Freedom Publishers Union

March 21, 2026 | [STATEMENT] We Oppose Age Verification in the Free and Open-Source Ecosystem

Freedom Publishers Union along with Harmonious Platform Systems are jointly concerned over the recent push to implement the foundations for age-verification software and technologies into the free and open-source ecosystem, especially that of Linux-based operating systems.

The concept of age verification technology and processes is contradictory to the principles of open-source software and is entirely inconsistent with the spirit of open-source software development.

One of the more recent concerns that we have been drawn to has been that of the commit by software engineer and developer Dylan M. Taylor, who has effectively laid the foundations into systemd, a process manager installed on the majority of popular Linux distributions, by adding the birthDate user string path.

What is concerning is that Mr. Taylor appears to be completely ignorant of the implications on user privacy, and is busy sending mixed messages into the FOSS community, often contradicting himself.

At times he has attempted to justify his commit to systemd as a necessary pathway for compliance with Californian and Brazilian age verification regulations that are applicable to software.

Then, unfortunately, Mr. Taylor has attempted to cleanse himself of responsibility for laying such framework by claiming that his commit has nothing to do with age verification at all, and is unforced and voluntary with no penalty for non-compliance at the user level.

Furthermore, Mr. Taylor has emphasized the importance of these changes, with more to inevitably follow, by emphasizing they are designed to accommodate the future contributions of commercial entities, protecting and securing their significant efforts to free and open-source software.

We jointly condemn the commit to systemd; cannot in any way support the implementation of age verification software or technologies into the free and open-source ecosystem, specifically that of GNU/Linux and BSD.

Together we urge all open-source developers to resist all regulatory pressures to support the push for, and assist in the development and rollout of, age verification software and technologies.

Through Harmonious Platform Systems, we are developing the H-Linux platform.

We endeavor to resist any age verification inclusive technologies within H-Linux, and will make every effort where technically possible, going to great lengths if needed, through finding alternative software packages which equally resist or omit age verification capability to respect user privacy; circumvention techniques where applicable; or complete forced removal of these technologies if needed.

We will also actively and enthusiastically support and contribute to any community-led, open-source initiatives that share that same resistance.

That is our commitment.

Written by The Editorial Board.