The fact that these bureaucrats think they have a right to add age-verification to information is ludicrous in the first place. This should be as much non-news as 'Lawmakers unanimously decide death is legal'.
Excellent. From now on all kids will become linux natives. The decade of the linux desktop is coming!
I credit Minecraft with getting an entire generation comfortable using command line statements.
I chuckled for a bit, then realized you're probably right. It does get people familiar with it and probably helps a lot.
Literally why I got into CS
Linux phones, Linux gaming machines, Linux on Desktop and Laptops, Linux VR/AR, Linux watches, etc.
Or more likely companies and people will just comply. It might give a little more fuel to open source from people who are ardently pro privacy that balk at an age signal bring implemented, but I don't think that's such a huge segment of users.
I think the upstream premise was kids using Linux to get around things. This could be the case, even in a world of the average Joe just putting up with the intrusion and hassles.<p>So really, both concepts can mesh.<p>After all, once compliant an adult is then not restricted.
And then the exception will evaporate overnight.
One gotta love politicians and their "solutions" and their longevity.
Precisely. Courts will find that the situation where Linux users are exempt from the law, whereas Windows users have to submit their ID and any other personal data, can not be maintained, so Linux users will also be forced to give up their ID before being able to access the internet. This will also first come via commercial distributions (perhaps it can not be enforced by independent linux users, but the law need not necessarily work for 100%, could be 95%, and the rest are declared as breaking the law).
This law does not require non Linux users to give up their ID to use the Internet, so why would they make Linux users do so?
Totally agree. After the next big cyber attack, ganna have to kyc to access internet. It will be “for our safety”. Luckily now with ai the world doesn’t need me as a programmer so I’m just ganna stop using computers if they go full facist
So I run my app in a linux container under windows and I'm exempt from age verification? Isn't android linux under the hood? I'm sure the law is not so easy to get around. How does it work?
I know it sounds like a joke again, but the GNU/Linux <-> Linux distinction is kinda important semantically.
It sounds like since Android is a commercial repackaging of Linux it's in scope and Google gets to figure it out.
Yes and the end of locked down Apple iDevices.
I'm a lifelong Apple fan but my kids have Steam Decks and Raspberry Pis. I hope they grow to love Linux.
so... we are back to a monopoly, but now government-enforced one
Is 2027 the year of the Linux desktop?
I've been hearing about this since the late 90s.
I've been ignoring Linux since the early 90s.<p>Would always install some variant, think it was "pretty cool" for a few days, then revert back to "whatever MacOS was offering" (for my daily driver).<p>----<p>2026: I just finished building my third Ubuntu Linux machine, this year (gave the first one to my brother). An Ubuntu running a 5070Ti is now my main operating system.
So is anyone going to revert the commits that jumped the gun on this?<p>E.g. systemd's birthdate field <a href="https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/40954" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/40954</a>
The PR mentions not just California but other states and countries, so I dont think California's exemption alone changes the situation
Man that PR is a complete mess.
For WSL, there will still need to be a passthrough.
I have no problem with that as long as it's not <i>the government</i> controlling the age verification. It should be a parent. And as a parent I <i>want</i> the ability to properly control my children's devices - the fact that Apple, and especially Google pretty much ignored this feature until now is a big part of why we have these dumb laws in the first place.<p>Think about it - if every phone you got asked you at first config "are you over 18? If not ask a parent to set up this device" then <i>everyone</i> would know about that capability and "think of the children" would be met with "parents can just click a button"...
> And as a parent I want the ability to properly control my children's devices<p><pre><code> * https://www.apple.com/uk/child-safety/
* https://families.google/familylink/
* https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/family-safety
</code></pre>
You already have the ability, all parents do, that some (or most) haven't is why this crap gets proposed in the first place and used as a justification for invading everyone's privacy.<p>If (some) parents actually parented instead of abdicating that role to the state/education system then this tripe would get far less traction - though cynically they'd just switch to the other argument they always trot out.
Yes, if everyone did everything correctly every time in perpetuity, we wouldn’t need laws. Very astute observation.<p>Unfortunately, things have worked out that way so far.
Systemd is paid for by Big Business, so they will retain user-identification information in the long run of course. Poettering will never revert what he is paid for by the TechBros.
The vast majority of all commits to Linux were paid for by big business (around 85% last year, prev years similar). Intel, Google, AMD, IBM, Meta….<p><a href="https://commandlinux.com/statistics/linux-kernel-contributors-lines-of-code-statistics/" rel="nofollow">https://commandlinux.com/statistics/linux-kernel-contributor...</a>
Probably not, given there is a specific sect of OSS that embraces authoritarianism.
We got into this mess because people wanted Facebook to have age verification, and MZ decided to push the responsibility on to OSes.<p>The result looks to me like Facebook will ban access from non-approved OSes like Linux. Android will still be allowed, GrapheneOS probably not.
How do you ban access to a website based on the OS of the user?
By requiring hardware attestation, like Private Access Tokens in iOS/MacOS (see <a href="https://blog.cloudflare.com/eliminating-captchas-on-iphones-and-macs-using-new-standard/" rel="nofollow">https://blog.cloudflare.com/eliminating-captchas-on-iphones-...</a> for example) and Web Environment Integrity and its successors ( <a href="https://github.com/explainers-by-googlers/Web-Environment-Integrity/blob/main/explainer.md" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/explainers-by-googlers/Web-Environment-In...</a> ).
That would be a big win for linux users
Facebook was the excuse (and there's a no zero chance Meta funded the initiative themselves). The government's worldwide jumped on it so quickly partially becsuse they've been trying to find aan excuse to control the internet for decades. Never dismiss how quick they are to push stuff like this but how slow they are to enact actual positive change for the people.
this bill fixes nothing. if you wanted to prevent harm from the internet you would start with proper privacy laws. but we all know why that will never happen
> if you wanted to prevent harm from the internet you would start with proper privacy laws<p>Explain how a privacy that protects you and me will somehow not protect a pedophile. How does that work?<p>I am FOR privacy. I don't think it can be done.<p>I do not want to have any information at all stored anywhere, encrypted, decentralized or otherwise. Nada. Its just text. I want to just be a number in everyone database. I want to be able to spawn millions of numbers that will never be related to each other. My ideal privacy world is a world where bots thrive.<p>Just go to face to face discussion if you care so much about who you are talking to.
Privacy laws don't prevent foreign entities from influencing elections and making children addicted.
This is technically good news sure, but its just a matter of time just like everything.<p>"Everything already tracks you anyway, so what's one more thing?"
I remember the good ol' days when our parents told us what we could and could not use or buy. If Johnny's parents let them do something, Johnny's parents would get admonished for it and we just wouldn't see Johnny anymore.
How Linux is relevant to age-verification again? What was the question exactly?<p>Lawmakers unanimously are going to be sleeping when it gets dark at night.
Linux?<p>Or also BSD, ReactOS, hobby OS #24562 etc... ?
Yes also BSD and friends.<p>From TFA<p>> These amendments redefine the term “operating system provider” to exclude any person or entity that distributes an OS or application “under license terms that permit a recipient to copy, redistribute, and modify the software.” Any software distributed under the GPL, MIT, BSD, and Apache licenses satisfies that test, which removes the likes of Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, Arch, and the BSD family from AB 1856’s scope.
According to the article: "it's any OS or application “under license terms that permit a recipient to copy, redistribute, and modify the software.”"<p>The article then explicitly cite "Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, Arch, and the BSD family".<p>There is also another exclusion for libraries and software from a packages managers like apt and pacman.<p>So from my understanding ReactOS, hobby OS but also CP/M, FreeDOS, Haiku or Collapse OS...
They include the majority of OSI licenses, including BSD. So the majority of BSD variants are included.
> the original definition of “user,” which read, “a child that is the primary user of a device,” and technically classified every device owner in California as a child.<p>which technically makes California a "Nanny state"
This is funny to me, because if the age-verification laws were supposed to be a stepping stone toward greater oversight on computing so that AI can be corralled in the future, seeing what is likely to come with billions of spam-bots and zero traceability, then this single decision alone completely undermines it.
My gut reaction to this is that there is something seriously wrong if special clauses are required. Why should open source get special treatment, to me that just highlights that the law is utterly ridiculous.
Why shouldn't open source get special treatment? Public laws should recognize and incentivize public goods.
Technically opensource stays the same. The special treatment is for closed source OSes that get an additional legal protection for their datamining. We should not be passing laws that legalize the datamining of people.
Rest of the headline: "software distributed under the GPL, MIT, BSD, and Apache licenses are exempt"<p>And then further into the text it's clarified that there also isn't a specific list of open licenses, as the terrible headline would have you believe, but instead a description of what is considered open<p>With the caveat that I haven't read the actual legal text, this seems to be an eminently sensible law (it'd be better if it weren't needed, but here we are).<p>In summary: not a Linux exemption, and not an exemption for a specific list of licenses either.
> (2) “Operating system provider” does not mean a person or entity that distributes an operating system or application under license terms that permit a recipient to copy, redistribute, and modify the software.<p>Where does MacOS and iOS fit then? The core of both those operating systems (darwin) is open source (APSL licensed).
MacOS isn't Darwin and comes under terms that do not fit rhe criteria of the exception. Apple actually did go to some lengths in the past to ensure that all layers of MacOS contained bits that they could claim restrictive licenses on.<p>A project like PureDarwin, however, can be freely distributed because it omits Apple's proprietary parts.
> copy, redistribute, and modify the software<p>I can copy and redistribute macOS binaries, and I can write programs/extensions that modify macOS.<p>These vague terms show that legislators are incapable of regulating software effectively; but they do create an enduring legal franchise to deal with their confusion.
You cannot. The apple license has multiple restrictions on that prevent you from copying, modifying and redistribution, for example:<p>> No Reverse Engineering. You may not, and you agree not to or enable others to, copy (except as expressly permitted by this License or by the Usage Rules if they are applicable to you), decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble, attempt to derive the source code of, decrypt, modify, or create derivative works of the Apple Software or any services provided by the Apple Software or any part thereof (except as and only to the extent any foregoing restriction is prohibited by applicable law or by licensing terms governing use of Open-Sourced Components that may be included with the Apple Software).<p>From <a href="https://www.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/macOSTahoe.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/macOSTahoe.pdf</a>
Aren't vague terms that need to be interpreted to mean what the writers intended very normal in the legal world?
Cool now let's exempt hobbyists from the 3-D printer must certify you are not printing gun parts pending legislation.
A quick search suggests that 3D-printed guns being used in crime is an actual, for-real, and growing problem.<p>I take it that you wouldn't be OK with somebody building a uranium enrichment facility in their backyard for their hobby reactor. So there is a line to be drawn on where people's freedom to tinker ends; it's just a question of where you draw it.<p>Personally, I think given there is an actual documented, non-isolated problem with 3D printed guns being used for violent crime, there's a debate to be had that's more sophisticated than "REGULATION BAD".
Once you know how easy it is to make a gun using parts from a hardware store the concept of banning it becomes a joke.<p>It’s like trying to ban wrenches.<p>Lever and tube - that’s what it is. People create makeshift ones even when it’s legal to buy them, because it’s cheap and easy to do so.<p>You can’t ban computers or personal transportation or words either.<p>You can’t even ban a person from a website. You can ban an account - but you haven’t stopped the person. Any attempt at playing arbitrary authority you’re gonna lose
> A quick search suggests that 3D-printed guns being used in crime is an actual, for-real, and growing problem.<p>Making actual firearms from steel is trivial. In fact you can look up Kalashnikov designs online and then replicate it with a relatively simple mill/lathe/tapping setup.
>relatively simple mill/lathe/tapping setup<p>To be honest, as someone familiar mostly with computers, I have no idea where to start with this and it sounds a bit intimidating. Buying a 3D printer and using some 3rd party design sound very easy in comparison.<p>You're certainly right that it's possible for someone determined to make their own firearm, but raising the bar still has immense value.<p>Tradeoffs between freedom and safety are another, unrelated discussion.
Then I missed the public discussion on why making it illegal to possess DIY guns is not enough. Did that actually get debated or just handwaved away? By the time I became aware of this whole technical blocking thing, that was the only proposal on the table.
> making it illegal to possess DIY guns is not enough.<p>This would be an unconstitutional law, per Bruen.
Ah, I think I know this one. It's because people who make their own guns are nerds. You know, like you or I, except in a different topic. I remember reading a couple of posts on R*dd*t where two folk were discussing fitting accessories to guns and one posted something like "No, you can fit that, all you do is mill a slot on top of the receiver and drill and tap a hole at the end and you can just about screw this thing in place" kind of thing.<p>I read the discussion and thought "yeah that's nerd talk, just not about analogue synthesizers, old Landrover gearboxes, or Pascal compilers".<p>I guess the reason for blocking 3D printers from making gun parts is because it's easier than doing it "by hand". All you really need to do is get a copy of the files from someone who has them, print it out in something suitable, and you have viable gun components with very little "real work" involved.<p>By contrast here in the UK, where it's quite surprising what you're allowed to own and operate if you comply with the laws (here you're allowed fully automatic weapons, if you keep them at a suitable shooting range and don't try to wander around town with them, and you're not oh maybe a convicted violent criminal for example) one of my late father's friends was a gunsmith. My dad was an excellent machinist, and so he made some components for his friend, and I remember standing in the machine shop where they worked while he turned a chamber for a gun his colleague was building in the lathe. "There you go," he said, taking it out of the chuck, "that's legal".<p>Then he took it over to the mill, and cut a couple of holes and slots that would allow it to actually function as a chamber, "And there - now it's *illegal*."<p>Then, as he handed it to his friend, who was licensed to have "home made" gun parts, to stamp his initials on, "And now it's legal again."<p>Of course since people aren't allowed to just walk around with handguns since the school shooting, it's all a little more difficult - but the police will tell you what you need to do to keep it legal.<p>It's still slightly easier to get a shotgun licence than a motorcycle licence here.
> here you're allowed fully automatic weapons, if you keep them at a suitable shooting range and don't try to wander around town with them, and you're not oh maybe a convicted violent criminal for example<p>I think you're overstating this. My understanding is that here in GB (unsure about NI) fully automatic firearms are absolutely prohibited with only limited exceptions that the general public are typically ineligible for. Could you elaborate?
My position on anything is "REGULATION BAD" when it's against individuals and non commercial/open source projects, "REGULATION GOOD" for massive corporations, and "REGULATION MAYBE GOOD NEEDS NUANCED DEBATE" for anything in between.
What do you mean by regulation? Laws that could lead to a fine or jail time, or the enforcement of laws through ie. the police?
Non-commercial projects and individuals can do bad stuff too.<p>I agree the bar is a lot higher for those projects than massive corporations, but I think it's a pretty arguable case that "people are using 3D printers to make guns with features that would otherwise be illegal, and they are being used in crimes in some number" clears that bar.
Individuals can do a lot of bad stuff too? "Mark Zuckerberg" is still an individual.
It’s not 3d printed guns, it’s 3d printed parts. You don’t need the 3d printing at all if you want to make a DIY gun in the US, you can literally just buy the gun parts.<p>You don’t seem to have a good grasp of the topic but already decided the opposition position is „regulation bad“, but that’s not the case at all. The pushback comes from introducing the government as middleman between your slicer and 3d printer, that’s dystopic af
> I take it that you wouldn't be OK with somebody building a uranium enrichment facility in their backyard for their hobby reactor.<p>Your analogy fails in that yes, you are not allowed to make hobby reactor. But that's because you are not allowed to have any kind of reactor at all.<p>Banning 3d-printed guns while not banning real guns (which are order of magnitude more effective) makes no sense.
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
The problem may exist, but I don't believe that intrusive "gun part deyection" solves it.
The obvious answer is to slice up your gun model into a number of sub-parts which individually <i>aren't</i> detected by the algorithm but collectively still form a functioning gun. And there's an unlimited number of ways to slice up a model, so it is impossible to create an algorithm which catches everything.<p>What's next, keep track of <i>all</i> printed parts and invent the math to recombine them in every way possible to see if it could form a gun? Trivially defeated by using multiple printers. Hmmm, sounds like a good reason to force everyone to register their 3D printer with their real identity, and only allow a print after the model has been uploaded to the Federal Printing Database for verification...
Ah, but don't you see? Something Must Be Done, and "gun part detection" is, indeed, Something. (ignoring that it fails the "thing" part of the definition, because it can't possibly exist)
3d printed guns are just a fancier pipe gun. Physics is the real enemy here. Make thing go fast out of tube is too simple of a design.
Fully 3D-printed guns have <i>awful</i> performance, though. You would likely get significantly better results improvising with the stuff available at literally any random hardware store. Yet, despite that kind of gun being around for <i>centuries</i>, we weirdly aren't seeing bans on rigid metal tubes yet.<p>3D-printed "guns" become a real issue when you combine it with unregulated sale of firearm parts and ammunition. To get a fully-functional gun you just need to 3D print a fairly trivial component which is <i>legally</i> considered the entire gun as it carries the serial number. But that's not a 3D printing problem, because there are <i>also</i> companies selling that same part in a mostly-finished legally-not-a-gun form, together with a drilling jig guiding you how to drill the last few holes with a regular Dremel. And nobody is proposing banning Dremels. Heck, it is <i>totally okay</i> to own a lathe - which you can use to make your own high-quality guns!<p>And the entire discussion is of course pointless once you realize that this is the USA, so anyone is only a weekend road trip away from legally and fully-anonymously buying a gun two states over. If 3D-printed guns are such a huge problem, why aren't we seeing European countries mass-banning 3D printers?<p>To extend your analogy: it's like being fine with the sale of ultracentrifuges and uranium hexafluoride, then getting upset at someone selling a screwdriver to attach the plug to the power cord of the ultracentrifuge because "screwdrivers lead to nuclear bombs".<p>3D printed guns are a nothingburger. There is indeed a non-zero number of violent crimes committed with them - but there is also a non-zero number of violent crimes committed with shoelaces, so that's clearly not enough of a reason to ban them. It only makes sense to regulate them if they are involved in a <i>significant</i> number of crimes and leading to a huge increase in gun violence - and at that point you probably want to crack down on <i>all</i> forms of DIY guns instead of just the 3D printed ones. But that's simply not the case, so the regulation is pointless and doing more harm than good.
> ... why aren't we seeing European countries mass-banning 3D printers?<p>Dunno, because most europeans are way more responsible with their guns than many people in the US?<p>For example in the EU (and in Switzerland) before you can buy a gun, you get specific training about safe and responsible handling. And in many countries the cops shall come to your place and verify that you've got a gun safe <i>and</i> a separate safe for the ammo.<p>And we don't offer AR-15 to our kids when they turn 14 y/o (well I say that but my daughter wants to shoot my weapons and, once she turns 14, she can switch from air rifles to the real thing as long as she's accompanied).<p>Just to be clear: we have <i>shitloads</i> of guns and ammos in Europe. There's even one EU country with concealed carry. I think it's estimated there are twice as many non-registered weapons as registered ones. We've got big guns factories and gun brands in the EU. And there are millions of illegal full-auto weapons like kalashnikovs (well Zastava M70, which is the same) from the war in Yougoslavia in the hands of criminals. And shitloads of fully functional weapons, including handguns, from WWII circulating.<p>In my native city (Brussels, Belgium), at the moment there are drug dealers firing kalashnikov on police stations regularly (it's a big issue, it's in the news daily and the authorities don't know what to do).<p>In addition to people shooting at the range (and, sadly, to drug dealers/criminals ruining our cities), we've got lots of hunters too.<p>Many people at my shooting range have their official gun transport license full (that is 30 weapons) and some have more than 100 weapons in their collection.<p>It's a fantasy that europeans don't have guns: we're (mostly) responsible with them.<p>It's maybe because we're responsible with our guns that the EU hasn't banned 3D printers... Yet (it's the EU, so nothing is unthinkable).
Walk into Lowes and buy some steel pipe and a nail.<p>Congrats, you built a zipgun.<p><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-63198715" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-63198715</a><p>There's now much more of a debate that's to be more sophisticated than "3D PRINTED GUNS BAD".
I love that Microsoft is committing a crime by continuing to let me use Win10
Can someone the exemption for browser extensions and other contained software?
My best guess is that the OS > Browser are reporting the age already, and the browser extensions will also use that "signal". Is this close enough?<p>" third carve-out excludes storefronts distributing extensions or add-ons that run exclusively inside a host application, which takes browser extension stores out of scope."
People celebrate too early.<p>A court at a later time may find that this situation is unfair to windows users who have to submit to age sniffing. So this will easily be overturned at a later time - age sniffing will never be given up by the lobbyists groups paid for by Meta and others (and the USA also wants that information).
So Android is exempted since it's opens source?
Hey so uh... Did anyone notice the word "accessible" here?<p>> Provide an ACCESSIBLE interface, at account setup,..<p>I wonder if the biggest effect of this bill will be that proprietary operating systems will have to have accessibility features built-in, and will be subject to ADA compliance lawsuits if it's deficient in some way.
Laws need to be managed like software: There should be a process for testing, user feedback, quick patches for bugs or conflicts, and regular updates to fix issues. If you think about it, both laws and software are called "code".<p>The problem is our legal system is still based on the waterfall method. Lawmakers try to plan for everything, laws meant to solve one problem face feature creep and create a thousand others, then no one wants to touch anything after launch for fear of making things worse or because that one guy uses the temperature of his CPU as a quick-key and refuses to change his workflow.<p>Anyways, no law is perfect and never will be, and neither are the fixes.
Software development is slower in larger, more political organisations (hello Change Advisory Boards) and larger/older/sprawling codebases.<p>Most governments are huge, highly political, slow moving organisations. It seems to just come with the territory: slower rollout of changes, longer periods to observe the changes in the wild (throw in a few years to see how the law plays in legal cases/challenges), and suddenly you have fewer iterations to get it right.
> The problem is our legal system is still based on the waterfall method.<p>It's not? It has been "agile" for centuries. It is constantly patched as someone wants to address some issue. It's rather rare for a completely new law to be written.<p>> Lawmakers try to plan for everything<p>It's not? They see one bug, e.g. children being exploited, now they tried it with a patch that is horribly broken and doesn't really work, so they patched it again, to remediate one issue, while they try to figure out more patches.
It's also hilarious how poorly defined so many laws are. So many loopholes and bugs everywhere. Probably because most lawyers/politicians are effectively illiterate when it comes to logic.
> Probably because most lawyers/politicians are effectively illiterate when it comes to logic.<p>Unfortunately the “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" is completely wrong in politics. In politics and lawmaking, always attribute to malice, not stupidity.<p>Lawmakers appears extremely dumb on TV for the most part, but the teams behind them are actually very smart (pure evil, but smart). All the loopholes and bugs in laws are, to them, a feature. It allows them to always prosecute regular citizens, but the favored people (politicians, campaign contributors, oligarchs) always have a free pass. This is by design.
I don't disagree with you, but I think it's important to remember that ambiguous laws are also a feature of modern societies. Laws have to be ambiguous, for one because the real world cannot be codified into abstract laws perfectly, and because separation of power is a fundamental part of how our society works. Judges are supposed to apply the law to specific cases. Thus lawmakers get to decide the wording but judges get to decide how to use it. If there was no room for ambiguity, we would not need any judges.<p>That's how it should work on paper anyway...
California is a common law jurisdiction. Judges evaluate cases and make rulings based on the intent of the law instead of the literal text as written in order to avoid absurdities, setting precedent for future similar cases. If the lawmakers disagree with case law, they amend the law.
I'm starting to warm up to this law. So many loopholes. Nothing to worry about. I think California's incompetence has finally progressed from "proposes bad laws" to "proposes and botches the implementation of bad laws"
If you had an agent in the legislature wouldn’t you prefer exactly one of this form? My ideal representative is able to command support from diverse interests and subtly damages those opposed to me while subtly advantaging the principles I believe in - making compromises necessary to move incrementally to a state more aligned with what I wish it to be.<p>The reality is that many people want bad laws. Without the support of those people one does not get elected.<p>This use of people for power while de-facto disenfranchising them is pretty widespread already. For instance, some half of California and Texas are responsible for their strength in the electoral college while simultaneously being entirely disenfranchised when electing the President. Good technique.
Now do it with all open source licenses, not just the most popular.
And now a bunch of OSI-Approved licenses get to have special rules applied to them, entrenching them and killing further innovation.
The bill exempts:<p>> a person or entity that distributes an operating system or application under license terms that permit a recipient to copy, redistribute, and modify the software<p>which at least doesn't choose specific winners and losers among licenses. It does disfavor license-free and public domain software, which isn't great.
> It does disfavor license-free and public domain software, which isn't great.<p>Public domain software is free to "copy, redistribute, and modify", so ... where's the disfavour?
Technically you could argue that public domain works don't have <i>license terms</i> that make them free so the exception can't apply. Only an ignorant or ultra literalist judge would see it that way but you never know.<p>On the other hand a public domain dedication is a binding <i>term</i> that gives you permission (or <i>license</i>) to do what you want...
It only applies to software distributed under a license. Public domain software isn't distributed under a license. It's in the public domain; no license is needed.
Now do FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD... =p
The law just says open source OS’ don’t count. It does not mention Linux by name - nor does it specify which licenses.
Those are also covered.<p>> software distributed under the GPL, MIT, BSD, and Apache licenses are exempt
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AGPL…?
Weird how the people who habitually complain about government are conspicuously silent when it delivers something they wanted.
What do you want people to say? "Yay, the terrible law that threatened to make free computing illegal has an exemption for Linux. Now we only have to deal with unwanted mandatory age verification on all our non-linux devices. I'm so happy."
I habitually complain about government... so let me help you out with this.<p>The original issue with the law was never that those poor open source developers were going to have to bear the burden of complying with the law, but that the law itself was a bald-faced invasion of privacy by an overbearing troupe of people in power (i.e., government) so shit-sure of their superiority over the simple common folk they govern (i.e., you and me) that they aren't even embarrassed by their own arrogance.<p>I would suggest that what "we wanted" is no such law at all. What would be weird, and worthy of comment, is if those of us that complain about government were actually satisfied by an exemption which only applies to pretty damn tiny slice of the market. If anything, that wasn't a victory for privacy or common sense, but rather a concession that they had foolishly created a law that they wouldn't have been able to enforce as broadly as they thought they could get away with... or if they tried to enforce it they'd have to contend with the optics of the big hand of government yet again crushing individuals whose only real crime was their altruism rather than just some giant corporation.<p>So it isn't weird at all that "we're" silent. This isn't a win. Pointing out that the law had unintended consequences, including with Linux, et al., wasn't a statement of objective but rather a simple show that the law was rife with thoughtless unintended, or perhaps simply unspoken, consequences. The legislature's act here didn't restore privacy nor did it remove bad outcomes: if anything it now just raises questions about equal protection under law, at least on some practical level. It raises the question why some users of computers need such protections as age verification and others don't, and why the licensing terms of the OS are a valid proxy for that need... taking for granted that the stated purposes of the law are the real ones, of course.
A lot of people are not stupid. Age verification is a backdoor for control. I read and did not even bother to comment, it's like yay, that horrendous thing they were trying to do now it's not applied to everyone. I'm also sorry for California, such a beautiful place and full of wonderful people. I hope it will recover one day.
They shouldn't need to pass this if they didn't pass age verification at all.<p>This is not a good thing, it's a very small patch for a very bad thing.
This is not wanted, its duct taping a bad idea even further and i half-wish MS/apple/co sue against it. This may cause lawmakers to bounce back in the wrong direction though.
Yeah, this is fantastic. Should be top of the page. I’m honestly shocked, I’ve fully internalized that everything is corrupt and beholden to big corporations. Somehow, a victory! Looks like the Linux Foundation and EFF pushed back, but they’re not exactly big. Good job, California lawmakers!
Not a victory, Android is still covered.
> Good job, California lawmakers!<p>Is this serious or sarcasm? They passed a horrible law, now its an internally contradictory horrible law because apparently it isn't important enough to consistently enforce. So, you know. Why legislate it?<p>There isn't much of an angle here that reflects well on Californian lawmakers, they're still supporting this authoritarian trend of de-anonymisation and rolling back free communication on the internet. They're just going to come back for linux later once the idea of legally mandated PII on account registration is normalised. Although I do see this "In addition, lawmakers inserted a new provision prohibiting anyone from requesting an age signal from an OS provider or app store unless required by law" so we seem to be entering a wild space where they're going to try and micromanage this in a weird way.
> now its an internally contradictory horrible law because apparently it isn't important enough to consistently enforce<p>Law is not an abstract code, but an incremental sometimes futile approach to shape society. They only want a way to hold big corporations accountable to exploiting children. They don't actually intend the effects on the consumer, so they tried to fix on easily changeable effect: "Don't worsen the privacy for people who want it." If you are using e.g. MS Windows, you have given up everything already. They do a lot of "telemetry" and for example everything you typed into MS Word is already licensed to Microsoft.
So what makes kid users on linux so special that they don't need nanny state protection? Are the Californian legislators just throwing them to the wolves? Or are the protections being put in place here not actually important?<p>Seriously, what is the message here supposed to be about the kids using linux? And why are they so different from kids using Windows or Mac? Are there other safety features we can exempt kid linux users from?
> They only want a way to hold big corporations accountable to exploiting children.<p>Let me know when they pass actual laws tackling that, then. Even if this law was ironclad, this does not solve the simple factor of using a "verified" device.<p>You don't fix a problem of society from private corporations by restricting society. You need to actually attack the corporations itself. But governments are sheepish to go after "their own", or people who can bribe them into feeling like one of them.<p>It's not a great implementation either. But COPPA is an example in the right direction and made companies need to change their algorithms based on the user account's reported age. That's more of the direction to move in.
What a pointlessly provocative and unproductive thing to say.
"Delivers something they wanted" is the most bizarre way possible to phrase "followed through with the majority of a reprehensible agenda and were forced to carve out an exception due to technical constraints and massive blowback."
When people pointed out the consequences this would have for open source, that did not mean what they wanted was an open source exemption. It was just meant to demonstrate just how poorly conceived the law is that nobody at any point even thought about this before it was signed in. Frankly the consequences for open source are not even at the forefront of concerns about what these rushed regulations will do to the world.
The age verification requirement wasn't dropped, what are you talking about? Linux getting an exemption isn't a win.
It delivered an arbitrary exception to a stupid law. If all someone wanted was an exception for Linux, they don’t understand the problem with this law.
“California lawmakers unanimously pass Linux exemption from age-verification law — software distributed under the GPL, MIT, BSD, and Apache licenses are exempt”
They didn't "deliver something we wanted". They decided NOT to fuck us over. I guess we should thank them for that?
Indeed, this is very generous of them, and we should be thankful.
I'm confused. If I was a kid, I can still get my cigarettes at the Linux store? (By analogy with eastern Europe where age checks are lax.)<p>Or is the idea that the Linux store is not allowed to sell cigarettes anymore?
To use your metaphor, this is saying that a store needs to limit you to the kids section if it is told you are a kid at the door. The exemption here is because a park doesn't have doors to perform this check onto.<p>(PS. I'd hope we were past trying to hamfist physical metaphors to describe the digital landscape. But alas).