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Ageless Linux – Software for humans of indeterminate age

agelesslinux.org

11–20 of 671 posts

Re: Ageless Linux – Software for humans of indeterminate age

#11
post #10

1. By involving Debian prominently in its stunt, is this drawing fire upon Debian? 2. Are the pile of assertions they're making (which sound like legal arguments and stipulations to me) against Debian's interests?

Debian's interests, whether they know it or not, is for the government not to be able to mandate what features must be present in their open source software. They should be happy to have such a vocal advocate involved in this important fight.

Re: Ageless Linux – Software for humans of indeterminate age

#12
post #10

1. By involving Debian prominently in its stunt, is this drawing fire upon Debian? 2. Are the pile of assertions they're making (which sound like legal arguments and stipulations to me) against Debian's interests?

The law is absurd. We should not discuss compliance to absurd laws.

Re: Ageless Linux – Software for humans of indeterminate age

#13

I adore their courage. I assume they feel prepared to mount a legal defense? It would seem silly to be this forward about willful noncompliance if they're just hoping to stay under the radar. I can't tell if this is driven by impulsive pettiness with no real plan for how to mount a legal defense, or if they're engaging in a clear-minded legal mission. > Ageless Linux is a registered operating system under the definit…

They seem to be ready for this:

> Q: What if the AG actually fines you?

> Then we will have accomplished something no amount of mailing list discussion could: a court record establishing what AB 1043 actually means when applied to the real world. Does "operating system provider" cover a bash script? Does "general purpose computing device" cover a Raspberry Pi Pico? Can you fine someone "per affected child" when no mechanism exists to count affected children? These are questions the legislature left unanswered. We'd like answers. A fine would be the fastest way to get them.

Re: Ageless Linux – Software for humans of indeterminate age

#14
Something remarkable and unsettling is how the age verification debate has popped up almost simultaneously in the US, UK, and EU.

With the same logical fallacies. Pretty telling about how transnational lobbies and their interests work.

Controlling what children do online is a solved problem: Parenting and parental control applications.

Re: Ageless Linux – Software for humans of indeterminate age

#16
I honestly think the pushback against the California law is a mistake. We are being presented with an increasing number of services demanding identity verification, in the form of ID verification and/or video verification. California is offering an alternative to that, an alternative that only requires you provide your age, without verifying it.

If the California law flops, the result isn't going to be no age verification. It's going to be increasing numbers of internet services requiring that you verify their identity with them through some shady third-party you have no control over, until you effectively can't use the internet without giving away your ID.

I'd prefer to have no age verification, but it's pretty clear that's not an option. People in power are using minors accessing porn and social media as a cover to push age verification, and it's believable enough that people are going along with it. Approaches where someone attests their age on an OS or account level are our best shot at disarming this push.

Re: Ageless Linux – Software for humans of indeterminate age

#17

I adore their courage. I assume they feel prepared to mount a legal defense? It would seem silly to be this forward about willful noncompliance if they're just hoping to stay under the radar. I can't tell if this is driven by impulsive pettiness with no real plan for how to mount a legal defense, or if they're engaging in a clear-minded legal mission. > Ageless Linux is a registered operating system under the definit…

They seem to be ready for this: > Q: What if the AG actually fines you? > Then we will have accomplished something no amount of mailing list discussion could: a court record establishing what AB 1043 actually means when applied to the real world. Does "operating system provider" cover a bash script? Does "general purpose computing device" cover a Raspberry Pi Pico? Can you fine someone "per affected child" when no me…

I have a feeling they're going to be very disappointed with the actual answers they'll receive to these questions.

Re: Ageless Linux – Software for humans of indeterminate age

#18
post #10

1. By involving Debian prominently in its stunt, is this drawing fire upon Debian? 2. Are the pile of assertions they're making (which sound like legal arguments and stipulations to me) against Debian's interests?

This doesn't meaningfully increase risk to the Debian project, which is already one of the most prominent Linux projects.

Re: Ageless Linux – Software for humans of indeterminate age

#19
post #9
post #5

Now this is what open source development should look like. I cannot believe a few days ago I was thumbing through an email thread on freedesktop.org about how they could implement the mandatory government API in dbus. Can they not read their own domain name?

The API seems like a funny joke anyway, `sudo setage 12987123`, done.

Oh nice! I’ve been wanting to ask someone of your age, how was the Middle Miocene Climate Optimum?

Re: Ageless Linux – Software for humans of indeterminate age

#20
I wish iOS 26.4 didn't bother because I'm stuck with an immovable "verify you're 18+" flag[0] in Settings even though it was well into the previous century when I was even near 18.

[0] I have no credit card and it won't accept debit cards. It also won't use the fact that I've had an Apple account and spent 10s of thousands in my own name at their damn shops, online and real life, over the last 2 decades (and Apple/partners have done at least one credit check on me in that period!) But that's fine, there's an alternative! A driving licence (don't have one of those either) or a national ID (also don't have one of those.) Can I use my passport? NOPE. Absolute farce.

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