The security and privacy-focused GrapheneOS stated in an X post that they will “remain usable by anyone around the world without requiring personal information, identification or an account.”
Vive la résistance!
I’d think this is going to be an issue as soon as they’re going mainstream with Motorola.
Not sure you intended but i thought this was a bit hilarious because of them leaving French servers earlier.
I hadn’t made the connection…pero, así es la vida!
A España! Viva la resistencia!
This is really concerning:
It says the devices won’t even be sold in the countries that require verification. Does that mean the GOS-preinstalled phones? So I could still flash it manually in phones purchased in Brazil, for example. It makes no sense to not sell these devices if the countries that implement these laws are the ones that require it the most.
@phnx why the thumbs-down? Did I post something wrong?
No, I just think your post sort of contradicts itself. I understand it would be helpful to have GrapheneOS devices available in regions where age verification is enforced, but obviously they can’t just ignore the law and sell devices with GrapheneOS there.
You will still be able to flash GrapheneOS on Pixels or future Motorola devices regardless of whether GrapheneOS complies with age verification laws in those regions.
edit: I changed my reaction to 
which better reflects my confusion
Personally, I agree that they can’t ignore the law, obviously. But let’s say Motorola launches a Graphene-powered phone everywhere else, but not Brazil. If they launch a normal OEM version there, you can just unlock the bootloader and flash GOS, problem solved.
My point however, is that if said phone isn’t released even with OEM software, how would one be able to use GOS in Brazil? Pixels aren’t available there and importing a phone (say Pixel or even GOS Motorola) is worth multiple months of not even the minimum wage, but the median one, with the risk that the phone could not even work at all (as a phone) due to restrictions imposed in the cellular carriers. Also, no tech support would be available for it.
Edit: not to mention the possibility that Motorola could even launch a phone with OEM Android with no means of unlocking the bootloader.
I assume yes, which is fine because I doubt Motorola was going to sell pre-installed phones anyways, only compatible ones.
Also, I think GrapheneOS is just dodging the issue a little bit because they know Android age verification will almost certainly come as part of Google Play Services, and so it will be on GrapheneOS for Sandboxed Google Play users, which is most users I’d imagine, but I digress. It’s still good news to not be part of the OS like the bullshit systemd is trying to pull.
Random: this made me wonder if there’s a linguistics branch of study for emojis.
Sure enough… new rabbit hole unlocked 
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09296174.2024.2347055
An empirical study of emoji usage on Twitter in linguistic and national contexts - ScienceDirect
Or just search “emoji linguistics”
Systemd’s implementation makes it optional to add your age. Of course, they are not resisting, but it could be worse.
I have been thinking a lot about the systemd addition and how to create malicious compliance for it almost as a way to demonstrate how much of a nothing burger this is. One clear way to handle this in the specific case of systemd is to create an open source systemd plugin that can be installed that blocks or spoofs any user info.
This installation can then be scripted in as an opt out for any OS without touching an official release.
We used to be people who frowned at conflict of interests, yet Poettering is allowed to push changes to Linux subsystems while he sells out first to Microsoft and now fishing for a buyout at Amutable.
systemd is a horrifying monster only seen as a better option because of the desert that is the Linux landscape. It has too much power. Them bending for this just means the default will be acceptance of these verdicts.
I personally see systemd as a stopgap and believe the tension manifesting in the community can be resolved with a standard layer that uses or derives I spiration from systemd’s design that solves a real consistency and interpretability issue that have plagued Linux from the beginning.
The belief that flexibility naturally comes with chaos is true but software is rife with examples of ways to address the tradeoff where you can have flexible chaotic order. This is where standard interfaces and layering architectures save the day and it’s almost obvious but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. To systemd’s credit, they have created a monolithic implementation that is done best with fewer cooks in the kitchen. Now we have a standard way to manage common userspace services that interact heavily with the kernel. That consistency and shared abstraction is a great way to lower the large space of permutations of bugs, and make collaboration much more efficient across common distributions, even if doing so caused people to kick and scream, systemd got a lot of people on the same page and anyone working in software can appreciate how difficult this is.
Now the next phase I see is removing the central implementation towards a systemd compatible framework that enables an orderd chaos where anyone can solve the problem provided the behavior and interfaces match the larger systems. I think this moves us away from both terrible extremes. Systemd as it is today which many outline the real issues to it, but also the incomprehensible collage of random tools that have strange or inconsistent behavior or paradigms across versions.
Systemd did the design and adoption work, now it’s up to us hackers to stop grumbling and start thinking through this design that takes the gift systemd has provided and bringing back Unix principles.
This is all great thinking, where are the people to do it? Linux drivers are abandoned or dependent on one dev outside of select few. Most systems are drowning in AI slop reports, Linux bureaucracy, and lack of manpower. Gnome (the biggest DE) lacks the manpower it needs, let alone more complex non-user facing subsystems.
Systemd is the defacto path of least resistance, it is desired by the corporate sponsors on the Linux kernel (they don’t give two hoots about desktop usage), and it will soon be the only one that survives. The only sustainable projects seem to be corporate led by Google, Amazon, Redhat, System76, etc.
Linux community has just failed to prevent the capture of the project by vested corporate interest that are always at risk of government regulations since they need to make money.
Any reversal will require people to join politics, bureaucracy, and other centres of power en masse. In our local community, we have had success with removing flock cameras from our community, ban ALPRs, and enforce ban on local police assisting administrative warrant only requests for assistance from the usual culprits.
GrapheneOS is taking the only real stand in this age verification saga: Resist, force them to take it to court and on paper, and get their real intentions out in public. Compliance in advance is just a coward’s way out. The only real answer to government overreach is “F**k you, make me”. Not fancy cryptography or alternate implementations.
This age verification feature certainly requires privileges, privileges that it doesn’t have with Sandboxed Google Play Services. Hence, I think that this feature will not work with Sandboxed Google Play Services and that it won’t affect GrapheneOS Sandboxed GPS users neither.
Great analysis and I would expand on those concerns where open source current day is best funded when the world economy isn’t complete garbage. Unfortunately open source is heavily dependent on a normally running economy for people to support their needs so they have creative space to get the work done.
Most open source is written by hackers on the side or blended with a corporate job. There have been an abundance of funding models to directly fund that work, open core, non profit permissive or copyleft, and various grants which are also less abundant when were in extreme wealth inequality mode.
So I think when we ask questions and point out the issues with maintenance in open source we have to consider that and know it’s a temporary state and whatever is open will be there when AI bubbles pop, corporate narratives shift back to believing humans really do provide value, and government policy shifts back to seeing scientific and artistic endeavors as valuable versus “too slow".
So these conditions too will pass and once they do and maybe even before, more peoples will eventually have the space and support to turn their gripes into alternatives.
What I hope to see more and more in open source is growth of mutually supportive economies that depend less and less on capitalistic nature of intellectual property, enshittification, and shareholder value and more focus on structures that reward mutual aid, open knowledge, and free markets independent of a state.