211–220 of 227 posts
I guess going forward if you are under 18 and want to learn programming and not be harassed by the government you have to go back to having and offline only computer and stack of o'reilly books?
Soon programming will itself require a license. Only government approved individuals will be able to write code. CPUs will only boot software signed by the government.
This headline is misleading. The California law requires that the OS store and provide the age bracket. It does not require that any verification take place. I am not arguing that this is a good idea, but it is simply false that the law requires that Linux 'check kids' IDs before booting'. The New York law is worse, and should be opposed, but the article only mentions it at the end - and even then, we actually don't…
From the article: > These laws can, and almost certainly will, get worse. New York's proposed Senate Bill S8102A explicitly forbids self-reporting. The state Attorney General will decide how to enforce it. For example, to use Linux, you might need to submit a driver's license.
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> Show me where the [law] has been used successfully in a lawsuit against an OS developer for the construction of their OS
> Where does it explicitly mention operating systems?
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> encouraging everyone to openly flaunt the law > But maybe that’s just me If you are fine taking the legal liability and are open to civil and criminal prosecution, go right ahead. Western jurisdictions tend to cooperate on extradition as well, and American free speech laws are significantly more expansive than those in the EU, Canada, or ANZ so taking a principled approach wouldn't be a viable defense if you decide…
This is not the first time I read comments from you, I just want to tell you you're probably one of the most annoyingly, reasonably correct person I read. And take it as a compliment, because each time I disagree with you I have to look at my position because I fear being on the wrong side of the argument (which is probably what I find annoying. I want to be unreasonable sometimes!).
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How would this hinder a kid learning programming? How would it even be noticeable?
12 year old me would have sold their skateboard AND their bike to have a magic Patiently Explain Anything And Everything To Me robot instead of the mostly-impenetrable-to-my-tween-brain software engineering books I had access to in my town.
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How does the step make sense? Has any linux user ever requested this "feature"? Does it provide some sort of benefit to the user? > The slippery slope argument says that open source software is a stepping stone to a world where all commercial activity is banned. No it doesn't.
Yes, it's very useful to parents who want to restrict their children's computer use. Some of those parents use Linux. Yes, it does.
And no, there is absolutely no argument for a slippery slope here. Especially considering we've had OSS for what, 50 years now? And corporations are doing just fine. Unlike the vast history of authoritarianism and government oppression and violence that occurs exactly through this mechanism of giving an inch over and over again until they have taken miles.
Don't be an idiot.
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When we are installing docker repositories on my Rockylinux installation on 100 nodes at once, should we need to manually put an age of the person who is running the script somewhere in the process? Will docker be forced to prevent me from downloading its packages if I do not transmit the age in a header?
The California law only stipulates that there's an "accessible interface at account setup" to set the birthday or age at account setup, and an interface to query the age bracket. Plus the crap for "application stores" I don't think it's a very well thought-out law. But realistically this will end up as setting some env variable for your docker containers to assure them that you are 99 years old. And yes, maybe transm…
The overwhelming majority of programmers likely cut their teeth on computers as kids. Any attempt to restrict computer access to 18+ will only handicap American programmers in the job market.
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If it’s like the Illinois one, all of tech are probably behind them, because these shift age verification away from service providers to a self-reported age bracket at the OS level. It’s much safer than what some idiotic states are doing (like upload your photo id to services where it gets stolen). The idea is a parent or guardian is probably setting up a device. They make a user account for their kid and specify a u…
Keep repeating those talking points, we all know what this is really about. It’s bad enough as it is, and it’s the foot in the door for much worse. Before now, nobody has ever tried to legislate how an OS should work. This is unprecedented and unconstitutional.
Feel free to tell me what you think I got wrong, as I'd like to know. The text of the bill is available. SB3977.
I've read it mirrors the California one. Google, Meta, etc all supported it.