System76 CEO Sees 'Real Possibility' Colorado's Age-Verification Bill Excludes Open-Source (phoronix.com) 21
Last week System76 CEO Carl Richell criticized age-verification laws for operating systems — but he now sees a "real possibility" Colorado's law might exclude open-source.
Phoronix reports that the System76 CEO met with the state Senator who co-authored Colorado's bill, and then posted on X.com that the Senator "suggested excluding open source software from the bill." Richell: This appears to be a real possibility. Amendments are expected... It's my hope we can move fast enough to influence excluding open source.. No illusions, it's an uphill battle, but we have an open door to advocate for the open source community.
Vague language has been a recurring problem with new state age-verification legislation. Richell pointed out later that "In one proposed bill, Garmin would have to verify the age of their watch customers at device setup." Richell also sees New York's bill as "unlikely to be applicable to Linux distributions," since its language calls for "commercially reasonable age assurance" that free operating systems could use — and Richell isn't sure one exists as described by the bill. "As written today, it's extremely broad and vague and that makes it scary."
Richell answered several follow-up questions about operating system age-verification laws. "What about California?" someone asked... Richell: We hope to make sensible, strong arguments for excluding open source which then becomes a standard for other states. It's going to be difficult.
Q: Open source is not the only target to exclude. Please ensure that the bill is amended so that it does not require applications that have no possible use for the age bracket to ask about it.
Richell: We discussed this as well. I proposed that apps that do not require age to modify app behavior or access by some other legislation be barred from reading age brackets to better protect privacy.
Phoronix reports that the System76 CEO met with the state Senator who co-authored Colorado's bill, and then posted on X.com that the Senator "suggested excluding open source software from the bill." Richell: This appears to be a real possibility. Amendments are expected... It's my hope we can move fast enough to influence excluding open source.. No illusions, it's an uphill battle, but we have an open door to advocate for the open source community.
Vague language has been a recurring problem with new state age-verification legislation. Richell pointed out later that "In one proposed bill, Garmin would have to verify the age of their watch customers at device setup." Richell also sees New York's bill as "unlikely to be applicable to Linux distributions," since its language calls for "commercially reasonable age assurance" that free operating systems could use — and Richell isn't sure one exists as described by the bill. "As written today, it's extremely broad and vague and that makes it scary."
Richell answered several follow-up questions about operating system age-verification laws. "What about California?" someone asked... Richell: We hope to make sensible, strong arguments for excluding open source which then becomes a standard for other states. It's going to be difficult.
Q: Open source is not the only target to exclude. Please ensure that the bill is amended so that it does not require applications that have no possible use for the age bracket to ask about it.
Richell: We discussed this as well. I proposed that apps that do not require age to modify app behavior or access by some other legislation be barred from reading age brackets to better protect privacy.
Newsome himself said it was a bad law (Score:5, Interesting)
We need voters who are smart enough to recognize these kind of bullshit bills. But it's hard because the lobbying is coming from multi-billion Dollar companies headed by psychopath billionaires.
If you haven't already heard if all of these age verification laws are being passed by Facebook and Planitir. They are spending a fortune the ram them through and they have the money to do scary ad campaigns that will make parents freak out and vote.
You can't have partial freedom. You can't for example keep electing right wing extremists because you think they are cool or something and expect them to protect your rights. You need to remember that the right wing got their start as the monarchists and nobody had rights under a monarchy except the king.
Re:Newsome himself said it was a bad law (Score:4, Insightful)
We need voters who are smart enough to recognize these kind of bullshit bills.
California needs voters who recognize anything other than party affiliation on the ballot.
Good luck with that.
If you haven't already heard if all of these age verification laws are being passed by Facebook and Planitir.
And understandably so, since (aside from collecting that much more data to sell to advertisers) they're the ones being threatened with dire consequences if they don't keep children restricted from the bad old interwebs, a task that is utterly impossible. But if they shift the legal responsibility onto someone else - anyone else, but Microsoft and Apple are good targets, and ultimately, to the government itself, then they are in the clear.
Social media giants pushing for this kind of crap was inevitable when the pearl clutchers and hysterical wannabe autocrats have enough influence to seriously threaten them.
And at 18yo tech will feed you to the Ad wolves (Score:5, Insightful)
And understandably so, since (aside from collecting that much more data to sell to advertisers) they're the ones being threatened with dire consequences if they don't keep children restricted from the bad old interwebs, a task that is utterly impossible. But if they shift the legal responsibility onto someone else - anyone else, but Microsoft and Apple are good targets, and ultimately, to the government itself, then they are in the clear.
Social media giants pushing for this kind of crap was inevitable when the pearl clutchers and hysterical wannabe autocrats have enough influence to seriously threaten them.
And when you reach 18 years old, the tech companies will congratulate you on your birthday and THEN sell all the data they've collected on you since you were 4 to the data brokers and targeting influencers.
Re: (Score:2)
I know you are, but what am I?
If they don't include open source (Score:1)
it will have to become anonymous source. In authoritarian societies it is unwise to put your name on anything.
But it will all become meaningless when everything is built into the hardware, as if it isn't already.
why should everyone do this (Score:3)
Age-Verification Bill Excludes Open-Source (Score:2)
Open Source and Age-Verification are incompatible due to anonymity.
Re: (Score:2)
It just means the OS doesn't need to support the APIs.
It doesn't mean that stuff needing the age will simply be forced to ignore it.
If a site wants to do an age check, and the OS is Linux, then it's likely going to assume unless you agree to the site age verification, you're not allowed in. The OS age check simply bypasses the need for the website to do its own check.
In other words, right now it's what we have now, where websites get hacked constantly because now they're holding lots of ID. And even ID age
Re: Age-Verification Bill Excludes Open-Source (Score:2)
Open source operating systems are why this bill is stupid. They are trying to take the burden of age verification off of the likes of Facebook and Google and put it on the operating system. Even Fedora, Debian, and Arch all support this, a kid who wants to get on facebook can hack their own open source operating system and get around this requirement. The burden of verification should be on the content maker, not the operating system. If they are worried about the 1% who can use Linux then they should n
Does this include FreeDOS? (Score:3)
Revised Headline: Politician Makes Vague Promise! (Score:2)
Nope (Score:2)
How is this even a thing? (Score:2)
Seriously, how is this whole discussion even a thing and not instantly being shutdown democratically?
The boiling-the-frog invasions of privacy have reach a penetration-depth we previously did not even know existed, and it is beyond scary.
Sue them for entrapment (Score:3)
Please ensure that the bill is amended so that it does not require applications that have no possible use for the age bracket to ask about it.
And when they ignore this and still require age verification with everything, ask them exactly how, in detail, you're supposed to implement it. When they respond with their typical "I don't know because I'm a fucking idiot politician", sue them for entrapment.
why is this even hard (Score:1)
So let me get this straight... (Score:1)
There is a law in the pipes that would preclude minors from logging into computers of any kind? Isn't that a bit radical, considering children have CS classes these days?
Worst case scenario (Score:1)
So we end up with generations of technically astute teenage boys that embrace open source and know what boobs look like? I call that a Win-Win.