I don’t see how this could be enforcable. If i don’t let my computer automatically update (and i don’t) i could stick with one version of Debian forever. It wouldn’t be ideal, but i don’t see why all my offline programs wouldn’t work fine with no security issues as long as i’m offline.

And what about those rare operating systems that don’t do any networking? I know most people don’t use TempleOS but it does exist and would suffer little if at all from this. The bill mentions a fine (1798.503. (a)) for failing to either demand a date of birth or say “Not for use in California”, but how does that work with any abandoned OS? There are plenty that are unmaintained now for which there’s nobody to fine.

I am curious to know what the big distros (and i guess also non-Linux OSs) plan to do about this. Some might comply, there might be some “Not for use in California” stickers on download pages.

Hell, even if every OS does implement this and every user is honest about their age, that still doesn’t help protect children from anything. It is in fact false that only one person can use a computer, or only one person can use a user account on a computer. I let my kid brother play games on my computer sometimes and i know other people share too. I can honestly say i’m over 18 and there can still be times when someone who’s not is on my computer. The bill as written even seems to aknowledge this in “1798.504 (g) This title does not impose liability on an operating system provider, a covered application store, or a developer that arises from the use of a device or application by a person who is not the user to whom a signal pertains.”

Sometimes it feels like the world is falling apart at every point and i’m drowning in the overwhelming flood of bad news. ICE, Al, this shit, Ukraine has been pushed out of the news by everything else, how are they doing⸮ And the globe is still warming, people keep making benches with extra handrails and spikes, i can’t grow my own food because the air and water and soil are poison, too many can’t afford a home to not freeze in winter or boil in summer; and it’s all too much.

I’d love to change the world, but i don’t know what to do.

One thing at a time. I’m making sure i have full installer images (full, not just install-enough-to-download-the-rest) for a couple backup operating systems in case somehow this sort of thing does shoot down Linux. I don’t think that’ll happen, but it doesn’t hurt to have onhand.

What else is there to do? That’s not rhetorical. What can i do as a citizen of the USA but not California to stop this?

How USA law handles precedent (i think, i’m no lawyer) makes everything like this feel heavier. As a non-lawyer, letting some dunderhead demand any feature, no matter how ineffective at its stated goal, be implemented in all operating systems feels like a potentially slippery slope. Today, input a number ≥18 when you get a new computer or OS. Tomorrow, some other step towards dystopia. I don’t know, it’s late and i’m tired.

So, who wants this⸮ The jays who made the law and nobody else. Ask anyone, i’m pretty confident that most people will see problems with this immediately. And if they need yet more reasons, (Hacker News has pointed out plenty of downsides to this for just about everyone. But before we all get too critical, i think it’s important to have a look at the actual bill too. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1043

Done reading⸮ Great, let’s be critical.

The language suggests whoever wrote this doesn’t know the difference between the Internet and the Web, maybe doesn’t know what an operating system is, doesn’t know how peope use computers, and doesn’t have a grammar checker. In fairness, i don’t have a grammar checker either. But i proofread stuff i write, and none of it is as consequential as new laws.

So Little Timmy’s computer knows he’s somewhere between 0 and 13 years old, and has to pass that information along to any “publicly available internet website, software application, online service, or platform”, which are basically defined as something that distributes programs/apps for a computer that can download apps (so i guess if you can only sideload it’s not a computer). “internet website” sounds like it’s supposed to mean a website that lets you download things. That is, every website that’s still online can be downloaded with a regular browser, and in fact must be so your computer knows what the page you’re trying to read is and what to show you. Even if this doesn’t include every website (and i’m sure it’s not meant to), how is your OS or browser to know what sites let you download applications and what sites don’t⸮

Furthermore, 1798.501 (b) (1) “A developer shall request a signal with respect to a particular user from an operating system provider or a covered application store when the application is downloaded and launched.” That is, it is the duty of anyone who maintains a website where you can download stuff to request to know the age bracket of the user. At worst, this means the owner of every website visited by Little Timmy can see that a user account on his IP address is in the 0-13 bracket. At best, this means that just people behind specifically just app stores can see that same information.

People should not write laws about topics they don’t know anything about. Beyond all the obvious really important reasons why, it makes them look like fools to those of us who do know what they’re talking about, or at least what they think they’re talking about.

People should be fighting to oppose this more then trying to figure out ways to circumvent this at the moment.

Literally how can they enforce this on Linux? It’s open-source, people just won’t choose those versions or edit that out of the code.

One more reason to move to Linux. At least you can always pick another flavor in case one does this. Windows and Apple users likely won’t get much choice.

I can only imagine FreeBSD requiring something like this haha