Linux locked out of age-gated services because it doesn’t have the necessary verification features and adoption stifles in 3…2…
But seriously do you think it’s really a good thing that the country seems to be moving forward with requiring ID to be online, and suddenly they’re like “oh pff Linux? Yeah don’t worry about that shit, it can be exempt whatever” like that makes it for Special Boys who can Keep Their Freedom and Tendies?
No man, it’ll be DRM’d off the internet. They’ll keep using it for servers since servers don’t need to verify their age to clients. This feels like an attempt to kill Linux on the desktop.
The correct thing would be to not have this law at all.
Good news! Linux isn’t getting “locked out” of age-gated services (those checks happen at the site itself for ID vendors, digital ID wallets), not via the OS. There’s no mechanism in these laws that transmits an OS age signal to websites, so there’s nothing to lock Linux out of. Sites just fall back to their own verification, same as they must for any desktop browser.
The “they’ll quietly exempt Linux as a trap” framing also doesn’t match reality: California’s AB 1856 passed 69-0 explicitly redefining “OS provider” to exclude GPL/MIT/BSD/Apache software, Colorado exempts open-source OS outright, and the exemption bans requesting age signals unless legally required , the opposite of a DRM channel. Servers are untouched because there’s no obligation on servers.
That said, the core worry is legitimate: these laws are scope creep waiting to happen. An earlier draft of AB 1856 would have forced browsers and websites to demand age signals and, that would have hit Linux hard. It died this time, but nothing says it stays dead. So the threat isn’t today’s statutes, it’s the next round of amendments, plus hybrid cases like SteamOS sitting in legal gray zones.
You’re right, the law shouldn’t exist at all, and the trajectory deserves skepticism.
However, the mechanism is not there Nobody’s DRM’ing Linux off the internet, YET.
Linux locked out of age-gated services because it doesn’t have the necessary verification features and adoption stifles in 3…2…
But seriously do you think it’s really a good thing that the country seems to be moving forward with requiring ID to be online, and suddenly they’re like “oh pff Linux? Yeah don’t worry about that shit, it can be exempt whatever” like that makes it for Special Boys who can Keep Their Freedom and Tendies?
No man, it’ll be DRM’d off the internet. They’ll keep using it for servers since servers don’t need to verify their age to clients. This feels like an attempt to kill Linux on the desktop.
The correct thing would be to not have this law at all.
Good news! Linux isn’t getting “locked out” of age-gated services (those checks happen at the site itself for ID vendors, digital ID wallets), not via the OS. There’s no mechanism in these laws that transmits an OS age signal to websites, so there’s nothing to lock Linux out of. Sites just fall back to their own verification, same as they must for any desktop browser.
The “they’ll quietly exempt Linux as a trap” framing also doesn’t match reality: California’s AB 1856 passed 69-0 explicitly redefining “OS provider” to exclude GPL/MIT/BSD/Apache software, Colorado exempts open-source OS outright, and the exemption bans requesting age signals unless legally required , the opposite of a DRM channel. Servers are untouched because there’s no obligation on servers.
That said, the core worry is legitimate: these laws are scope creep waiting to happen. An earlier draft of AB 1856 would have forced browsers and websites to demand age signals and, that would have hit Linux hard. It died this time, but nothing says it stays dead. So the threat isn’t today’s statutes, it’s the next round of amendments, plus hybrid cases like SteamOS sitting in legal gray zones.
You’re right, the law shouldn’t exist at all, and the trajectory deserves skepticism.
However, the mechanism is not there Nobody’s DRM’ing Linux off the internet, YET.
The fight is making sure that stays true.