Guess GNU/Linux is about to get popular with kids.

Open source ftw

better but still bad. hope it blows up in their faces in ways worse than i can even imagine.

I had a thought, this is done to reduce opposition to age verification. Most people who really care about privacy will use Linux and open source. So now a lot of those will not care about the age verification being thrust on Microsoft/Apple users because it doesn't affect them.

This was never about the children. Besides what does this really accomplish when there's Roblox?

I’m glad there are still options.

Cynical me thinks this might make big software vendors marginalize or demonize these platforms further for not “verifying” their users.

I am waiting for the day to teach the niblings how to operate TempleOS

Geez. Windows is just getting less and less worth it, even for more mainstream consumers.

So if you want to protect your kids from adult rated content, and you live in California, you need to buy a propietary system. Which make sure data collectors get to know all about them, and therefore doesn't protect them… But am I the only one to see the commercial argument about to be used by MS, Apple, and others?

Why to specify the licenses? Why not all opensource software?

If it's public domain, is it required? If it's EUPL, is it required?

I'm under the belief the push for Linux to be exempted is because the amount of work that enterprise would have to retrofit their network, server and software applications would be too costly. So once again Capitalism favors itself over the consumer. Just here the consumer gets a taste of what a govt exemption feels like.

I'm really impressed!

The headline shortchanges the exception.

These amendments redefine the term “operating system provider” to exclude any person or entity that distributes an OS or application “under license terms that permit a recipient to copy, redistribute, and modify the software.” Any software distributed under the GPL, MIT, BSD, and Apache licenses satisfies that test, which removes the likes of Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, Arch, and the BSD family from AB 1856’s scope.

This ahould mean an Open Source, encrypted Discord competitor would also not be required to do age checks (i.e. Matrix, etc).

Well, this has the potential to positively impact a project I'm an active part of: Simutrans. Simutrans is FOSS, so if software became required to verify age, it would definitely cause issues for us. So this is potentially some good news.

While I personally dislike age verification, I'm only a little worried about government overreach. Not totally unconcerned, mind, but I'm not so sure it'll generally be quite as huge of a deal as some seem to think. But I don't particularly like it.

So to me, this is a potential positive step in pushing more to Linux/FOSS, which I think is generally a good thing. And if I'm right and age verification isn't a huge deal, I still think this is good for that reason. And if some of the more worried folks are correct, then this potentially could be huge.