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Open source calculator firmware DB48X forbids CA/CO use due to age verification

github.com

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Re: Open source calculator firmware DB48X forbids CA/CO use due to age verification

#21

Post by helterskelter »

tliltocatl wrote: post #13
iamnothere wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, where does anything in the CA bill mandate age verification? It's saying the OS needs to prompt for age bracket info and allow the third party apps to query that. That is far different from verification. Regardless of the technical details of the law(s), the devs are sensibly refusing to prompt for age on a fricking calculator . Hopefully Linux distros get on board with this and announce non-CA/CO compliance…

For Linux it will be way more problematic because: - A lot of of corporate contributions comes from SV. - Linux Foundation is incorporated in CA. - Linus himself is CA's resident AFAIR. So there is zero chance of claiming no jurisdiction. The only hope is whoever is enforcing this batshit wouldn't go after what is essentially not an OS for the purpose of the bill, but rather an internal component (it would be like go…

I believe Linus lives in Oregon.

Re: Open source calculator firmware DB48X forbids CA/CO use due to age verification

#22

Post by mghackerlady »

tliltocatl wrote: post #19
mghackerlady wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Stop spreading disinformation. Linus and others did most of the work in the kernel. GNU project on the kernel side was architecture astronaut vaporware aka "Hurd". They were much more successful in userland (coreutils, gcc and the toolchain, gdb, Emacs, to name a few).

I meant the userland specifically. By calling what is fundamentally a GNU system running on a different kernel just "linux" it makes people think linux and his crew made all of the userland, in part because saying a college student made "an entire operating system" is far more profitable for news agencies than acknowledging his important but overall relatively small role in what they call "linux"

Re: Open source calculator firmware DB48X forbids CA/CO use due to age verification

#23

Post by tliltocatl »

drnick1 wrote: post #10
hlieberman wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no carve out in the law for open source. I don’t think it matters for this calculator’s firmware, because there’s no covered App Store, but it certainly would for most Linux distributions.

The law is irrelevant when it comes to open source. There is no one to turn to and bully for compliance. A government could presumably request that GitHub delete the repo, but the software will then simply move somewhere else, in a jurisdiction where these laws don't apply, or be distributed peer-to-peer. These attempts at curbing the freedom to write and distribute software are pathetic and will fail.

> There is no one to turn to and bully for compliance > These attempts at curbing the freedom to write and distribute software are pathetic and will fail.

You sweet summer child.

Re: Open source calculator firmware DB48X forbids CA/CO use due to age verification

#24

Post by parasense »

drnick1 wrote: post #11
iamnothere wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, where does anything in the CA bill mandate age verification? It's saying the OS needs to prompt for age bracket info and allow the third party apps to query that. That is far different from verification. Regardless of the technical details of the law(s), the devs are sensibly refusing to prompt for age on a fricking calculator . Hopefully Linux distros get on board with this and announce non-CA/CO compliance…

Ultimately, it does not matter. This legal notice is just theater, as anyone from CA or CO can still download, build and use the program. Linux distributions will just do the same.

Certainly. However, The developer seems to want to avoid the $2,500 per violation by any child who accesses the calculator, and might see a dick pic... because that calculator firmware does indeed allow for image viewing, and application development. It's more powerful than your PC back in the late 1990s.

Re: Open source calculator firmware DB48X forbids CA/CO use due to age verification

#26

Post by cosmic_cheese »

mcmcmc wrote: post #20
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And on the actual matter of things, it's really sad to see California to be on the front line of this crap (this screams ageism). And, dear "adults", screw your parental authority so much. Whatever skills I've gained before the university I've done against an explicit parental prohibition. This is what I live off now. Screw you all. It's yet another surface that totalitarian parental control has crept into, and it'…

> Obviously there should be some limits on what teenagers and children can access Is it? The only people who should be deciding those limits are parents. If they fail to set and enforce those limits then any negative outcomes for the child are due to their own negligence, and can be adjudicated as child abuse per those laws.

I agree fully. Limits should be on the shoulders of parents, not the government or any other institution.

Re: Open source calculator firmware DB48X forbids CA/CO use due to age verification

#27

Post by tliltocatl »

mghackerlady wrote: post #22
tliltocatl wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop spreading disinformation. Linus and others did most of the work in the kernel. GNU project on the kernel side was architecture astronaut vaporware aka "Hurd". They were much more successful in userland (coreutils, gcc and the toolchain, gdb, Emacs, to name a few).

I meant the userland specifically. By calling what is fundamentally a GNU system running on a different kernel just "linux" it makes people think linux and his crew made all of the userland, in part because saying a college student made "an entire operating system" is far more profitable for news agencies than acknowledging his important but overall relatively small role in what they call "linux"

Because the kernel is the irreplaceable piece. None of what GNU did is: there are numerous implementations of coreutils and shells and at least one non-GNU production-quality compiler toolchain (clang-llvm), a few alternative libcs. And many distribution do actively use the non-GNU parts. But none of this is useful without the kernel that is compatible with computers people have. And the only usable kernel we have is Linux (while BSDs are out there too, they take a much different tightly-integrated approach to userspace).

Re: Open source calculator firmware DB48X forbids CA/CO use due to age verification

#29

Post by spijdar »

tliltocatl wrote: post #27
mghackerlady wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I meant the userland specifically. By calling what is fundamentally a GNU system running on a different kernel just "linux" it makes people think linux and his crew made all of the userland, in part because saying a college student made "an entire operating system" is far more profitable for news agencies than acknowledging his important but overall relatively small role in what they call "linux"

Because the kernel is the irreplaceable piece. None of what GNU did is: there are numerous implementations of coreutils and shells and at least one non-GNU production-quality compiler toolchain (clang-llvm), a few alternative libcs. And many distribution do actively use the non-GNU parts. But none of this is useful without the kernel that is compatible with computers people have . And the only usable kernel we have i…

To add to this: I can appreciate the significance of GNU, especially in early Linux distributions, but the position of "GNU was the real OS, Linux was just the kernel" is also deceptive, IMO.

Sure, a lot of the userspace was GNU, but a lot of it ... wasn't. Things like PAM, the init system, and the network config tools, off the top of my head. A lot of system-specific tools come from "not-GNU", too.

You can't discount how much of early Linux was "GNU", and how big a deal GCC and GNU libc (and the rest!) were, but it's disingenuous in my opinion to call GNU an "operating system" that you just plugged Linux, the kernel, into. Even today, as far as I can tell, there is still not a true GNU system. Guix comes close, in terms of being "GNU-ish", but the most usable Hurd distro (AFAIK!) is Debian, where, again, a lot of components come from Debian, rather than GNU.

And, as you say, modern systems have drifted even further from being GNU. They have lots of GNU components, but so did, say, the Sprite OS, or a lot of 4.4BSD derivatives.

Re: Open source calculator firmware DB48X forbids CA/CO use due to age verification

#30

Post by riskable »

meatmanek wrote: post #17
wrs wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it’s a programmable calculator, so…how does the law define “applications”?

(c) “Application” means a software application that may be run or directed by a user on a computer, a mobile device, or any other general purpose computing device that can access a covered application store or download an application.

The calculator firmware is a "software application" that's run by a user on a mobile device but it can't access an application store or download applications. For that you need a PC.

So github.com is the violator, here, since it's a software application that may be run by a user on a computer and can download applications (loads of them!).

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