5 ms·

It is a stupid law but I feel people are overthinking this. For compliance the os has to provide an age category to an application and an interface for the use

by somat 7mo ago

It is a stupid law but I feel people are overthinking this. For compliance the os has to provide an age category to an application and an interface for the user to enter this data. We already have an api to provide information to applications. it's called the filesystem. and an interface to enter the data, that's called the shell. so everything is already there. If the user lives in california and wants to be compliant (wait a minute, let me stop laughing) all they have to do is put a file somewhere with a age category in it. if the application can't find it. well it's not their fault the law is stupid.

LelouBil 7mo ago
Yes people are overthinking. Actually having a cross-distro way to specify an age group for parental control purposes would be very useful. If the law starts to change and be about surveillance (which it isn't about _right now_) then distro maintainers will just not implement that.
- SV_BubbleTime 7mo ago
  [flagged]
  - tstrimple 7mo ago
    [flagged]
fainpul 7mo ago
You are underthinking this. You described a technical solution to comply with this law. Yes, that's easy. The problem is the legal implications.
- gzread 7mo ago
  What are the legal implications?
  - fainpul 7mo ago
    I'm not a lawyer. But it seems to be the same as accepting the terms of service of some product you use or clicking on a "Yes I'm 18+" button to gain access, isn't it? If you somehow suffer from a negative outcome, it puts the blame clearly on you, from a legal standpoint, if you lied about your age or ignored the TOS.
    - gzread 7mo ago
      It says nobody is liable for the signal being wrong i.e. the parent is allowed to give the child an over 18 account or full access if they think that's appropriate.
      - fainpul 7mo ago
        It says no such thing. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1043 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml...
enoint 7mo ago
How should maintainers think about it? Without that file, I hope the age category generalizes to 0. Also, I suppose the file’s ctime should be subtracted from localtime and added to the age, but maybe not if the special value 0 was entered.

by somat 7mo ago

LelouBil 7mo ago

Yes people are overthinking. Actually having a cross-distro way to specify an age group for parental control purposes would be very useful. If the law starts to change and be about surveillance (which it isn't about _right now_) then distro maintainers will just not implement that.

SV_BubbleTime 7mo ago
[flagged]
- tstrimple 7mo ago
  [flagged]

fainpul 7mo ago

You are underthinking this. You described a technical solution to comply with this law. Yes, that's easy. The problem is the legal implications.

gzread 7mo ago
What are the legal implications?
- fainpul 7mo ago
  I'm not a lawyer. But it seems to be the same as accepting the terms of service of some product you use or clicking on a "Yes I'm 18+" button to gain access, isn't it? If you somehow suffer from a negative outcome, it puts the blame clearly on you, from a legal standpoint, if you lied about your age or ignored the TOS.
  - gzread 7mo ago
    It says nobody is liable for the signal being wrong i.e. the parent is allowed to give the child an over 18 account or full access if they think that's appropriate.
    - fainpul 7mo ago
      It says no such thing. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1043 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml...

enoint 7mo ago

How should maintainers think about it? Without that file, I hope the age category generalizes to 0. Also, I suppose the file’s ctime should be subtracted from localtime and added to the age, but maybe not if the special value 0 was entered.