California should make Windows as annoying to use as possible so more people switch to Linux
Kids are gonna learn Linux to watch porn and I couldn’t be happier about it.
Whilst this would be better than blanket age verification, I feel it’s a mediocre outcome for the wrong fight.
Rather than taking a carve out for FOSS, the right fight is to get the
online anonymity banage verification legislation taken out completely.If we let ourselves be satisfied with a carve out for those of us who are technically literate enough to sidestep early implementations anyway, we let the status quo change, until eventually they will come back for FOSS with the justification:
“well, EVERYONE ELSE submits to age verification, why should FOSS be any different?!”
or more likely:
“${scaryThreat} now uses FOSS to commit ${heinousCrime} against ${peopleWeSuddenlyCareAboutForPoliticalCapital} so we HAVE to protect the kids on FOSS now too!! #thoughtsAndPrayers #wontSomebodyThinkOfTheChildren”
Translation: there’s no way to force open source software to follow the law as it was written.
It would wildly fuck with enterprise systems because you would have to have a way to verify age for the users of EVERY system. The way it is now you would have to verify the age of users of iot and smart devices. You have to have id to turn on your lights or use the refrigerator.
This is only IF Gavin Newsom signs it. There’s no reason to believe he would. It’s not like he’s famous for following what the people of California want.
«We really dont wanna deal with these nerds, lets just ignore them for now»
Also: << the nerds aren’t going to do any of this shit, so… let’s look like the good guys by exempting them so we don’t look terrible when the nerds show how obviously this is all security theater >>
BTW System76, the company behind their Linux laptops and the Linux desktop COSMIC, was fighting hard against the law to make exemptions for Open Source software. That’s important for them, because System76 operates in California. So I think they are big part to thank for here: Colorado and California Exempt Open Source from Age Attestation (May 2026)
You may keep you projects for now nerds!
This is good news. But why make this distinction? Why is this ok for FOSS but not other platforms?
Also private platforms are more likely to abuse this information.
Because this is temporary. FOSS OS’ will be forced to comply in 10-15years max if the law stands.
Well, politics isn’t about finding the one principle to rule them all. The folks/companies that find restricting access to children important, probably don’t particularly care about some Linux devices being excluded. And other folks/companies find not restricting their Linux server really important, so that’s a compromise that can be made.
I imagine, they landed on specifically open-source being excluded as the more abstract rule, because open-source in particular has a problem here.
Anyone can download open-source software and run it. In most cases, there is no central backend, which could handle age verification.And even if there is, it’s not really financially viable to offer that for anyone who downloads the software for free. Requiring payment to access the binaries or the source code would also effectively kill the open-source ecosystem, which is also not in the interest of most people.
Because FOSS isn’t the problem. The problem the law seeks to address is profit-driven big businesses like Meta and Fortnite who don’t care to provide any protections for kids or actively target them in their manipulative behaviour, hence targeting the laws at the actual problem (non-FOSS software).
Nah. The problem the law seeks to address is more money for the rich and more power for the psychopaths. Actual care for children looks nothing close to this
But I can use Facebook and play Fortnite on Linux right?
Microsoft switching to a Linux kernel in…
Why do you assume that Microsoft doesn’t want to comply?
Expense of getting and staying compliant.
To be weighed against the profits from having all that new data on user identities.
I don’t think that is a problem for Microsoft, especially because they would want your ID and age, tracking you as much as possible already. Also you don’t just change the Kernel just like that, there are licenses attached, drivers and other stuff. From technical point of view, in current implementation it is probably impossible. Let alone Microsoft would face issues with compatibility. If we put the technical difficulties aside, I don’t even think Microsoft is against this law and pretty much wants it.
They could just change the license of their codebase, if that’s what they wanted to do. No way in hell they care about users enough though, and probably most windows users still don’t care enough even about this to jump ship.
What expense? Adding one more thing to track about you, especially something they already know and essentially just need to verify, cannot be that expensive.
CDDL not mentioned. Have fun illumos!
