4 ms·

> Also, where does anything in the CA bill mandate age verification? It's saying the OS needs to prompt for age bracket info and allow the third party apps to q

> Also, where does anything in the CA bill mandate age verification? It's saying the OS needs to prompt for age bracket info and allow the third party apps to query that. That is far different from verification. Regardless of the technical details of the law(s), the devs are sensibly refusing to prompt for age on a fricking calculator. Hopefully Linux distros get on board with this and announce non-CA/CO compliance as policy.

drnick1 8mo ago
Ultimately, it does not matter. This legal notice is just theater, as anyone from CA or CO can still download, build and use the program. Linux distributions will just do the same.
- goda90 8mo ago
  You might say the bills themselves are theater. Respond to theater with theater.
  - c3d 8mo ago
    Exactly
- parasense 8mo ago
  Certainly. However, The developer seems to want to avoid the $2,500 per violation by any child who accesses the calculator, and might see a dick pic... because that calculator firmware does indeed allow for image viewing, and application development. It's more powerful than your PC back in the late 1990s.
  - chungy 8mo ago
    > It's more powerful than your PC back in the late 1990s. Sounds like a fun thought, but almost certainly untrue: https://www.swissmicros.com/product/dm42 https://www.swissmicros.com/product/dm42 All new PCs sold in the late 1990s handedly beat these specifications. On CPU, storage, RAM, and display. The DM42 firmly remains an embedded system that's just enough for the calculator software and not much more. If you want to take it back to the early 1980s, you start reaching the claim being true.
  - benj111 8mo ago
    True. I can see 58008 on mine....
  - rockskon 8mo ago
    Or, heaven forbid, 8008135. Can't allow that!
  - theodric 8mo ago
    I had a program on my overclocked TI-83 in 1998 that displayed a single pseudo-greyscale dithered photograph of a topless Pamela Anderson, which has left me hopelessly psychologically scarred. Ban this filth
    - outerpasta 8mo ago
      Is this sarcasm? I hope so.
- hagbard_c 8mo ago
  Well, no, that's not how laws like this work. Of course people in these states can just install the software and it is very likely nothing more will come from that unless some politico in one of these states decides she has a beef against the company, group or person which distributes the software. When that happens she'll have this law at hand to whack them with because the knowingly violated state law so they need to be dealt with, won't anyone think of the children?.
  - pixl97 8mo ago
    I'd also put notice in the usage that the offices of the representatives of the politicians that voted for this law they are not allowed to use the software as a historical wall of shame.
tliltocatl 8mo ago
For Linux it will be way more problematic because: - A lot of of corporate contributions comes from SV. - Linux Foundation is incorporated in CA. - Linus himself is CA's resident AFAIR. So there is zero chance of claiming no jurisdiction. The only hope is whoever is enforcing this batshit wouldn't go after what is essentially not an OS for the purpose of the bill, but rather an internal component (it would be like going after a vendor of bolts and nuts for noncompliance of a toaster).
- mghackerlady 8mo ago
  [flagged]
  - tliltocatl 8mo ago
    Stop spreading disinformation. Linus and others did most of the work in the kernel. GNU project on the kernel side was architecture astronaut vaporware aka "Hurd". They were much more successful in userland (coreutils, gcc and the toolchain, gdb, Emacs, to name a few).
    - mghackerlady 8mo ago
      I meant the userland specifically. By calling what is fundamentally a GNU system running on a different kernel just "linux" it makes people think linux and his crew made all of the userland, in part because saying a college student made "an entire operating system" is far more profitable for news agencies than acknowledging his important but overall relatively small role in what they call "linux"
      - tliltocatl 8mo ago
        Because the kernel is the irreplaceable piece. None of what GNU did is: there are numerous implementations of coreutils and shells and at least one non-GNU production-quality compiler toolchain (clang-llvm), a few alternative libcs. And many distribution do actively use the non-GNU parts. But none of this is useful without the kernel that is compatible with computers people have. And the only usable kernel we have is Linux (while BSDs are out there too, they take a much different tightly-integrated approach to userspace).

drnick1 8mo ago

Ultimately, it does not matter. This legal notice is just theater, as anyone from CA or CO can still download, build and use the program. Linux distributions will just do the same.

goda90 8mo ago
You might say the bills themselves are theater. Respond to theater with theater.
- c3d 8mo ago
  Exactly
parasense 8mo ago
Certainly. However, The developer seems to want to avoid the $2,500 per violation by any child who accesses the calculator, and might see a dick pic... because that calculator firmware does indeed allow for image viewing, and application development. It's more powerful than your PC back in the late 1990s.
- chungy 8mo ago
  > It's more powerful than your PC back in the late 1990s. Sounds like a fun thought, but almost certainly untrue: https://www.swissmicros.com/product/dm42 https://www.swissmicros.com/product/dm42 All new PCs sold in the late 1990s handedly beat these specifications. On CPU, storage, RAM, and display. The DM42 firmly remains an embedded system that's just enough for the calculator software and not much more. If you want to take it back to the early 1980s, you start reaching the claim being true.
- benj111 8mo ago
  True. I can see 58008 on mine....
- rockskon 8mo ago
  Or, heaven forbid, 8008135. Can't allow that!
- theodric 8mo ago
  I had a program on my overclocked TI-83 in 1998 that displayed a single pseudo-greyscale dithered photograph of a topless Pamela Anderson, which has left me hopelessly psychologically scarred. Ban this filth
  - outerpasta 8mo ago
    Is this sarcasm? I hope so.
hagbard_c 8mo ago
Well, no, that's not how laws like this work. Of course people in these states can just install the software and it is very likely nothing more will come from that unless some politico in one of these states decides she has a beef against the company, group or person which distributes the software. When that happens she'll have this law at hand to whack them with because the knowingly violated state law so they need to be dealt with, won't anyone think of the children?.
- pixl97 8mo ago
  I'd also put notice in the usage that the offices of the representatives of the politicians that voted for this law they are not allowed to use the software as a historical wall of shame.

tliltocatl 8mo ago

For Linux it will be way more problematic because: - A lot of of corporate contributions comes from SV. - Linux Foundation is incorporated in CA. - Linus himself is CA's resident AFAIR. So there is zero chance of claiming no jurisdiction. The only hope is whoever is enforcing this batshit wouldn't go after what is essentially not an OS for the purpose of the bill, but rather an internal component (it would be like going after a vendor of bolts and nuts for noncompliance of a toaster).

mghackerlady 8mo ago
[flagged]
- tliltocatl 8mo ago
  Stop spreading disinformation. Linus and others did most of the work in the kernel. GNU project on the kernel side was architecture astronaut vaporware aka "Hurd". They were much more successful in userland (coreutils, gcc and the toolchain, gdb, Emacs, to name a few).
  - mghackerlady 8mo ago
    I meant the userland specifically. By calling what is fundamentally a GNU system running on a different kernel just "linux" it makes people think linux and his crew made all of the userland, in part because saying a college student made "an entire operating system" is far more profitable for news agencies than acknowledging his important but overall relatively small role in what they call "linux"
    - tliltocatl 8mo ago
      Because the kernel is the irreplaceable piece. None of what GNU did is: there are numerous implementations of coreutils and shells and at least one non-GNU production-quality compiler toolchain (clang-llvm), a few alternative libcs. And many distribution do actively use the non-GNU parts. But none of this is useful without the kernel that is compatible with computers people have. And the only usable kernel we have is Linux (while BSDs are out there too, they take a much different tightly-integrated approach to userspace).