I love how everyone knows this has nothing to do with kids safety. However no one can or is willing to put up a fight. In the UK where I live its the same. Government does whatever they want and most of us just shrug our shoulders and say "that's messed up" and go on about our day.
Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification
141–150 of 557 posts
Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
that is the start of a lot of bills like this... they really only ever increase in scope and invasiveness.
On the contrary in my experience once a legislature passes a bill to "fix" a particular problem they consider it fixed and don't update it for at least 20 years.
Unless there is a big lobby behind getting more "fixes".
Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification
#143Linux 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.
RedHat/IBM does have an Illinois presence so will likely be compelled to add it to their distro, and will likely do it through systemd. So to avoid it getting into any consumer distro you'd have to ship a patch to remove it from systemd. This is probably all completely irrelevant to StageX since it's a distro designed to be used in containers, AFAICT.
IIRC systemd already started implementing some hooks for age verification API
Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
I will never show fear to tech-illiterate bullies trying to compromise constitutionally protected rights. That is how freedoms get quietly lost. 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 co…
> constitutionally protected rights Wait, which constitutionally protected right is that? I'm an attorney and constitutional scholar and am particularly interested in what right you believe is being violated here.
Code is speech. Forcing someone to implement something is legally-compelled speech, assuming no complicating factor like commerce.
Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification
#145Earlier 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…
There are a lot of remedies available to a court with respect to a recalcitrant party, ranging from an injunction to remove your product from the market to fines and imprisonment. Again, speak with your attorney. Do not try to "hack the law" yourself; many who have tried have regretted it later.
No need to hack the law. Our FOSS code is constitutionally protected free speech and I would defend on those grounds.
The technical design of the project just makes it so no one can force changes on the distro unwanted by the maintainer team regardless of any courtroom outcomes.
Like, what if someone made a law that said Bitcoin nodes must KYC? They could make the law I guess, and the international network operators would just laugh at it.
Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
Literally a slippery slope argument
Slippery slope actually works though. Makes no sense to treat it like some unwelcome argument
Slippery Slope is the assertion that A therefore B therefore C therefore D.
It is frequently a fallacy because D isn't predetermined by A when humans are involved. If you believe in free will, each of B, C, D are independent decisions. Sometimes we stop at A. Sometimes we pass Prohibition as a Constitutional Amendment, and later roll it back.
Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification
#147Earlier 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…
There are a lot of remedies available to a court with respect to a recalcitrant party, ranging from an injunction to remove your product from the market to fines and imprisonment. Again, speak with your attorney. Do not try to "hack the law" yourself; many who have tried have regretted it later.
There is no "market"
Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification
#148Linux 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.
They can stop you from doing any work on the project. They can even fine or jail you for work done after the law takes affect that the international committee doesn't allow. Which is to say you can be forced to stop work.
Though if you don't live in IL it is unclear how this affects you.
Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification
#149Democrat Representative Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz in the House
Democrat Senator Willie Preston [D] in the senate
Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification
#150I 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.
They're actually designed quite well for the intended purpose: mass surveillance and suppression of speech.
Don't ever for one second pretend this is about anything else.