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.
It’s unenforceable on Linux. A Linux user can simply remove or modify any code running on their machine. Fedora, Debian, and Arch can’t make a user verify their age any more than they can force you to use Gnome. It’s kinda the whole point of FOSS.
There is a very easy way to force linux users to enforce this. However, I won’t give it away here, because as far as I can tell the current law makers are clueless.
And I don’t want to give them clues.
There isn’t an easy way. There may be a way to enforce it when you connect to a remote site, but that requires the remote computer to implement it, not you.
Our current law makers are still debating if freeing the slaves was a good idea. That’s how far behind they are.
I’m going to argue that you share it because one thing you can count on is very determined nerds to defeat it.
Every time legislators tried to enforce some sort of dystopian thing, developers saw it as damage and routed around it.
I am very glad that you have strategically selected which parts of your mind to lose.
My fellow lemming, your lawmakers are not on here don’t worry.
And that’s the whole point of the amendment to that law. Their congress critters were enlightened on the futility of such an endeavor. Next is California.
but systemd has dooomed us all
waaaaaahh!
How some Linux developers defeated (for now) the new OS age-verification laws. Long live those Linux developers, who “heavily criticized the mandates”, made public statements, and contacted the legislators.
Because other Linux developers, instead, immediately bent over backwards to start implementing changes towards accommodating those laws; for sure they didn’t heavily criticize the mandates, nor make public statements, nor contact the legislators.
From the linked System76 blog:
New York’s proposed Senate Bill S8102A requires adults to prove they’re adults to use a computer, exercise bike, smart watch, or car if the device is internet enabled with app ecosystems. The bill explicitly forbids self-reporting and leaves the allowed methods to regulations written by the Attorney General. Practical methods for a bill of such extreme breadth would require, in many instances, providing private information to a third-party just to use a computer at all. Privacy disappears.
That’s appalling, and NY won’t be the only government trying it. This is going to be one of those battles we need to fight again and again.
Too bad this is moot. Google wants to deploy QR codes to prove you are human and not AI. The QR code is for your phone to prove you are real. Oops, your phone has a uuid and phone number and there goes your privacy.
is there a similar contingency in the California law?
