“We’ll come around to you next time”
There is a time limit an exception like this will be held. Once it becomes normalized on proprietary systems they’ll expect it on the rest.
California is making computers shittier for the rest of the world. Sorry for lashing out, fuck you!
I guess, California is killing Windows without knowing.
Wild they still play the “think of the children” card while ignoring the Epstein files.
This will make finding children much easier for Palantir and its pedo owners. They could even identify more susceptible children more easily.
Oh they’re still thinking about them.
Won’t somebody please think of the children!?
No, not like that!
While masturbating furiously.
For a moment I freaked out that they were only gonna exclude Linux and not open source in general but it seems they exclude based on the license based on this article which is a good thing. The dozens of OpenBSD and FreeBSD users may rest safely now
Doesn’t matter. The thin edge of the wedge is going to get in. In 5 years Linux will be forced to comply.
Suddenly, Android and Chromebook become Linux. Maybe Apple will become Unix again.
Read the article. The amendment says nothing about Linux. It talks about open source where the user has a license to modify and redistribute. So unless Google makes android fully open source they will still be included.
Yes, I know AOSP is open source. But they are also talking about how steam os wouldn’t be exempt despite it being arch based. Due to the proprietary portions.
I think that is exactly what they mean, Google abuse/subverting the floss ecosystem creating a de facto closed system, and would have to open up to be a really open source OS if they want to get exempt. Same with apple and the BSD kernel and base (although it can be said that they are not subverting the spirit of the code they use since BSD licenses ate by design made to allow closing the source, etc).
In any case I am pretty confident that all big tech want to eagerly embrace age verification since it is another data point to sell and for their ad machinery.
Steam already kinda has age verification on their store - you need to register your credit card to access adult material. Honestly seems like one of the easier and better ways to do this. I don’t know if that existing check could be carried over to their OS, their OS and store are pretty much a bundle already.
what’s worth considering is even on android forks that are deemed foss, they need lots of driver blobs for all the hardware, and some people intentionally install google servives via opengapps. how will those count for this law?
and then don’t forget that due to drivers, relatively few open source desktop installations are fully open source
Not as long as they’re bending the knee to Trump
Enforcing it on android/apple/windows/steamos/chromeos is still problem tho.
Tho I do wonder how they handle chromeos. Do each student have to put their age every year?
SteamOS, ChromeOS and Android are Linux basedoperating systems though. Especially SteamOS is literally just an arch fork with steam preinstalled.
steam os can be modified, but chromeos is explicitly locoed down. yet, people say even steam os might not be exempted by this
I was too lazy to lookup what license steamos uses for distributing lmao. Article says that would be the defining bar for the pass meaning BSD included in this.
They are talking about how steamos might still be included. Due to the proprietary portions. I’d assume android would fall under that as well.
Most Linux distros contain proprietary packages, it’s one of the reasons why for example Fedora isn’t considered beginner friendly, they don’t ship proprietary stuff so it doesn’t have codecs, etc by default.
But there is a difference if it is part of the base experience or unavoidable, like you need a Google account to do anything on an OEM Android Install, like install any app and such. I guess same is true for steamOS, since focus on the OS is the steam app.
isn’t patents the reason fedora doesn’t have hardware accelerated codecs? mesa has the drivers, fedora just doesn’t compile those drivers in
Yes, it is the patent shenanigans.
My steam account is old enough to legally drink. Wonder if that’ll factor in.
That doesn’t prove anything. There’s no proof that the person currently using it is the same person as the person who created the account.
By the way, you might also notice this argument also works against age verification systems where the user’s age is verified only once. Unless you intend to check their identity every single time they log in.
Age verification is just a ham-fisted way for the state to try to take over a role that should be exercised by parents. Parental controls exist, people!
Parents not raising their kids right is why we can’t have nice things. It’s always used as an excuse for some draconian measure.
Unless you intend to check their identity every single time they log in.
or rather every single second the device is being used
The proposed amendment specifically states: “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.
That’s one way to encourage people to move to open source software
Imagine if that made MicroSlop and Apple open-source Windows and Mac OS. That would be a wild world.
Wao, I am gladly surprised by this. I would have never thought this would be possible, yet here we are.
California software companies have serious lobbying power.
I mean… yeah. OpenAI is a California software company and it’s the biggest lobbying force behind the age verification bills.
How about the government focus on taking rights away from people who have actually harmed kids, like I don’t know, maybe a giant pedophile ring in plain sight? Instead the focus on taking rights from everyone because someone, sometime, in the future harm a child.
The government was paid by Meta… They are just doing what they were told to do
its not even about “protecting the innocent” is about snooping on potential dissidents/ threats to the status quo of the govt.
The whole digital footprint thing is really having me dawn a tinfoil hat. I was doing Uber a few days ago, and listening to Pandora. I spoke very limited, and brief, Spanish to two riders and I immediately started getting full on español ads on Pandora! Like I don’t speak fluent Spanish! Your ad budget is legit getting wasted.
But I am a little flattered thinking the algorithm thinks I do.
Dunno where I was going with this, but I’m excited to see Linux growing, and hope it gets mainstream enough that a year old unlocked phone has a fork.
Because it’s not about protecting children, obviously.
When someone with certain personality problems tells blatant lies, they are really only trying to convince themselves. You exist only as an introject inside their minds, you are not real to them, it does not matter if you don’t believe them because it doesn’t need to make sense to you.
It doesn’t even makes to collect age on any OS unless the OS is PornOS or something. What exactly is the threat? What exactly does verification do?
I mean every OS is pornOS lol, they just can’t get over people watching porn, puritanism still messing with us hundreds of years later
This reminded me of a joke patch someone sent to Firefox to rename incognito mode to porn mode.
IIRC, they want to have browsers automatically report age, and have OSes restrict access to software (like browsers that don’t do that) based on age as well.
I believe the “goal” is to restrict access to information to younger persons. Porn is the threat they most often wave around, but many advocates also want to restrict access to social media, and apps that have in-app purchases, etc.
Absolutely the law is still dumb, and people that use FOSS OSes should still fight it. But with this change, as least you won’t have to compile your own version of systemd (and NOT distribute it) to escape the insanity.
I bet this will be as easy to circumvent as changing the user agent of your browser and most developers outside of the US wont even bother to introduce age verification for a small fraction of their users.
Age verification laws are cropping up in far more jurisdictions than California (which is already quite large both in population and economically).
Anti-circumvention laws already exist. If OSes and browsers do start reporting ages, you can expect Apple, Google, and Microsoft to use the DMCA to (at least) shift liability (potentially criminal liability) onto users that adjust their browser to report an inaccurate age.
If this proposed law the “end of the world”? No. But, it is yet another contribution to both tech and government panopticons and should be resisted, even WITH a POSS carve-out.
As several people I follow try to remind me: “Users of non-FOSS software deserve privacy and safety, too.”
Common Linux double u.
It’s being exempt because the Government can’t enforce this requirement on FOSS. Linux isn’t managed by a corporation and I don’t think people realize this yet.
I would pay money to hear Linus on the phone with these self-important assholes.
we want you to force user verification in all Linux.
yeah, fuck you.
…
Give homie some credit, I think he would at least ask “why?” first. Then also wish them “good luck!” on enforcing it.
Red Hat is the biggest power on Linux.
You can’t force it on any Linux distro, but on everybody who has to give a shit about compliance.
I mean they could force big corpo to not allow anyone who can’t verify age to use their services.
This is sponsored by meta to push the age requirement tracking onto the os rather than Facebook directly to avoid liability when under age kids access harmful content
Which is insane, as the OS doesn’t have any way to authoritatively measure the user’s age and so they have to be ‘honor system’ where the age is whatever the user says the age is, or require some online account with identity validation, which is what facebook tries to do anyway.
An unverified age bracket in the OS that provides that to web services is the correct way to do it (a parent setting up a computer or account for a kid checks one box and suddenly google safe search, etc, everyone else doesn’t check the box, done).
I suspect meta is hoping to get better unique account to human mapping in their surveillance machine.
See you in a year or 2.
Play as old as times:
- Company announces garbage change
- People freak out
- Company says ok we will only do half of the garbage
- People calm down and forget
- Company later does the rest of the garbage
- Nobody cares because half of it is already there
Foot in the door technique is a timeless way to get what you want. People seem oblivious to it.
I hear frogs experience the same phenomenon with hot water.
Actually they only stay in the boiling water if their nervous system is impaired
Good thing humans dont have nervous systems
Hm? Did you say something? Sorry, I was distracted.
Also works the other way around.
This isn’t exactly it.
First or isn’t a company or is the government. 2nd, that legislation is just plain dumb and open source systems like Linux, BSD can’t comply with it, even if they wanted to.
The whole law should be repealed though. They use children as excuse, bit it is about surveillance.
also known as TESTING the waters, gauging public response. so they can adapt under a different scheme.
Plucking the goose with a minimum of hissing.
I mean it makes total sense the minute you think about it at all.
- some middle managers year end goals include this unpalatable feature
- they release it
- public freaks out
- pr walks it back a bit
- that managers back at work the week after trying to get that feature in because they need to justify the work they just did on it for better compensation
It’s the same with laws.
It’s very hard to get the electorate united to oppose something but if they manage to unite and oppose a bill the lobbyists are back at work on Monday pushing it by a different name.
Laboyists are the scourge of democracy. Every last one of them has a rope and spear with their names written on them.
100% Microslop.
Technology makes everything cheaper, including changing minds.
At some points it was unfeasible to abuse consumers because they’d object. Now, if it’s on a large enough scale and valuable enough, you can just pay to convince the majority of them that it’s fine.
That reminds me. We are quickly approaching the date discord postponed age verification to.
Are you implying that CA regulators do exactly what disgusting corporations do?!? I am shocked sir!
The principle that Bullshit, sprayed around often enough, becomes Air Freshener.
