.

That's it.

Are they expecting us at the pub like, are we going to have a corner to be in

or is it a lot more free form?

It's very much more free form.

I didn't want to have any pressure or anything.

There's room outside the pub.

It kind of spills out onto the kind of big pedestrian bit outside the station.

And when I was there in October, there was buskers there and stuff.

I don't know if they'll be there on a Saturday night, probably not.

But anyway, if the pub is too full, then we can spill out of it.

It'll be fine.

So yeah, it links to both of those in the show notes.

Let's go with some news then and it's deja vu.

We talked a couple of weeks ago about age verification and age verification

specifically coming to operating systems and Linux.

Well, that is starting to actually happen now.

So I thought we should talk about it again.

Some distros are saying, no, we're not doing this.

Other distros are saying, yes, we're going to do this.

A lot of the bigger distros are kind of saying, we don't know yet,

even though one of these laws has actually come into force in Brazil.

So they need to get their finger out, I reckon.

And a pull request has gone into system D to add the mechanism to declare your age,

even if there's no verification of that.

And this is quite controversial, it seems.

Yeah, we talked about this.

I'm still uncomfortable with it, but actually I thought of another solution.

I think if you don't put your age in, it should default to unix time zero.

It's convenient, isn't it?

For you, yes, conveniently similar, isn't it?

I think it should be a boolean if anything.

I don't think any region had that data.

The only way I would accept this type of data would be if you can take your passport

to your government institution and they can give you a key that does not know who you are

but is signed by them in some sort of, I don't understand cryptography way,

but it means that nobody who knows who you are versus you have a thing that says

that it has been checked by somebody who is legit, and then you could like,

now, plug it in and have it like one of those UB keys where you can click a button

to say, it's me pressing it because any company is going to lose the data.

Whoever it is, they're going to lose the data and no company, no open source project

could take that on.

So they have to go third party to manage it if it's going to be an actual official look

at ID and scan your arse or whatever it is that they want to do and it shouldn't have

that data anywhere else.

The only people who should know that is your government.

And that's what I mean by, it's not that I want to give them the data.

I just feel like we've got all the tools to not give them the data and still make it

look like they've got it.

I don't know that there is a requirement to have that information.

I think you are just self-declaring that you are in a particular age group.

And if that is true, then you could just have a checkbox that says, I am over 18 and

either you check it or you don't.

If there isn't any validation going on that you are, how old you say you are, the idea

of asking somebody to put their data birth in is meaningless anyway because people wouldn't

just type any old crap in there.

So I don't really understand how this is going to be enforced without collecting personal

data.

Well, that's the crux of this, right, that at the moment, certainly the California law,

which is the one that seems to be driving this primarily, is written in such a way that

there's no verification, it is declaration essentially of your age, which arguably is

a good thing because if you've got kids using a computer, you may wish to declare that

they are not over 18.

I mean, they're going to get rounded one way or another if they want to, but it's not

particularly harmful in of itself, but that's not the argument.

The argument is, well, slippery slope, isn't it?

They start with this, we all comply and then they push the next thing and the next thing

and the next thing.

And before you know it, you are having to upload your ID somewhere.

What happens if you live in a place where, say, drinking pints is illegal and then they

have to swear a declaration that you aren't drinking pints while you're using a computer?

Absolutely nonsense law, but why is that my problem as a developer of a piece of fuss

suffer outside of that country?

I can understand if you are a company based in California, you have to comply with California

law, but why as a developer over here, should I care?

Recently, 4chan were fined by off-com who are the broadcast standards agency in the

UK and in reply, they sent a picture of a rabbit or something.

I don't know.

Their argument is your British laws do not apply to us in the US, so in which case,

vice versa, right?

Well, except not.

I mean, that's a very, very naive thing that 4chan are doing.

But why?

I mean, take it to an extreme of, okay, that is because they are maybe American based

and you guys live in the UK, but what laws should I also be complying with regards to

wearing of shorts, say, from Azerbaijan, nothing against Azerbaijan, that don't know if they

hate shorts, but what if they do?

Right, but that's different in it.

No.

The reason that 4chan are being naive here is because they have a website that is hosted

in America, probably, probably not, I would say.

Well, it's probably like CDNs and stuff, but let's just say you have a website that

is hosted in the US, right?

And so, therefore, we are subject to US jurisdiction, first amendment or the rest of it.

But if I in the UK can access your website, then you have some responsibility to comply

with the laws, or if you do what 4chan are doing, which is basically, say, fuck you, then

what's going to happen?

The ISPs are going to be ordered to block 4chan.

I mean, this is what we saw image adieu voluntarily.

Instead of comply with the UK laws and deal with age verification bullshit, they just

said, well, fuck you then, and just geoblock the whole range.

So you know, I think that's ultimately going to happen to 4chan in fairly short order.

But I think that's going to happen in loads places, because I mean, well, what if I,

you know, we're taking an example from something that is from our side fairly straightforward.

We know where you are from, we know where you're going, but like a small country somewhere

in the middle of Asia, say, decides, it's illegal for whatever.

And then we all have to comply with that.

So we're going to have to comply with all laws from all countries in a almost, well,

exponential, it's probably more than an exponential level of laws that we're going to have to

comply with.

You can't do that.

You can't run a business like that.

Well, yeah.

And that's the argument against this system-deafing, right?

Is that you've got a system-de-unit, let's say, for one particular piece of legislation

right now, but then if you have one for every bit of legislation around the world in all

50 states in America and whatever, the hundreds of countries that are around the world, that's

just going to get ridiculous.

But what does it look like to not comply with these laws?

I mean, it depends on the territory.

If it's some small country in Africa or Asia, let's say, that isn't economically particularly

powerful and politically particularly powerful, then fuck it, like, you know, it'll be fine.

But if California or the EU, let's say, or America or the UK, whatever it is, these

relatively powerful and prosperous places bringing this legislation, you as a website publisher

or a developer of a small operating system, what choice have you got but to comply or to

try and take some sort of moral stand on it?

But what does that look like?

I mean, in the show notes, I'll put a link to a post on Macedon from Danielle Foray,

who is the lead dev of elementary OS.

She says, when you tell me to just not implement age decoration, do you understand you're asking

me to risk thousands of dollars in fines, which means realistically, the only way for me

to not follow the law is to close my business and stop making elementary OS, etc., etc.

It's one thing if you are canonical or red hat slash IBM or Sousa, and you've got

a team of lawyers, but if you are an independent, small shop, let's say, distra, like an

elementary OS, it's a shit situation that you're in.

What can you do?

Well, I mean, what stops me if I was a supreme leader of Ireland to say I demand that I'll

lurk distra's run KDE, otherwise I will find you, I mean, it's just, it's a nonsense.

If you think about it in those terms, it is nonsense.

Exactly, much like those other laws though, you can't expect me to give a shit about

your law when you live thousands of miles away and I don't care about you.

I can completely see Danielle's point, I mean, I'm not saying that that's wrong, but

I don't see how you could please everybody, you cannot please everybody and somebody else

will have a law.

Well, that's why I think the system D implementation is for now probably quite a good idea because

so many distros use system D that if we just standardize around that, then distros are

going to inherit it for free, essentially.

Until somebody says, now that that's, you're taking a piss there, no, it needs to be certified,

in which case you either do it or you don't.

Yeah, verified rather than just declared.

Yeah, yeah, which will happen.

Yeah, slippery slope and all the rest of it.

I mean, it's just proper shit times for the internet, essentially.

It's like, it feels like it's over, isn't it?

This 20 odd years that we had of good times online are just fucking over.

How are they going to apply this to an existing version of Windows?

Like, is it going to become illegal to run Windows XP on your computer?

I think it should be anyways.

How about Ford?

What about your ZX Spectrum with a modem connected?

It's three episodes in a row, I think, at this point.

No, it's in a way.

Is it an Amiga 1200, Graham, that you've got?

I've got 4,500.

4,000, sorry.

I can't, right?

Dare you say that to his face?

Yeah, how are they going to do age verification on that?

Well, it can't even do SSL, so I agree, yes.

I just upload your passport in the clear.

It'll be fine.

But what worries me about these discussions is we complain,

we're right to complain, but what can we actually do?

I think that's what's so depressing.

And I have to agree with Joe.

I think this is the end of the internet as we knew it,

and maybe we can create something else, but...

Yeah, just nobody let the fucking big squares in, though,

if we do it next time.

I think that's the mistake we made.

Yeah.

Yeah, we should have kept this kind of,

even though I remember saying a long time ago that, no,

everybody should be able to access the internet

and we should make it as easy as possible.

I think I was wrong.

That was a mistake.

The mistake I've said this many times on air before,

smartphones, that was where it went wrong.

It used to be hard to get onto the internet,

relatively, you had to have some level of knowledge,

and then they put fucking smartphones in the faces of idiots,

and then we get Brexit Trump, and now they're shit.

I mean, it's funny because it's true.

It is true.

That the internet, the web, are direct causes,

in my opinion, of things like these sort of far-right movements

springing up on Brexit going through,

and all that kind of thing.

Yeah.

And then these idiots who are like,

oh, we must think of the children.

Parents who can't fucking control their kids

and want the state to do it for them.

You know, there are these grieving parents,

and their kids have been on these platforms

that have encouraged them to, you know,

unalive as they call it these days.

And like, you know, that's bad in everything,

but at the same time,

why do I have to fucking tell my Linux distro

that I'm over 18 for fuck's sake?

A rhetorical question I know, but the reason behind this

is that the people who make the laws

don't understand the problem

and don't understand the implications

of what it is that they're suggesting.

And I think that the real problem is that

the man is collectively out of touch

with how anything works.

Yeah.

And more importantly, is lobbied.

And that's an aspect of this that we haven't got to.

And that is that...

Shipe bags.

Where did all this come from, this age verification shit?

Seemingly, it's come from meta.

The headquarters here, this is my problem, isn't it?

Do I need to go fix this later tonight?

Okay.

Yes, you need to go fix it

by writing a strongly worded letter to them for you name, yes.

But that basically says it all, doesn't it?

Yeah, it does.

And I don't think any of us are surprised

because this is all about control.

But why is it?

Why is meta interested in you checking a box

on a computer to say that you are over a particular age?

Is it purely because they then take no responsibility

for anything?

It's a bit of that.

And it's also when you do have to start uploading

your idea and everything,

that's giving away loads of your personal data.

It's not like they like your personal data or anything, is it?

I can't...

I don't know anymore.

I have no faith in humanity.

But surely people would say,

yeah, you know what, on reflection,

it's not worth scanning my passport,

giving it to Facebook in order to see adverts generated by AI.

But I guess that's just wrong.

They fucking love it.

I think ultimately this is about establishing a unique identifier

for each one of us that's welded to each of our devices

in a way that we can't escape from.

The fear mongering part on the government

is that this means that they can track us

and stop whatever needs to be stopped,

although that's not the case.

But I think the opportunity then for companies like Meta

is that they finally have this one-to-one relationship

between our unique identity and the way

that they track us and build models for us.

Yeah, I think that's about the size of it, unfortunately.

We have joked about this before,

but we'll just start our own internet.

Yeah, BBS is some fighternet.

Yeah, you know, partly that's what the dark web,

it kind of is, right?

But ours will be different somehow.

A bit less CD, baby.

Well, that's one way of doing it.

Mucky J begs.

Oh, no, no, no, I mean, that's fine.

But I mean.

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We recently talked about Android developer verification,

which is Google's thing where you basically can't

side load apps that are not verified with them

or the developers of which are not verified with them.

Well, they have finally told us

how it's going to work.

If you want to do what they're calling advanced flow,

which is basically what I asked for,

give me scary warnings,

bury it a few layers deep,

but give me the choice to install what I want

on my Android phone, my stock Android phone.

This doesn't apply to custom ROMs, of course.

And they've sort of done this except for one kind of caveat,

and that is you have to jump through a few hoops,

but then you have to wait 24 hours

between saying that you want to install unverified apps

and then actually being able to do it.

They say that is to avoid people being scammed,

which I feel is kind of good in a way,

but then it does feel like unnecessary headaches and friction.

But I think that if this is it,

if this is where they stop making it a real pain in the ass,

but still making it possible,

I think I'm fine with that.

That 24 hours worries me.

I think that's a psychological mind trick

to stop building the case totally against this in the future.

I mean, I think of the times like buying a house

and I've had the mortgage money in my bank,

and I've had to do things like this with my banking app

with huge life-changing sums of money,

and they don't have as much protection as this.

Yeah, but installing new pipe, that's pretty serious shit, man.

Yeah, you're not going to see any ads.

You're going to have basically premium YouTube for free.

So it seems incongruous with the threat,

and that makes me worried.

Even though they're kind of saying,

look, we're listening and you will be able to do it,

and you'll be able to make it indefinite to start off

with, although seven days for your own safety, by default,

I don't like it and I don't feel good about it.

No, it doesn't feel like true freedom, does it,

to do what you want with your own device.

I think it's great because it isn't your own device,

it's Google's device, and at least this is just letting you know

who's in charge of your device that you don't own.

So I'm totally fine with this.

It's 24 hours now, pray I don't raise it higher.

Yeah, essentially.

Well, that's all right for you in it.

You're not going to be affected by this once you get that

Pixel 6A and wipe it and get a terrible, terrible camera on it.

Get a just fine camera showing pictures

like they really are not AI nonsense

that your founders flub fill and...

Well, one great feature of image in the mobile app, at least,

is you get that kind of one year ago today,

five years ago today, whatever you can kind of look through

and I look at all the cats that we fostered and...

Yeah, that's cool.

...we'll rest of it and like, oh shit, COVID locked out

and photos and, you know, bear supermarkets and everything.

And it gets to a point, I don't know, must have been several years ago.

And I just see the quality just drop through the fucking floor

back when I was on Lineage versus once I got onto a stock rom

with a decent camera, so I'm not having it that it's...

I mean, yes, they're AI manipulated and all rest of it,

but the quality of the camera is so much better on the stock rom.

And I know you can side-load the camera and all rest of it,

but that was very, very buggy when I did that on Lineage.

It's not worth my freedom.

I'm prepared for bad photos,

but free photos.

Right, well, freedom isn't free in all rest of it.

Well, anyway, I think that this is like,

broadly positive of an outcome,

but it could have been a lot better and it could get a lot worse very easily

if they start changing these rules down the road,

which they probably will end up doing.

But hopefully not, let's be positive and optimistic.

Yes, we're going to have control over our devices, excellent.

Thanks, Google, thanks a lot.

Yeah, maybe one thing we can do here is all of us,

as many as possible of us, use it.

Make sure we use it.

Oh, yeah.

Well, for new pipe alone, I'm going to be using it.

I could not do with that new pipe, frankly.

The Free Software Foundation Europe, the FSFE,

put up a post, 450 FSFE supporters affected,

payment provided, next he canceled us.

This is a bit of a shit situation, I mean,

so I thought it would be good to give him a shout out

as they are kind of the good FSFE, as it were.

Yeah, I was going to say we should also point that out

because, yeah.

Yeah, this is not Storm and FSFE, this is the European one.

And yeah, so they basically had a bunch of people

supporting them and then their payment

provided a canceled on them because they asked for

some really unreasonable data on the supporters,

which they said, no, fuck you, and then they just canceled them.

So yeah, it seems like you have to manually

re-subscribe to them, essentially, and you know,

they obviously are relying on that regular income.

So if you were supporting them before, then check your email

and or go to the website and find out about it.

Yeah, I mean, that company wanted the

usernames and passwords of people who log in.

Like, what the fuck?

Yeah, that was just dodgy, wasn't it?

Something not right there at all.

But yeah, linking the shout outs.

Let's do a quick KDE and Gnome Corner or something.

I don't know, I need to workshop that.

Anyway, the KDE one, this week in Plasma,

press and hold for alternative characters.

I think this is really cool.

It's obviously a feature of mobile phones since like Nokia's.

But I think I have never really held down a key in a texeter

and demanded that a load of ease flash across the screen

repeatedly, much nicer that a pop-up

choose a different type of E would come up,

especially if you're doing, say, French,

or even Irish characters, whatever.

So a nice way to get access to that.

I thought it was quite cool.

And so that's coming in Plasma 6 or 7.

Right, but of course, all that is dwarfed by the huge release

that is Gnome 50, card name, Tokyo.

And you actually put this in for him.

So you've been really interested in this

and you're going to be really enthusiastic about it.

Oh, super interested, super, super interested.

I just thought it was fair that we should, you know,

throw a bit of love that direction.

Yeah, I do like the screen time thing.

I mean, it's not something I would person the use,

but you can set it so that it will lock you out,

or lock your kid out after a certain amount of screen time

or whatever, and you can be in full control of that.

You can bypass it, you know,

if you've got admin on all rest of it,

big G, you're pressing like usually,

you won't get that kitty.

Well, it's choice, isn't it?

It's choice for parents and stuff.

And you know, screen time is a big problem for kids.

Is my understanding?

I don't know, I don't care, I haven't got any kids.

But, you know, I know my sister in law, for example,

she limits the kid's screen time

and wants them to do more wholesome stuff.

And so if it was built into the OS properly,

like this with Gnome,

that might be useful for her.

As it happens, they're always in KDE, unfortunately.

Good for them.

Yes.

But anyway, there's loads of other cool stuff in this,

but yeah, you're right, Phantom.

In the interest of fairness, we should promote Gnome 50 equally

with KDE stuff.

Oh, well, I have equally lots to say much.

Right, well, we better get out of here then.

We'll be back next week when who knows what it'll be.

But until then, I've been John.

I've been Salem.

I've been Graham.

And I've been Will.

See you later.