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How Linux developers defeated the new OS age-verification laws (blazetrends.com)
submitted 3 months ago by to c/linux@lemmy.world
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The coordinated effort worked. When lawmakers finalized Colorado SB26-051, they added Section 6-30-105(e) to the text. This specific clause waives compliance for operating systems and applications distributed under licenses that allow copying, modifying, and redistributing without platform-imposed technical restrictions. Why the Section 6-30-105(e) Exemption Protects Decentralized Tech

This exemption establishes a formal legislative precedent for the tech industry. It legally shields free and open-source operating systems from hardware-level age attestation laws that closed ecosystems like iOS and Windows will soon have to follow.

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[–] 7 points 3 months ago (1 child)

Then if it doesn't matter, why even put it in? I know you're not so ignorant as to not realize this is how it starts. They add something innocent and unimportant so that idiots like you will say "it's fine, it's not a big deal, it doesn't matter" and then they slowly make it more and more invasive, little by little

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  • [–] -1 points 3 months ago* (1 child)

    Idk man, why put it? I agree, I down voted the proposal since it was useless. Didn't go mad posting about it tho.

    I understood from the beginning that you are trying to make a "slippery slope" point, but this is open source, each change should be evaluated as is, with what it implies. A local field that isn't being used in anything doesn't condition users or Devs to anything that will then make them accommodated and easier to approve an actual invasive feature.

    I will agree with the slippery slope argument when they propose a feature that is minimally invasive. This was both useless and 0 invasive.

    Edit: actually no, this feature wasn't useless overall. It was useless for age verification, but great for parental control. The moment a kid doesn't have root access to the computer, a parent can put whatever age to block the kid from whatever features the parent wants to block them from. Think about it, self enforcing age verification doesn't give power to governments, it gives it to the root user of the computer, aka parents. It's something that actually works.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 months ago

    Edit: actually no, this feature wasn’t useless overall. It was useless for age verification, but great for parental control. The moment a kid doesn’t have root access to the computer, a parent can put whatever age to block the kid from whatever features the parent wants to block them from. Think about it, self enforcing age verification doesn’t give power to governments, it gives it to the root user of the computer, aka parents. It’s something that actually works.

    That's absolutely a valid use case. But I just use timekpr-next on my kids' non-root accounts and that solves it.

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