121–130 of 551 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good news: the legislation doesn't target you as an individual. "Operating system provider" means a commercial or non-profit entity that controls the Internet-enabled device's operating system, including the design, programming, or supply of operating systems for the Internet-enabled devices.
So OEMs will only be shipping Windows and that's more or less it.
Unpopular opinion, but this is objectively better than having to upload your ID to every random website that requires an age check (if that's what the end result is).
Instead of the client sending the user's age to the server, why not make the server send a minimum age to the client? The client is welcome to block content without disclosing personal information to the server. This is as secure as sending an unverified age to the servet.
Here's my slight defense of something like this, in theory. I have not read the text of the bill. If OSes build a standards-based way to query age of user that is logged-in, where non-admins are not allowed to adjust the age bucket, then parents can configure devices on first use to have an OS-wide enforcement of age controls. Apps and sites would query the OS, not individual app/site accounts, for user age and act a…
Linux distro founder here (stagex) I will never be compelled to implement this, and would never merge it. Every release requires quorum signatures by an international maintainer team, and the distro is designed to work offline-first, with some variants not even supporting network drivers in the kernel, so Illinois legislators can eat shit.
This is probably all completely irrelevant to StageX since it's a distro designed to be used in containers, AFAICT.
I feel like all of these laws are being designed backwards. Content providers, like MPAA films, should have to identify what sort of content they are providing. Then I can give my kids a device configured to allow some or all of that at my discretion. Requiring my kids' devices to advertise their age (or their age "bucket", as if that was a meaningful difference) to protect them is not doing me or my kids any favors.
> Content providers, like MPAA films, should have to identify what sort of content they are providing. Then I can give my kids a device configured to allow some or all of that at my discretion. If the intent were to actually protect children, then this would be what was done. "Protect the children" is just a subterfuge to get electorate support for voting for the foundation for a "1984 thought crime" style monitoring…
Unpopular opinion, but this is objectively better than having to upload your ID to every random website that requires an age check (if that's what the end result is).
In the sense that a website could just ask your OS if you are over a certain age and that age was self declared? That seems fine to me, but why can't the websites just ask me for my self declared age? That's how things used to be and that makes more sense in my opinion because an OS isn't the thing displaying content. It just run whatever it is told to run.
I am root on my computers. My 11 year old isn’t root on my computers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am in the USA, but I literally cannot comply because by design it is not possible for me to ship changes without the international maintainer team agreeing to them. And Illinois legislators have no power over them. Also, we are not a company. We are an independent community owned project. Our code is free speech and I will burn the world down to defend that right. Truly I dare someone to try to take me to court ove…
I respect your principled stance on one hand, while on the other I’m amazed that someone as successful as you hasn’t learned that logic doesn’t dictate how governments work. Don’t make a target of yourself, there are countless ways for a government to make your life miserable.
Users need to see that the people in positions of influence in FOSS projects they trust are not afraid of this bullshit.
I -hope- someone is stupid enough to take a case like this to court so we can establish some much needed case law here. These overreaches deserve to be contested.