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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
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"Don't complain, just fork it" people when complaining works: 😳
I'm afraid this isn't the win you think it is.
One of two things will happen in the near future:
Nearly everything you do online from banking to shopping to social media (including online gaming) to paying your electric or internet bill to yes porn will require OS-level attestation to access and use the site. Linux lacking this will become an incredibly private OS that is useless for anything online making this a defeat for Linux having any hopes of real desktop market share and/or forcing it to comply. Microsoft, Apple, Google would love to push Linux as an OS option off the table.
Kids will start using liveboot or installing Linux and evading these controls, Christian fascists, tech overlord capitalists, and the government will take notice and write a bill to close this "loophole" and within a few years having already established the idea in the popular conception that age verification is okay will face lesser resistance in quickly ramming it through.
It absolutely is the win we think it is. These are separate from mandating open source to include age verification.
it absolutely is not. my first thought to seeing this is that they're trying to reduce the resistance to the bill, then later add linux to it and not face as much backlash. basically, option 2.
dont be blind.
So to not have the win we think it is, the California and Colorado bills would have to mandate age verification for open source operating systems.
Can you explain the wording in the law that contradicts OP’s claims?
I don't really get this. Why is it such a big deal if your OS has setting where you enter your age, and the OS then sends that to websites? Face scanning or demanding uploads of photo IDs is an immense privacy violation. But simply having your OS have a setting you can use where you provide a number, a number that you're completely free to alter or report whatever value you want? I really don't see the issue with this.
This seems like a pretty easy way to give parents some control over their kid's online activities while also not infringing on privacy. The parents can set up the OS and give an account to their kids that lists their ages as under 18. If they want their kids to access the web without restrictions, they simply don't have to create an under 18 account on the computer. And even if your OS has to report an age to access a website, if it's all based on self-reporting, you can just self-report a false age.
We tend to think in binaries, as this is convenient. We tend to view all digital age verification as horrible and equally horrible. But this? Just giving parents a way to give their kids a minors-only account, and have websites respect that OS-level flag? This is nothing like bills that require uploading face scans or photo IDs.
Sure you can speculate a slippery slope. But that is a fallacy for a reason. It tends to wash out all nuance and make you conclude everything is absolute evil forever.
Good. As a European person using Linux in Canada, I refuse to engage with any extra nonsense on my computer just because some American states are being idiotic. Even if it's just one extra click, I'm not doing it just because California says I should. Get fucked
Some euro countries are doing the same shit amigo.
So free software is actually about freedom, huh.
Can we please call it what it is: mandatory ID.
afaik it's straight up the opposite for the california law. I didn't read it myself, but from what I read online about it, they require a boolean "adult/minor" and forbid any other data collection related to age
Yes please! The sooner we normalize that, the sooner these threads will stop being about people explaining idea nr. 26637372 how to implement parental controls. It's not about protecting children! That's just the marketing slogan!
I mean how would they not exempt FOSS, short of individually policing the software installed on every individual personal system or instituting new hardware requirements and making the use of non-compliant hardware criminal?
short of individually policing the software installed on every individual personal system or instituting new hardware requirements and making the use of non-compliant hardware criminal?
Quit giving them ideas!
Thats great. I do fear that it'll still pretty much be a requirement if they continue to force age verification through websites etc.
Yep, how is it even supposed to work with OSS? Can't use those websites?
Exactly. It's optional... as long as ypu don't plan on using internet.
I still think it should be the other way around. It should be a setting on the device/OS that an adult could tik and lock with a password or something that would mark the user or the device as a minor.
It would be an easy thing for a parent to do and to everyone implement, and I doubt anyone would get angry over that.
The way the iPad has it seems OK, where you can disallow apps, websites and set time limits.
You're right. It's INCREDIBLY simple.
And I'm saying this as a systems engineer. I do this for a living.
I would go a step beyond and just make it a mandatory screen as part of setup:
Will this account mainly be used by an adult, by a teenager, or by a child?
I think the "teenager" would allow a little more granularity in parental control, but the "teenager" would legally be treated as a minor.
And you mandate that browser manufacturers be able to read that as part of the account information, but not forced to provide it to websites.
And you mandate that websites be forced to put in place restrictions that prevent adult websites from being provided to children or to computers that don't identify the user as an adult or as a child.
Restricting on the computer manufacturers' ends is the wrong way to do it. Restrict on the websites' end.
This would be simple. This would also not address the fundamental issue which is identification of bots vs. humans which are quietly destroying the online advertising industry (which, yeah, good riddance), which is what motivated Meta to lobby for online age verification to begin with. So it would fulfil the official purpose of age verification, but not it's real purpose
An improvement, but fuck off nonetheless.
Gotta do something to boost computer literacy amongst the youth.