Quoting: LoudTechieThat's the current design and is only hampered by the fact that not everybody celebrates their 18th birthday by doing online 18th birthday specific things.

[...]

A great way to limit the damage would for example be to make certain that age checks can only happen on a certain time interval.
Say for 1 day every month.

Oh yes, than you are non of the people at this one day, but one of the 28-31 days bracket. Makes it so much more unlikely that they collect this data. /s

In fact, that blurs the data just a little bit, but it is still close enough that they can separate these persons from 99.9% of the world. So companies only need further information to find out who of the 0.1% of all people are that person. Without the one months idea it would be more like 0.01% (because as you say people are probably not online at their birthday). It is indeed better, but I think it is clear that "better" doesn't mean much more protection.

Edit:
It's open source, so adding this feature is feasable and legal. [External Link].

At least something EU learned (making such tools open source). Yes I read it before. But it does not help against any of the bad things. For example if I would be a bad person, I could create an account for "my child" that is not existing and use it for myself to get merged to kids chats more easily etc.

The only way that is really feasible is to not send any data to any service. The services should provide age data themselves, so that a local parent control app can manage app access without exposing information to the companies. There is still a chance that some apps can get the age, but it is more likely to avoid exposing data entirely.

That app feels like the stupid attempt for the digital Euro, which exposes too much information (unlike GNU-Taler). The EU commission may learned something about Open Source, but still not enough to design good digital strategies. They should learn about data minimalism before creating such plans.

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Quoting: WanderdueneWill Mint's extended release cycles have an impact on me as a gamer?

Yes and no ... it depends on your use case. Few days ago I helped someone switching to Linux and that person was using a VR headset and a flight simulator controller. For the special controller there is support in mainline kernal since February this year. So without an up to date kernel it does not work out of the box. For VR on the other hand it is better to have the latest drivers. A friend told me it broke more often on Mint than on Arch.

There are indeed reasons to chose Arch over Mint and you may have other special reasons that speak against Mint. Also you will have to wait little bit longer to get newest Mesa improvements as +30% raytracing performance for AMD cards etc. But every year those huge improvements will become less, so you will be affected less in upcoming versions of Mint.

For gaming in general it doesn't matter. Any game that runs on Arch should also run on Mint. If you value the overall user experience in Mint over other distros, it is probably the best option for you, even if you do not have newest drivers. Personally I am on Debian and backport drivers. I am also still waiting for raytracing improvements, but it does not really affect my non raytracing gaming experience (and I cannot even play most games with raytracing anyway).

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Quoting: spacemonkeyonly the minimal required information is passed on to the app or website.

Which is already the maximum amount of information passed to the app or website. If you are under 18 you will switch that date once you become mature, so they know exactly your birth. For us adults no issue so far, but for all upcoming generations it means a fully transparent birthday.

Can't we just begin to teach our kids first? Where is the talk about improving schools? They could learn stuff that is also useful as adult, not just as child.

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Cool thing, but nothing for me. I want to play the game, not the achievements and I cannot deny that it triggers me when 95% of achievements are collected (through normal gameplay), I look at it and it tells "get your last two achievements by finding 100 randomly placed items in the world. Heck, such an unfunny time waste and I would probably do it just to finish a collection I do not really care about, lol.

But since it is entirely optional, I is fine.

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Quoting: CatKillerI'm glad you decided to join us in 2025, though.

😊 Oh my story is actually going back to 2015 trying Linux via dual boot. My story is little bit more complex than just calling a year. The actual decision was made in 2019 and had not even anything to do with Proton. I am just super lucky that my plan was starting in parallel with all these improvements. 2025 was indeed my final step, but I was already using Linux on daily basis on my phone.

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Quoting: LinuxwarperYes, but these companies interests sometimes align. Take Entertainment Software Association, games, they all would LOVE TO normalize 70$ pricing. And after 70$ they would love to normalize 80$. So these companies who rely on Linux may all see benefit for them all in something bad, e.g data logging (just as a pure example). They will then be able to use their collective influence to more easily get said thing injected into Linux kernel or whatever major project it is.

First of all, please fix your quotations. The wrong name is quoted.

And what I tried to say was more like these companies are users by themselves. For example Debian. What do you think happens when companies try to enshittificate it? Other companies that rely on it (because great server software) would stop it. Arch on the other hand is so deep in control of the community, I don't think there is a high risk. Ubuntu, POP!OS and Fedora? Another story. To destroy Linux you need to attack more central infrastructure and that is not easy. Attacking Mesa would be a huge issue, but if hardware works not great any longer, other companies would also complain about it. At least it is much harder than destroying Windows, Mac, iOS or Android.

Quoting: CatKillerNothing has fundamentally changed about Linux gaming since then - there have been incremental improvements, sure.

That is half right and half wrong. Linux itself just improved, nothing fundamental new. That is correct. But the society started to fundamentally change and that is the core point. That many people switched to Linux shortly before W10 EOL and all the months after is a direct result of the society change in 2025 (which is the result of all what you wrote).

Let's explain it in another way: what would have been if 2025 would just be a year as every other one? Nobody outside the Linux bubble is speaking about Linux beside Steam Deck. Linux would just die again over time, because Steam Deck is no topic any longer at some point. Some people may switched and that's it. The few people still switching would not make a huge difference.
But all the things happened in 2025 (nothing fundamental new, but all together seen) made Linux a topic to speak about. Even my dad who was never interested in Linux told me he wants to try it (I did not even ask). That is the core of 2025. It is not just the speech itself, what I value here. It broke through a wall that cannot be closed again. Even if Windows 11 becomes "fixed", they cannot return the time and people know about Linux now and a lot of them are still interested to at least try it out.

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Quoting: EikeWhich law are you referring to? I found the opposite in the Californian one.

There are a lof of laws out, some in different US states, some in other countries around the world. But they all just want to lay a ground stone to build on top later. The reason why some laws are that weak is to make them more accessible. Slowly moving the acceptance for further laws. It is a pretty well known technique, often used to weaken privacy over time or used for other things the public otherwise would not accept.

It is a lot about experience of the privacy community dealing with law-makers for decades around the world. And there is nearly no exception in what I told just now. Such laws will also not scientific reevaluated once they are implemented.

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Quoting: Linuxwarper[...] and look like yet another walled garden/corporate platform like Android and Windows.

That will never happen. I'm not naive enough to think "people that switch will all value free software". But Linux is already "owned" by big tech companies. Google is one of the biggest contributors to kernel, Canonical is also contributing a majority to Debian while the company has the reputation of "Microsoft of the Linux world" (at least what some people write about), but all the community projects as Debian, Arch and so on will not be destroyed, because otherwise the companies lose their own benefits in such a case.

But I am also aware that it is not a "no risk" thing. Let's face the mesa drivers for example and that they start to accept AI-written patches, which is at least an licensing issue in my opinion (if not more). AMD employees pushing AI code for example while other AMD employees assigning the change (looked into the commits myself). I see the potential issues, but I also see that it is not easy to take over a project while all other companies complaining without doing something against.

You are totally right about teaching people what free software actually is and why it matters. But I also think once they get Linux in their hand, seeing the positive differences and understand that they can communicate with developers just on forums or chats, they start to realize the benefits. Not everyone needs to know it, but as more as better. Personally I do a lot about it, even without Linux in particular, just speaking about free software or supporting it on the one way or another. Same for open hardware. My hope is a little bit: as more restrictive Big-Tech tech becomes and as more shiny free software and open hardware, as more people realize the benefits. It is much more effective than just talking to them (otherwise they understand it partly and do not care much about as long as their things keep running).

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Quoting: CatKillerThe way I interpret the data is something like this:

You forgot 2025, the year of Linux and Proton. For many years it was possible to play Windows games on Linux. I did it my own in 2015. But I run in so many issues, that it took not long to game on Windows again, which also means to work on Windows, because dual boot never worked for me (don't want to shut down PC 10 times a day just to switch). Valve was working towards improving the gaming experience with Proton on top of the awesome WINE developments. Now we reach 2021, your explanation is fitting well I guess.

After Steam Deck people realize Proton is a real game changer, a lot of people decide to switch soon. Now 2025 started, a lot of people already switched, told about it, and a lot of things happen in this year. Desktop Linux became for the first time a mainstream topic, Windows 10 became EOL, W11 became worse and many people do not want to switch to Windows 11 (a bigger issue than any previous Windows Version "upgrade"). That pushed Linux even further into the mainstream. People were starting organizing huge Linux installation parties world wide. In December the monthly digital independence day was started by 39C3. New major versions of Linux distros became a never seen amount of downloads from Windows PCs. There are first GPU benchmarks for desktop GPUs running on Linux, Valve announced new hardware, mesa drivers became huge performance improvements "30% here, 30% there, 500% for this low end setup, ..." KDE got donations far beyond everything ever seen ...

I probably told just a fraction of things happened last year and was a result of all the previous done work and W11 enshittification + W10 EOL all together in one year.

Quoting: LinuxwarperThat's what I meant, without the heavy lifting EOL wouldnt matter much. Imagine Linux in 2010-2015, people would have switched and had a lackluster user experience and then go back to Windows.

2015 I was trying Linux, but it was not ready then, even with tinkering the troubles where too much. But Linux was otherwise that great, I knew I would come back in 5 years. Okay it was 10 years for desktop (8 considering my switch to mobile Linux, which was a consequence of Corona supply chain issues, otherwise 5 years would be on point). When I saw Linux becomes a thing for more people in 2023, I knew 2025 will be "the year" and the EOL will push it even further. I just never expected it become such a huge thing.

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Quoting: KimyrielleAnyone want to guess how many seconds it will take for somebody releasing a de-age patch for whatever distros chosing to comply with that crap?

Why guessing? Ageless Linux [External Link]. 😅

Quoting: EikeAge restriction can work without identity information (from just entering it in my computer to more sophisticated stuff e.g. the EU implements), and I as a parent do want age restrictions (and no, I don't want to observe every their step in a certain age).

And river should be pink, because it's a beautiful color and doesn't look acid.
Every piece of information, if true or not, is an identifier. You are above 18? Okay a lot of people cannot be you. You are living in China and are male? You are probably one of the 400 million people (out of 8 billion). You also can speak English? well ..

Every piece of information makes you more unique, until there is a single person left and at this point you are de-anonymized. While people over 18 right after the laws get applied have a very little identifier, teens will expose there real birthday in just a few years, because companies can save the date they switch the status from "below 18" to "above 18". Even worse when you have age brackets like 6-11, 12-15, 16-17, 18+ etc.

And don't think the current laws are the final goal. It is just the beginning to start with forcing more identifier, making them more reliable, because people can lie just as in the 2000ths with webpages "are you 18+?" "yes" "no". And soon we have an unavoidable surveillance mechanism everywhere (except for empowered users) while child abusers just put themselves into the 6-11 years bracket to get matched with children.

If you don't want to surveil your kids all the time, teach them about the dangers and talk the them in general. Or do you also take them on hand when crossing a street until they reach 18+? Parent our kids doesn't mean to control them, but to empower them to make the right decisions. I would set up the age of my kids straight up to over 18 when this comes, but also making sure they understand all dangers and chances.

And moreover Linux has parent control apps without any law and danger of data collection. If you think age restriction is the right way, you already have the option.

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