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California moves to exempt Linux from its age-verification law after backlash
- fleroviumna 6mo ago[dead]
- kgwxd 6mo agoNo, not exemptions! Drop the stupid-ass law all together.
- trollbridge 6mo agoKind of interesting - basically exempts any OS that’s under an MIT or GPL licence… … doesn’t that excuse Android and possibly XNU, too?
- antiframe 6mo agoIs all the code running on my Google Pixel 10 licensed under GPL and/or MIT? I think we have our answer.
- user_7832 6mo agoI think there's a lot of proprietary stuff, from Google Play Services to Pixel specific features. A very significant stack of "modern" software layers are proprietary, even on Android.
- thefreeman 6mo agoI think that was his point
- user_7832 5mo agoWelp, looks like I got wooshed
- realusername 6mo agoModern open-source Android doesn't even include a working keyboard nowadays so...
- hnlmorg 6mo agoWhat are they defining as an operation system? It’s a term that has fuzzy edges as a technical term, and given laws are usually piss poor at defining technical terms, I can’t see it being well defined in CA law.
- Telaneo 6mo agoSo if you load AOSP and don't use Google Play Services, then you're exempt?
- antiframe 6mo agoI would hope so.
- floxy 6mo agoSounds like another fellow GrapheneOS user!
- antiframe 6mo agoIndeed!
- TylerE 6mo agoNo, Android is Apache 2.0.
- tangotaylor 6mo agoThis is a potential loophole. Companies could have an "open source" OS but restrict installations like Tivo did in the 2000s (i.e. "Tivoization"). Or they could allow installation of modified software but restrict functionality like the way the Google Play Integrity API can nerf apps running on custom builds of Android. Or, they can have a license like the Business Source License where you can copy, redistribute, and modify the software but you can't use it commercially. This goes against OSI's open source definition. We emailed this amendment to Buffy Wicks's staff: §1798.504(f) This title does not apply to[...]: (4) An operating system or application that meets both of the following conditions: (A) The operating system or application is distributed under license terms that permit a recipient to copy, redistribute, and modify the software, including for commercial purposes and without payment of a royalty or fee. (B) The operating system provider or developer does not, by technical or contractual means, prevent the recipient from installing modified versions of the software on a device on which the unmodified version operates, and does not restrict the functionality or interoperability of modified versions.
- mmooss 6mo agoThat's great, thank you. > copy, redistribute, and modify the software Shouldn't that specify the code not or not only the software? For example, the corporate Windows license allows the corporation to copy, redistribute (internally), and modify (via group policy, APIs, or development on the Windows platform) the software. The big difference between that and Linux is licensees can't access the code. FOSS requires free access to, use of, modification of, and redistribution of the code.
- tangotaylor 6mo agoHonestly you're probably right, code is a better term. I copied that language from Colorado's SB26-051 bill which also has a FOSS exemption and they use the word "software". I'm not a lawyer but I'm hoping that a court's interpretation of one state's language will apply to other states. That and lots of FOSS licenses use some variant of those words "copy, redistribute, and modify" so it's probably a term-of-art that courts recognize. This is what Colorado's law says. It prevents Tivoization but not feature nerfing like the Play Integrity API. § 6-30-105 (3) (e) AN OPERATING SYSTEM PROVIDER OR DEVELOPER THAT DISTRIBUTES AN OPERATING SYSTEM OR APPLICATION UNDER LICENSE TERMS THAT PERMIT A RECIPIENT TO COPY, REDISTRIBUTE, AND MODIFY THE SOFTWARE WITHOUT ANY PLATFORM-IMPOSED TECHNICAL OR CONTRACTUAL RESTRICTIONS IMPOSED BY THE PROVIDER OR DEVELOPER ON INSTALLING ALL MODIFIED VERSIONS.
- stevenalowe 6mo agoAnd yet, still unlawful compelled speech
- Bender 6mo agoThe only device mandates that should be taking place is for the default installations of web clients should be checking to see if parental controls are enabled. This only impacts the major browsers. An intern at each browser company could add this check in minutes. If they are enabled and the person logged in is on a regular account (not admin or power user of sorts) then the base installation of web clients must check for an RTA header [1]. If present, prompt for a override password and also give the option for the admin to approve-list the domain at that time. That's it. Not perfect, nothing is or will be. The only thing server, platform, website, service providers should be doing is setting an RTA header if the content could possibly be adult or user-contributed content that could dynamically become adult, moderation aside. This knocks out two issues with one fix. Small children don't see much if any adult content and they are kept off social media until the admin (parent or legal guardian) approves it. If a site is not adding the RTA header then progressively fine them into oblivion. If they accept the fines as the cost of doing business then seize everything and put everyone in GenPop. An intern could enable the header in 5 minutes. All legislation regarding age verification must revolve around this otherwise people must reject it as an abusive form of tracking and privacy invasion. The focus should be on small children as teen share porn, warez, movies and such within Rated-G games. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47950091 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47950091
- jahnu 6mo agoHas this idea been discussed when drafting legislation? I mean are they aware of it but dismissed it for any reason or no stated reasons?
- Bender 6mo agoI've emailed politicians as have others but only received boilerplate thankyou's. I suspect the real reason is kick-backs but they will never admit it. No harm in people reaching out to their politicians state and federal. The more people that bring it up the better. Let them know your childrens data will not be shared and when the data is leaked you will hold the politicians accountable.
- softwaredoug 6mo agoAll this because public institutions have lost the will or capacity to regulate the companies. So they switch to burdening the consumers.
- Refreeze5224 6mo agoAnother way to say it is that capital is operating as it always has: in its own interest.
- dylan604 6mo agoLost the will? How about paid to look the other way?
- account42 6mo agoIt's hard for a politician to understand what his campaign contributions require him not to.
- anubistheta 6mo agoThis is regulation from a public institution. Regardless of how such a resolution is passed, it will impact the consumers.
- softwaredoug 6mo agoIt’s regulation on consumers, not companies Banning or limiting addictive features like algorithmic feeds would be regulating the companies.
- jeroenhd 6mo agoThey are regulating the companies. Apple, Google, and Microsoft are companies. Desktop and mobile Linux is an extreme niche and alternatives to Linux are practically nonexistent. I'm not surprised law makers might not have known that there are operating systems not made by for-profit companies.
- dnnddidiej 6mo agoSounds like any GPL and perhaps other licences. Not just Linux.
- jmclnx 6mo agoHopefully the add the BSDs too.
- pessimizer 6mo ago> The proposed amendment specifically states: “Operating system provider” does not mean a person or entity that distributes an operating system or application under license terms that permit a recipient to copy, redistribute, and modify the software.
- cwicklein 6mo agoHow about composite software products, say a de facto operating system which contains substantial elements subject to a permissive license? What if those are the components which support networking? If, hypothetically, a commercial operating system vendor built on Mach and 4BSD?
- cortesoft 6mo agoAs a dad of two younger kids (7 and 10), I have been incredibly frustrated with the way age restrictions are handled across various services. Really, my main complaint comes down to: I completely disagree with what these services choose to restrict for kids and what they allow. They block my kids from doing things I have no problem with them doing and they allow things I would never want my kids to do in 1000 years. It is incredibly frustrating. Often times, there is literally no way for me to bypass some stupid restriction they put on my kids, so the only way I can get it to work is to help my kids lie about their age… and at that point, I lose the ability to actually block things I care about. These laws are just going to make it worse. I don’t want someone else choosing how I control what my kids do. Give me tools to control it myself, and you can choose some presets for parents to use, but don’t force me to use your definition of age appropriate.
- alpinisme 6mo agoWhat tools would you want?
- themafia 6mo agoThe internet is too dynamic to build a working filter around. Perhaps just tools which help parents quickly and efficiently monitor their child's device usage would be best. Do you want to alter behaviors or lock children in a gilded cage?
- cortesoft 6mo agoHonestly, I don’t have a perfect answer. It really depends on what the service is. My main thing is I want to be able to opt in or out of various filters. I don’t mind if my kids want to listen to music that has swear words, but I don’t want them watching videos where they give horribly sexist pickup artist advice. This isn’t just about what I feel is age appropriate, either. It is also about what I know about my kids. My 10 year old hates scary things, and she gets completely freaked out when they show scary movie previews. I would like to be able to block those for her. On the other hand, my 7 year old is obsessed with scary things and I don’t mind if he plays zombie video games.
- wetpaws 6mo ago[dead]
- zeroCalories 6mo ago[flagged]
- SilverElfin 6mo agoIf you are worried about your children, keep them off the internet. Don’t rob society of its right to privacy and anonymity and speech.
- tverbeure 6mo agoWhy don’t you start by explaining how an age verification at the start of a Linux installation help against children being groomed?
- konmok 6mo agoThere are so many low-hanging fruit to choose from if you want to protect children online, so it makes zero sense to start with the option that deprives every adult of their rights.
- lynndotpy 6mo agoWhen I hear that people own cameras, what I hear is that people are okay with children being harmed for the sight convenience of the freedom to create photographs. Let's just be honest about how we're calculting things: You think living without a camera, which is how humanity has lived for 99% of its existence, is worse than children being groomed.
- zeroCalories 6mo ago[flagged]
- JoshTriplett 6mo ago> We certainly need surveillance, but it should only come from official sources. I hope you are never, ever in a position to set any kind of societal policy.
- SilverElfin 6mo agoThe entire age verification and identity verification surveillance system shows state democrats aren’t on our side.
- tzs 6mo agoThe California law has no age verification, identity verification, or surveillance. It is just a pretty simple parental control system, which only applies to devices whose primary user is a child.
- phendrenad2 6mo agoWe did it despite the naysayers who faught us saying it "wasn't a big deal" and that this is the "best version of the law we could get". Never listen to the naysayers and compromise your principles to appease them, stay true to what you believe.
- zarzavat 6mo agoA cynical person might suspect that the reason they are doing this is so that Linux developers don't have standing to challenge the law on 1st amendment grounds...
- SilverElfin 6mo agoThat’s exactly what it is. It removes standing, and that is a major flaw in our legal system. We need significant changes to defend constitutional rights properly.
- NewJazz 6mo agoRemember when women kept suing for the right to get an abortion and the courts kept just waiting out the pregnancy? Something something sixth amendment...
- ndsipa_pomu 6mo agoJustice delayed is justice denied
- cucumber3732842 6mo agoNah, you're not cynical enough. This is the classic "what we're trying to do is bullshit on a fundamental level so we're gonna just exempt random things until it becomes a niche issue and we can just do what we want and from there we'll just close all those exceptions over time" move. Give it 5yr and you'll have idiots in the comments talking about how the "linux loophole" was a mistake and should be closed. Source: history
- seanw444 6mo agoThey're finally applying their 2A strategy to the 1A.
- anigbrowl 6mo agoLEarn to take a win as a win. People who are unable to look at anything without seeing themselves being scammed are clinically paranoid.
- neilv 6mo agoWho is actually writing this very concerning California Internet legislation, which will ultimately affect the entire nation and world? Did someone write California Internet legislation without consulting any California Internet companies? Did some California Internet companies write California Internet legislation? Did some other party write California Internet legislation?
- pwg 6mo agoIf you go take a read through the CA bill text that "became law", you'll quickly realize that whomever did write it must live in a very narrow bubble where the only "computers" that exist in the world are tablet style cell phones, the only OS'es that exist in the world are Android and iOS, and the only way anyone installs any software on the only computers that exist is via an "app store". Meanwhile, while the overall writing clearly indicates the author has a very narrow view of "computers", the definitions of the terms is so broad that every computer, even the tiny embedded CPU in your microwave oven, might just need to ask your age before it allows you to do anything.
- wtallis 6mo ago> every computer, even the tiny embedded CPU in your microwave oven, might just need to ask your age before it allows you to do anything. Why do I keep seeing this bullshit exaggeration? It doesn't help anything to make such ridiculous statements. Nobody's microwave oven has an app store.
- inetknght 6mo ago> Nobody's microwave oven has an app store. Meanwhile, Samsung refrigerators can have an app store.
- pizzafeelsright 6mo agoNo, no, and absolutely. The bill is written 'do good, stop bad stuff by establishing a committee or group to make sure fund good stuff, bad stuff doesn't happen' then the law passes and lobbyists write the details that fund the programs that tax the people that generate the income for companies that donate to the politicians that sell their votes to the lobbyists and interest groups. California politicians start with the end goal "maintain power, secure revolt, obtain capital, deny failure". It goes beyond lying to your face. They will be convincingly genuine, heartfelt, while finding a way to extract as much as possible for themselves, by extension their party, by extension the 'government' and do absolutely anything to keep the illusion that you have a choice, a vote, and a voice. I lived here my whole life. These politicians are evil. Lie, cheat, and steal - deny if caught, punish if provoked.
- givemeethekeys 6mo agoOkay, let's flip it: why would Apple, Microsoft, etc.. agree with such a law? What would the trickle down be for browser makers and website creators?
- shit_game 6mo agoHypothetically, preemptive market recapture? This could theoretically make foss OSs non-kosher for any suitably large market (websites, games, chat platforms, etc), and serve to force foss OSs into a niche where theyre technically capable of being personal desktop software, but practically unusable because of lockout.
- ajnin 6mo agoThis is part of a large movement to end personal computing as we know it, and give all control over our digital lives to the mega corporations. It is already impossible to use some national ID or banking apps on non-Apple and non-Google phones. (say GrapheneOS), giving them an immense edge in the market, and they're using that domination to add more restrictions like installing non-play store apps on Android. This goes bit by bit, try to add a restriction, go back enough to quiet the backlash, try again. This new law is a foot in the door to achieve the same restrictions on PCs. PCs are the last open computing platform and bastions of personal digital freedom and thus they must be destroyed by capitalists and governments. Once the technical means have been put in place to restrict access to some services, the system can be hardened : impose that the age checks can't be tampered with by using a TPU module, impose a link to the individual's identity so that all online activity can be traced to anyone. Pretenses are easy to find : protect children, block sex offenders from accessing dating sites, and so on. At this point I'm pretty convinced we're geared towards a global totalitarian regime, and there's a lot of evidence.
- sakjur 6mo agoIt really bums me out that I fully believe this is it. Megacorps seize the demand for regulation (to regulate them) in order to write regulation that purportedly does that, but in practice mostly closes the doors behind them and cementing their stranglehold on society. For Microsoft, Apple, and Google it's a small thing to agree to age verification if that means all the potential competitors will have to do so too. The cheapest time to shut down a competitor is before they get to market.
- panny 6mo agoAnd I bet that Microsoft employee who was sending PRs to all the linux distros (and systemd) will not bother sending apologies to them for wasting their time.
- sufficientsoup 6mo agoYou mean dylanmtaylor? I didn't know he was an MSFT employee but I guess I wouldn't be surprised.
- hypfer 6mo agoHe isn't. Also never was (unless the CV lies that is). As for what drove him instead.. I suppose we will never know. All we can know for certain is that the whole thing felt _very_ inorganic and not like something a reasonable human being would just start doing out of the blue. (Corporate) politics love plausible deniability, so maybe it was just inherently human randomness. I'm sure it was. Please move along.
- kogasa240p 6mo agoMaybe it's a Lennart Pottering sockpuppet.
- hypfer 6mo agoI doubt it. And you would doubt it too if you would look at the actual person that is Lennart beyond the "Pulseaudio bad. Systemd bad. Lennart bad." meme. Very different handwriting too.
- bastard_op 6mo ago>> SteamOS could still be affected Steam itself does age verification, which when you first boot a steamdesk, afaik it forces you to log into steam before you can do much of anything without some initial hackery. That said, once in there's nothing stopping them from launching into desktop mode, launching firefox, and watching pr0n that way. Sadly the solution is still for parents to do real parenting, but that's like saying stupid people shouldn't breed.
- 7777332215 6mo agoAh, but what about my internet connected TI 84 calculator?
- jiveturkey 6mo agoBOOBS age verified
- thot_experiment 6mo agoWho else has that Tux plushie tho? I've had one since I was like 11 years old.
- lol768 6mo agoSame, my Dad ordered it for me at the time; sits on my desk :-)
- 7e 6mo agoWhy should Linux be exempt? Linux lobbyists seem to be against the public good. It takes an AI agent 5 minutes to add this feature and then they add be good forevermore. And given that the software is open source, everyone can use the same library to be compliant. Belly-aching snowflakes…
- kloop 6mo ago1st amendment. There's a long history of carve outs around commercial products. But, if Linux devs (who aren't selling anything) went to the mat against this law, the government of California would lose and (at least part of) their law would be struck down.
- zoobab 6mo agoKids deserve free speech. There is no valid reason to deny access to them to social networks. First amendment is being breached here.
- 1718627440 5mo agoNo, minors don't have a lot of rights and they have some rights adults have not. That's what it means to not be an adult.
- platevoltage 6mo agoWhy should I care about being surveilled? I have nothing to hide. \s
- jmward01 6mo agoThis is the whole 'opt-in vs opt-out' at a high level. A better law would be crafted like 'some services have been determined to be harmful to minors and require age verification. Those -specific- services shall have these specific mitigations.....' Facebook and others should have a clear legal distinction of 'harmful to children' and then the law kicks in.
- cboyardee 6mo ago[dead]
- ajsnigrutin 6mo agoParental controls should be a client side option set by the user. Sure, make it easy for users to do so, but it's a users choice. Kids don't buy phones or computers, their parents do, and during initial setup, parents could choose "this pc is used by a child" option, input some override password to disable this in the future, and the phone could block whatever needs to be blocked.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- layer8 6mo agoNot just Linux. More specifically: “Operating system provider” does not mean a person or entity that distributes an operating system or application under license terms that permit a recipient to copy, redistribute, and modify the software.
- mmooss 6mo agoYes, I wonder what false positives and false negatives will result from that definition. I suppose Microsoft permits corporate licensees to copy (to all their PCs and servers), redistribute (internally), and modify (by corporate software developers and also by sysadmins using group policy) the software. Maybe it should say, the software 'code' - requiring open source code - and to do it all 'for free'.
- NewJazz 6mo agoI read the title and thought "BSD folk must be in shambles". Glad it is not as shortsighted as I originally thought.
- nikhilpareek13 6mo ago[flagged]
- solenoid0937 6mo agoThis law should never have been proposed to begin with. The fact that the backlash was needed is indicative of a huge problem in our lawmaking.
- Kenji 6mo ago[dead]
- shevy-java 6mo agoI don't trust this one bit. The reason is simple: the pattern I see hints that there is: a) money spent, to push through age-sniffing, and b) it is happening almost globally. I am not necessarily saying that all this can be singularized down to one bribe-using company, be it Meta, Google or what not, or state actors becoming beyond Evil. But just as the butterfly effect is used as analogy how a strong wind can be created further downstream, I see the situation here VERY similar. To me it is not confined to age-sniffing. Remember the sudden declaration of war by the UK against VPN. This is in my opinion connected here. The goal is not "protect the children" but instead spy more on people than before. A gradual extension of this. And some companies and private interests will benefit. See also the recent Palantir claim made against London aka "the major is responsible for more robberies when he refused to obey to our rule". These companies are greedy - and insolent.
- jmyeet 6mo agoWhat's depressing to me is just how self-serving all this is. The original bill was AB 1043. Who supported that, breaking with other tech companies? Why Meta of course [1][2]! Meta likes this because it pushes liability onto the OS providers. Guess who doesn't have an OS? Google's support is a little stranger given Android. It seems like AB 1043 also shifted liability to third-party app developers instead of the app store so, conflicting goals? Likewise, you'll have Microsoft and maybe Apple pushing for Linux to be included for, again, entirely self-serving reasons. Microsoft is never one to miss an opportunity to benefit Windows. All that's going on here is competing corporate interests. Likely nobody in power actually cares the actual end users. As much as libertarians chafe against it, I think we've demonstrated that something has to be done in relation to children online. Advertising to children, harmful impacts of social media, cyberbullying, addictive behavior and selling the data of minors needs to stop. How we get there is unclear. Meanwhile, everyone responsible is just trying to limit and shift their legal liability and that's it. [1]: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/13/california-advances-effort-to-check-kids-ages-online-amid-safety-concerns-00563005 https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/13/california-advances... [2]: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1rshc1f/i_traced_2_billion_in_nonprofit_grants_and_45/ https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1rshc1f/i_traced_2_b...
- tzs 6mo agoIf Meta is liable for when someone underage uses their service, then Meta is going to require proof of age which almost certainly means giving them copies of things like driver's licenses or passports probably along with video showing that you match the photo. In jurisdictions taking the California approach Meta does not need to ask for anything like that. Their app just has to ask the OS, which reports the age bracket that was entered when the user account was made on the device, and the OS gets that information from whoever set up the account. The OS trusts whatever is entered at that time. No driver's licenses or passports or face scans or videos are involved. > As much as libertarians chafe against it, I think we've demonstrated that something has to be done in relation to children online ...and this is pretty much the way to do it with the least impact on privacy and anonymity possible without first building up some high tech cryptographic infrastructure that would likely include hardware requirements that would, at least at first, exclude users who do not have an iOS/iPadOS or Android device that has a secure hardware element.
- m0llusk 6mo agoThe state should handle personal records, authentication, and age verification. Compliance should be as simple as implementing dead simple state provided interfaces.
- GuB-42 6mo agoIf it gets horny teenagers into free software, that's a good thing, I guess :)
- unparagoned 6mo agoI assumed it just means that you wouldn’t be able to access adult material at all on those os.
- grigio 6mo agonext step age-verification at BIOS/EFI level /s
- platevoltage 6mo agoWindows 12 will require a special component on the motherboard to support this feature.
- 1718627440 5mo agoI can't tell whether that is sarcastic or yet another reason why I don't run an OS from MS.
- epr 6mo agoSo are kids not going to have access to llms? Seems trivial to get around this from a technical standpoint for frontier llms no matter how this is implemented.
- nobodyandproud 6mo agoPatching inherently bad legislation doesn’t solve the problems it’ll cause.
- jjcm 6mo agoThis will only help if the law states that internet companies that check this have to default to assuming the user is an adult. Otherwise the end result will be that Linux clients will get caught in a dragnet of automatic denial.
- tardedmeme 6mo agoThis is a bad move. California has no age verification law, only an age asking law and all of the reasons it's good to ask if the user is over 18 are still good reasons if the OS is Linux. And the penalty for providing an OS that doesn't ask if you're over 18 is that it's considered a defective product and you can return it for a refund, but open source software is already provided for free with no warranty so who cares. Unless you bought it from Red Hat so this is basically just giving Red Hat impunity to violate this law, for no reason.
- tzs 6mo agoAs usual 95+% of people commenting have no idea what is actually in the California law, and so are commenting about things that have nothing to do with it. Different states, countries, and multi-country organizations that have legislated in this area or are working on legislating in this area have went with many different approaches. These differ in their scope, how age is verified (or even if age is actually verified), what documentation is required (or even if documentation is required), whether they apply to the web or to apps or to both, whether they make anonymous use harder or not, how much if any sensitive information they disclose to the apps/sites that need to check age, whether they could allow government to track your usage, and in other ways. Most ridiculous are the comments that after saying how bad it is (clearly talking about things not in the California law) then say how it should work and describe something close to the California law.
- abustamam 6mo agoIt's not out of the ordinary for folks on HN to discuss the general subject of a topic and not the exact contents of TFA. The article tends to just be a catalyst for discussions. It is kinda silly to read comments that do what you mention at the end (have a seemingly novel idea to fix the issue at hand and their solution is the one from TFA). That's just embarrassing. But I feel like the rest of the discussions are fair game.
- bijowo1676 6mo agoThe age verification is coming from the Digital Age Assurance Act. this act is pushed by the NGO 501c3 called Common Sense Media, their donors include Bezos, zuckerberg, and other rich people. The same NGO also created a platform called Bandio that provides age verification services. How convenient. Legislate restrictionist policy today that manufactures demand for age verification service, and then rollout the solution for $$$. How convenient, muh free market capitalism. Common sense media also earns $15 mln revenue from licensing its content rating technology.
- throwthrowuknow 6mo agoMagic, Inc.
- subarctic 6mo agoWow this is smart politically because the largest group against this age verification bulls*t just so happens to overlap a lot with people who love open source software (technical people who value user freedom) Of course this also means that the nerds who use linux or lineageos get to win cool points because they can access more adult stuff
- laughing_man 6mo agoThis will either fail or the entire law will go. Microsoft will spend a lot of money to make sure it's not at a disadvantage.
- pengaru 6mo agoIf you look up either "half measures" or "unintended consequences" they should both say "See also: California"
- jamesgill 6mo agoLinux was always exempt--because it's not an operating system.
- TimTheTinker 6mo agoHuh? An operating system, as defined by Andrew Tanenbaum[0], the author of both Minix and of the best operating textbook ever, is a combination of: - an "extended machine": provide usable abstractions over the hardware to reduce complexity to a manageable level - a "resource manager": provide for an orderly and controlled allocation of the processors, memories, and I/O devices among all the various programs wanting them. By that definition, Linux is very much an operating system... unless by "Linux" you meant the kernel only without the additional tooling (systemd, libc, coreutils, shell, etc.) that distros ship with. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_S._Tanenbaum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_S._Tanenbaum
- iamnothere 6mo agoI'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're refering to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX. Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called Linux, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project. There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called Linux distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux!
- 6mo ago
- kajaktum 6mo agoOpen software should not implement this feature because slippery slope is not a fallacy based on my experience. Force them to actually create a government approved operating systems to make it clear how absurd this is and so that we know who will bend the knee.
- NSPG911 6mo agoThe law is so broad that theoretically, age verification can be on your watches, your Ti-84, anything.
- jrnichols 6mo agoLinux will be exempt for now. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see them try to slip it through later. Legislators in California have learned over the years, and have carved out exemptions in bills such as gun control bills to get it passed, and later classified their exemption as a "loophole" to be closed.
- t1234s 6mo agoHow does this age verification crap apply to server environments? If you can't use windows desktop without age verification can you just install windows server or IoT as a loophole?
- apopapo 6mo agoWhat about the BSD kernels? Other libre/open source operating systems? These laws should be canceled altogether. They make no sense at all.
- SilentM68 6mo agoMost politicians are easily swayed when their political bacon is on the line. Perhaps there is yet some hope for California!
- exabrial 6mo agoSo android is exempt?
- soanvig 6mo agoWow, stupid idea is hard to legislate. Nobody could predict that. It reminds me of clients wanting some stupid feature from app developers which does not fit into anything, and makes no business sense, and therefore creates only problems.
- danborn26 6mo agoIt is good to see lawmakers course correct when technical realities are pointed out. Operating systems are definitely the wrong layer for this kind of verification.
- amarant 6mo agoNot how I imagined year of Linux on the desktop to happen, but I'll take it!
- p0w3n3d 6mo agowe're preparing ourselves to deanonymise the internet. We do not know yet what this will have as a collateral, but certainly the governments will use it against us.
- beanjuiceII 6mo agohaving a linux only exception feels pretty weird, they should just drop this all together
- bigyabai 6mo agoWhy? Microsoft, Apple and Google are all pleased as punch with this regulation.
- tssva 6mo agoThis is ridiculous. Either this is a vital child safety requirement that needs to apply to operating systems regardless of origin or it isn't and shouldn't apply to any operating system.
- lucas_t_a 6mo agoit would be pointless to force software that can be modified to remove an age-verification to have age-verification. but maybe they can move to force distributed copies of linux to have age-verification, hopefully dealing with those complaints
- ajaimk 6mo agoIs an android technically Linux and open source?
- akdev1l 6mo agoTechnically linux. Not open source in its commercial forms.
- giancarlostoro 6mo agoI was hoping we'd see some "-CA Compliant" ISOs of Linux distros released (crackes me up thinking about it), it feels a little insane to me that we would force so many open source projects to check for a person's age.
- NoSalt 6mo agoOn a side note ... does anybody know where I can get one of those Tux plushies? The tag appears to say "Penguin Power ... https://www.PenguinPower.com/ https://www.PenguinPower.com/", but that doesn't resolve to anything useful.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- Projectiboga 6mo agoFor now while everone gets used to it.
- feckeneejit 5mo agoits as if all states and countries enact the same laws after each other as if they are being handed a script from somewhere.