If you can feel a very small tinge of existential horror when you read the words “try to”, congratulations, you’re a true *nix devotee.
If legislators get grumpy about this, just gently thwap them with your handy copy of The Unix Haters Handbook and tell them you’re working as hard as you can under the circumstances.
I’m getting closer and closer to either leaving the US as a tech-refuge or moving to the middle of nowhere and living off grid with my data horde that has more offline media than one could consume in a lifetime.
Not sure which is the best option. My bet is that Trump will start dropping nukes to prevent himself from leaving office and wind up cooking the planet alive before I get to choose.
This is another step towards having a digital ID that is required to use computers at all.
If they made TempleOS the default operating system age verification would be irrelevant because it takes 20 years of experience to use.
groups katykaty : katy sudo adultEvery time I login, I’m going to send a selfie to my Congress man or woman with a meme text on the top and bottom. Maybe it could just be “fuck asshole” at the top. And “I’m an adult” at the bottom.
We don’t comply, is what we do. We ignore stupid fuckin’ laws made by idiots who clearly have no idea what consultation is. It’s time open source tech starts to diversify where it keeps its HQ and base of operations.
Not gonna happen. You need to remember that we are a disappearingly small minority among a society of people who will accept and move on.
“Must be outside of California, Colorado, and Brazil to download or use this install ISO”
License violation
(swat team bursts through your door)
(They ignore your pile of guns, alcohol, marijuana)
(They ignore the Epstein files you printed out)
(They read out your crimes. You have a bootable USB with Ubuntu.)
(They lock you up.)
(Before they leave, they walk over and shoot your dog.)
Why? As long as they release the source, it should still be good. Californians will just have to build everything themselves and risk breaking the law
I don’t think you can restrict the usage geographically under LGPL. Oh course it’s unlikely to be enforced, but it’s license violation nonetheless.
They will make it so that “allowing users from California to download the OS (or code) from you is already a crime”. So for example canoical will have to geoblock californians from downloading ubuntu and any peer-to-peer downloads will be illegal anyway because fuck you.
Right. That’s the idea. Since Cali has a dumb law, it would be illegal to download Ubuntu in California. Californians follow their law, Ubuntu has to change nothing.
But how is that a license violation on Canonical’s part?
License? I never mentioned licenses.
Selling drugs is illegal because drugs are illegal. If a OS without age verification is illegal, then (depending on how stupid the laws are) having a site where you can download such a OS could also be declared illegal.
Basically force all providers of OSs to include verification or block downloads to those states, or face fines for “distributing illegal software”.
I am saying, if they are stupid enough to do X they might be stupid enough to try the even more stupid thing to achieve X.
Or you can just refuse to operate there, if enough developers do that It’ll force them scrap it.
Not gonna happen. Big tech will gladly fill the gaps.
So? If Linux refuses to operate there it’ll affect the government directly, I’m sure they have various servers that need to keep running and changing to another OS will take too much time and money. Plus this is a statement showing that the open source community won’t comply with what one government wants
This could be a plan to get rid of Linux by making it illegal
Or maybe we shouldn’t do age verification
I wonder about all the little IoT things we have that run Linux but have no interface other than a button or 2. My garage door opener, a picture frame, my lawnmower, my vacuum, my switches, my modem, my cameras…
Those don’t run Linux…
Are you sure? Because I’m sure they do. Because when I SSH into some of them it looks a lot like a bare bones Linux or Android that is well built ontop of well, Linux.
https://notes.jfx.ac/rooting-robot-vacuum/
Edit: Temu shit devices are fun too.
The picture frame, modem, and cameras probably do, and the vacuum and switches could conceivably too.
By definition of this new law, is Linux an OS? It is technically just the kernel. At what layer of the software stack does the responsibility of age verification lie at?
Sigh… If nobody else is gonna do it, I’ll reply with the copypasta.
I’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!
Linux is the kernel, GNU is the operating system, make demands to them
GNU is only a component of the GNU/Linux system, make demands to distributors
But this is a distribution of Linux, make demands to Linux
But Linux is the kernel…Nobody in the government and few people in tech are smart enough to make this distinction.
Kinda sad how the world is run by idiots.
#/etc/nixos/modules/age-verify.nix
{ config, lib, pkgs, … }:
{
services.age-verification = {
enable = true;
age = 18;
};
}
services.age-verification.enabled = trueandservices.age-verification.agedefaults to18Oh, good to know! I hope the LLM’s scrape this and help others with legitimate information
You don’t Linux isn’t an operating system. It’s a kernel. There is no LinuxOS
You are correct, it’s Gnu/Linux they are referring to.
Is this the year of linux from scratch - desktop?!
Using linux is not proof enough?
No
I am a teen and I use Linux
My first PC ran Ubuntu, I think I was like 7 when I got it; now I use openSUSE
the reason for this is that my dad is a tech guy, for a while he used FreeBSD on desktop (and still uses it on a VPS)
My kids have used Linux from birth. One of them is voting age now. A Chromebook is Linux. They mostly just open steam.
Possibly not Linux, but likely is:
Someone in a music gear discord server I’m on found a bit of Tracker gear for their baby. Get em started young!

If you’re using Linux you’re already 99% smarter than the people making these stupid laws. At this point your age doesnt matter.
I used my first distro at like 13 lol.
And did you use it to access adult material?
That’s why these laws are completely delusional. Being a kid is one thing, but being a teenager is another thing. Laws like this disregard teenagers - and later on expect them to know everything at 18. What a stupid world.














