If you can feel a very small tinge of existential horror when you read the words “try to”, congratulations, you’re a true *nix devotee.

If legislators get grumpy about this, just gently thwap them with your handy copy of The Unix Haters Handbook and tell them you’re working as hard as you can under the circumstances.

  • raicon@lemmy.world
    138·
    28 days ago

    Age verification is just paving way for things a lot worse: globally unique identification.

    They ( politicians ) will weaponize the inefficiencies in this implementation to push for an online verification later on.

    And of course Peter Thiel will be somewhere in the middle

  • DaddleDew@lemmy.world
    30·
    28 days ago

    The problem with that whole situation is the way the law is written the developer is the one held responsible if a child circumvents the check to access adult content. Therefore, developers will have to pay hefty fines unless they:

    -1: Have a way to positively make sure the person enters their age is telling the truth; and

    -2: Lock this value from being changed by the user afterwards.

    Or: Region lock the OS.

    One can see how incredibly problematic this is for both privacy and true ownership and control over your own machine. There is also a lot that needs to be figured out in the law such as what will happen when someone inevitably finds a way to hack the system to circumvent it, especially the region lock. Ultimately, big tech has deep pockets and can shrug off the fines but small nonprofit open source projects will be killed by them.

    This law is specifically designed to kill nonprofit-run and private software like Linux.

    • Yardy Sardley@lemmy.ca
      16·
      28 days ago

      All of this seems impossible to enforce in the FOSS ecosystem. People can just fork the software and remove any restriction they don’t like. That’s kind of the whole point of free software. Users are free to use their devices however they like, including in ways that are not intended by the devloper.

  • Vocalize8711@lemmy.world
    28·
    28 days ago

    By definition of this new law, is Linux an OS? It is technically just the kernel. At what layer of the software stack does the responsibility of age verification lie at?

    • thethunderwolf@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      6·
      27 days ago

      Linux is the kernel, GNU is the operating system, make demands to them
      GNU is only a component of the GNU/Linux system, make demands to distributors
      But this is a distribution of Linux, make demands to Linux
      But Linux is the kernel…

      • KindaABigDyl@programming.dev
        8·
        27 days ago

        Why? As long as they release the source, it should still be good. Californians will just have to build everything themselves and risk breaking the law

        • Peck@lemmy.world
          2·
          25 days ago

          I don’t think you can restrict the usage geographically under LGPL. Oh course it’s unlikely to be enforced, but it’s license violation nonetheless.

        • groet@feddit.org
          1·
          26 days ago

          They will make it so that “allowing users from California to download the OS (or code) from you is already a crime”. So for example canoical will have to geoblock californians from downloading ubuntu and any peer-to-peer downloads will be illegal anyway because fuck you.

          • KindaABigDyl@programming.dev
            1·
            26 days ago

            Right. That’s the idea. Since Cali has a dumb law, it would be illegal to download Ubuntu in California. Californians follow their law, Ubuntu has to change nothing.

            But how is that a license violation on Canonical’s part?

            • groet@feddit.org
              1·
              25 days ago

              License? I never mentioned licenses.

              Selling drugs is illegal because drugs are illegal. If a OS without age verification is illegal, then (depending on how stupid the laws are) having a site where you can download such a OS could also be declared illegal.

              Basically force all providers of OSs to include verification or block downloads to those states, or face fines for “distributing illegal software”.

              I am saying, if they are stupid enough to do X they might be stupid enough to try the even more stupid thing to achieve X.

  • zephiriz@lemmy.ml
    18·
    27 days ago

    I wonder about all the little IoT things we have that run Linux but have no interface other than a button or 2. My garage door opener, a picture frame, my lawnmower, my vacuum, my switches, my modem, my cameras…

  • sonofearth@lemmy.world
    13·
    28 days ago

    If I have to age verify to my OS, then I will just want the human race to nuke the entire planet out of existence. It’s better to be dead than succumbing to pedophile lawmakers.

    • MrKoyun@lemmy.world
      2·
      27 days ago

      Yes! Go get it. Exactly what needs to happen.

      Hoping for the day one of the elites pushes a button, launches a nuclear, WW3 entails, and we all fucking perish. Its clear the world’s gonna end, might as well save all the trouble and end it now!!!

  • Hiro8811@lemmy.world
    9·
    27 days ago

    Or you can just refuse to operate there, if enough developers do that It’ll force them scrap it.

      • Hiro8811@lemmy.world
        1·
        27 days ago

        So? If Linux refuses to operate there it’ll affect the government directly, I’m sure they have various servers that need to keep running and changing to another OS will take too much time and money. Plus this is a statement showing that the open source community won’t comply with what one government wants