I believe Debian doesn't ask for a e-mail address on installation, but the username is obviously necessary if you're going to login. I leave "Users full name" empty and it's fine.
The e-mail address also has a use, for important notifications. There are cases where the OS tries to send an email. But as I mentioned, I don't even know where to set it I've never been prompted and if I was I would leave it empty.
Do you think it's a good idea for operating systems to comply with 1 or 2 exceptionally retarded state laws? The full name is as far as I know never exposed to websites right?
Computers need to stay what they've always been. Chips that we run our programs on. Linux is the last free (as in freedom) option and they will try to take that away too.
There are BSDs as well. I wonder how FreeBSD or OpenBSD is going to comply, if at all. There may be a way out of it, too, I am not sure. Perhaps a no-op.
I also wonder how non-systemd Linux is going to handle it. I mean ultimately it may be baked into the kernel in some way or another. It would be pretty sad though.
In any case, I agree. This is just the first step.
I think if there's a law saying, like, GUIs must show stars when you enter your password unless the user clicks the button to make it visible, complying with it is good. Some laws are actually alright.
Any app that has access to your age category has access to your home directory where much juicier things live. Probably including your email address, and all your passwords.
I'm a little special and use a hack so I don't even have to provide my e-mail address on git commits to prevent leaking it in my git history. So probably not in my case, but I understand your concern and a lot can be done to improve OS privacy. But "they already know what you eat for breakfast" is not a valid argument to reduce privacy further.
