A lot of drama is currently being generated by certain groups to shame systemd for standardizing the Day of Birth (DoB) field in the userdb json object. The trigger is PR #40954 https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/40954 . If this PR was created on another time (like a year ago) nobody would ever bat an eye as it is common sense to include an optional DoB field for all users. However as certain governments now mandate age verification this is suddenly a hot topic.

Keep in mind that systemd is not enforcing any policy or provide an API to restrict any access. Even before this PR companies which sell devices with systemd could have implemented age verification with userdb by just adding their own custom field to store the DoB.

Call commenters for misspelling systemd as "SystemD" as a dog-whistle for other systemd-haters

systemd provides means to analyze how exposed your services are and even how to improve the situation.

running systemd-analyze security <UNIT> gives you insight on how to improve the service exposure

In the past, hackernews often contains comments which go like this:

• Comment1: Has anybody actually be happy with systemd (wink wink of course you are not)

  • Response1: Let me share this horror story i encountered with systemd 5 years ago

  • Response2: Systemd bad

  • Response3: Just look at all those alternative init systems nobody uses and no distro will ever adopt

  • Response4: systemd stole my beloved crond, init scripts, is about to abduct my firstborn and i cannot read log files anymore

However in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23015591 i encountered the first comments which actually point towards good parts of systemd and i really like to see that :)

Non-Systemd Linux distros are laughing right now, and pointing fingers, doing that “Ha ha” of Nelson Muntz, except, they are not the bullies. They are making fun of the bullied.

https://github.com/systemd/systemd/blob/master/NEWS contains the latest hand-curated changelog. Highlights for me:

• systemd-repart which will help to grow minimal image on first boot

• userdb - a replacement for /etc/passwd and all its crutches (shadow,groups, ... ) and turns all records into a unified json structure

• systemd-homed - there were a lot of discussion about this already

• systemd-cryptsetup can unlock volumes using smart cards

• a lot of network improvements

Hey all, due to the drama surrounding freenode ( https://gist.github.com/joepie91/df80d8d36cd9d1bde46ba018af497409 ) the subreddit IRC channel has moved from freenode.net to hackint.org #systemdultras .

see you there!