How much supporters agree is void point unless you are making Wunschkonzert - wish-concert, it is how much the decliners and reality disagree that is the most serious problem. You either operate on "We don't like, we disagree, we disagree and will not accept, we disagree so much that we will vote on People more volatile then current U.S one to make the point" - If you start to operate in third and worse the fourth then no agreement will solve this issue. And you started from proposition that is so outright insane that you may as well count many in third view.
Frankly outside of what I wrote below (which I think mere existence is still threat factor by creation of authoritarian OS for computers) you will not get 'solution' from me (unless by that you mean age rating and voluntary enforcement by computer) because you are creating the problem - You don't want to do work but want to exert control, which is contradictory and entitled position. You are not entitled to get anything, and with amount of people with kids dwindling it is beyond me why do you think 'it is for children' will even work to begin with as popular talking point. The parental controls are the best solution, assumption otherwise makes you extremist from another’s eye.
Simply put the idea of computer for you is "a tool" for another it is extension of memory and mouth - you don't get control any of that, ever. There is no 'vitriol' - there is only rightful anger that you crossed of boundary of acceptable speech by another person. The most basic thing that you must get right before you start to advocate for change, is "what is my Overton window - and what is the other person's one", because thinking of workable solution works only when people windows cross to begin with - and they do not have to because sometimes you do not have the ability to have both freedom and control. And you should clearly know that for some freedom is more important than control.
The failure to do so means you get the first proposed solution - yes I agree, the first solution is by definition the status quo before the 'now' solution.
There are times that you have to accept: there is no middle ground, other than the ground you stand upon.
"Provide a solution." "can be redirected in to coming up with a workable better idea." Did you entertain the thought that there is no better 'workable' idea than status quo?
You want to control the user - kid, and not control the user i.e adult, you also want parent to not bother. That is impossible. Either parent have to do active part, other (because by definition kid already is - since the age is already available to whatever malware will be running on device) people will be harmed by surveillance or we keep status quo. Classical choice triangle.
The only "rational" (still for me this seems like possible trojan horse) way would be to actively enforce existence of "for-child OS" on company controlled OSes, and use something like Secure Boot if parent SO DESIRES (with caveat 5 ).
0. (short version) Effectively this would mean buy separate device for kids or learn how to do it. And it would fundamentally be bound to device not user,
1. by enforcing main key to be Owner's (Parent) and signing the OS developer key with the main key for purpose of OS boot (start) - so that OS 'provider' can sign kid-friendly OS version with that developer key. (you probably could ease that with vendor key - but still requires possibility of changing the key which leads to
2. then lock the UEFI by password... that still require knowledge about the tech - unless you get password in device box [then again parents have to exercise some parenting and not give device with the box], and don't start about phones - they would require UEFI and Secure Boot available for user first - not just manufacturer.
3. and you would HAVE TO (this bit is especially trojan otherwise) enforce every OS manufacturer and vendor that provide ones for kids to always provide the non-kid version (and support it!) - so that it would not create de facto surveillance OS/PC. Let me guess this is impossible for you Americans.
4. Then app developers can sign apps for kids with the OS developer key that is FOR the kid variant - otherwise will not run (in that scenario 'kid-OS' only).
5. you would have to limit it for kids devices ONLY so you would have to reverse "ID check in bar" to confirm the existence of kid instead of adult (during buying the OS/device) - otherwise again trojan horse (because of commonality of solutions).
If you find this version 'workable' please have it - but for me it seems contradictory to desire of not bothering parents. *From my perspective this is effectively parental controls on steroids*. This is exceptionally similar to attestation except it has opt out for people who actively kept the password, no IDs, and no 'sending age over wire'. This will help exactly zero to stop spread of some files if parents give a kid in class for-adult phone/pc unless you enforce signing every file by kid-OS and not opening unsigned files - congratulations your kid would be using OS approved by north Korea! - do you start to see the issue with 'workable' ideas? They inevitably flow to surveillance and autocratic tech.
This is anyway probably faulty in something I did not thought about.
You are forgetting about elephant in the room - if every bug require rebuild of downstream then it is not only question of constraint it is also question of SSD cycles - you are effectively destroying someone drive faster. And btrfs actually worsens this problem - because instead of one Copy on Write of library you now have 2n copies of library within 2 copies of different apps. Now (reverting/ø) update will cost you even more writes. It is just waste for no apparent reason - less memory, less disk space.
"compression is insanely effective" - And what about energy? compression will increase CPU use. It will also make everything slower - slower than just plain deduplication. Also, your reason for using worse for user tech is: the user can mitigate in other ways? This strikes me as the same logic as "we don't need to optimize our program/game, users will just buy better hardware" or just plain throwing cost to user - this is not valid solution just downplaying of the argument.
Yea what a Fall of Rome type dream - just look what happened when people overused a specific measure - we had Crowdstrike with around 8.5 million devices crashed to BSoD.
Identical OS, identical apps, identical updates, identical crashes at same time.
If you centralise then it is not the question "Will?" but "When?" it will fail.
" "faith" is offensive " - and how exactly do you think most people act to science ?
Do they check every fact that they learn by experimentation?
Or do they trust/believe authority that given them such fact mindlessly?
Can we stop putting our morality and faith above another's?
Any aggressive ideology that forces it believers to censor non-believer viewpoint is ultimately self-destructive - even if you force non-believers they will not believe in it - because they never trusted it.
"You just cannot promote them to impressionable audiences like children" - the fact that child has device is problem not the fact that device can access information.
"one particular set of contributors' political sensibilities." - the entire western world is now particular sets of political and ideological sensibilities. Why puritan christians always assume that theirs is somehow different of others and won't be subject to new puritanism?
"Read the comments and you'll see their tone is clearly dismissive and condescending" - you think that way because you are biased to classify your religious text as not nsfw - but there is no such reason really - christianity is no longer main ideology of everyone.
To be really fair - semitic politheism had a thing for the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch . This can be seen as opposition (a weak one) or whitewashed remnant of endorsement.
I'm not sure that this label works though - I get the F-Droid is doing it because of regulatory push but it seems to me that simply notion of "safe internet" or "safe app-store" is fundamentally misguided (we didn't made TV safe - just gave ranking and let parents decide)- and I can see that someone with modern sensibilities looking at older or god-forbid "ancient" literature will have to mark huge swaths of it as not safe.
I think that most of this rage should instead be directed toward this regulatory nonsense instead of F-droid though.
This does illustrate ironical thing - and what christian puritans forget - bible will not OK for atheistic/modern puritans.
