California lawmakers unanimously pass Linux exemption from age-verification law

gspr•3 minutes ago

Rest of the headline: "software distributed under the GPL, MIT, BSD, and Apache licenses are exempt"

And then further into the text it's clarified that there also isn't a specific list of open licenses, as the terrible headline would have you believe, but instead a description of what is considered open

With the caveat that I haven't read the actual legal text, this seems to be an eminently sensible law (it'd be better if it weren't needed, but here we are).

In summary: not a Linux exemption, and not an exemption for a specific list of licenses either.

cm2187•12 minutes ago

Excellent. From now on all kids will become linux natives. The decade of the linux desktop is coming!

anigbrowl•about 1 hour ago

Weird how the people who habitually complain about government are conspicuously silent when it delivers something they wanted.

missinglugnut•23 minutes ago

What do you want people to say? "Yay, the terrible law that threatened to make free computing illegal has an exemption for Linux. Now we only have to deal with unwanted mandatory age verification on all our non-linux devices. I'm so happy."

edot•about 1 hour ago

Yeah, this is fantastic. Should be top of the page. I’m honestly shocked, I’ve fully internalized that everything is corrupt and beholden to big corporations. Somehow, a victory! Looks like the Linux Foundation and EFF pushed back, but they’re not exactly big. Good job, California lawmakers!

zoobab•37 minutes ago

Not a victory, Android is still covered.

qmarchi•35 minutes ago

Hard to argue that it's open source...

throwawayqqq11•11 minutes ago

This is not wanted, its duct taping a bad idea even further and i half-wish MS/apple/co sue against it. This may cause lawmakers to bounce back in the wrong direction though.

Pavilion2095•14 minutes ago

The age verification requirement wasn't dropped, what are you talking about? Linux getting an exemption isn't a win.

antonvs•23 minutes ago

It delivered an arbitrary exception to a stupid law. If all someone wanted was an exception for Linux, they don’t understand the problem with this law.

squigz•35 minutes ago

Indeed, this is very generous of them, and we should be thankful.

catlikesshrimp•26 minutes ago

Sounds more like they did their job well, not that they are generous.

ghssds•16 minutes ago

And now a bunch of OSI-Approved licenses get to have special rules applied to them, entrenching them and killing further innovation.

greyface-•6 minutes ago

The bill exempts:

> a person or entity that distributes an operating system or application under license terms that permit a recipient to copy, redistribute, and modify the software

which at least doesn't choose specific winners and losers among licenses. It does disfavor license-free and public domain software, which isn't great.

catlikesshrimp•33 minutes ago

Can someone the exemption for browser extensions and other contained software? My best guess is that the OS > Browser are reporting the age already, and the browser extensions will also use that "signal". Is this close enough?

" third carve-out excludes storefronts distributing extensions or add-ons that run exclusively inside a host application, which takes browser extension stores out of scope."

kersplody•about 1 hour ago

Cool now let's exempt hobbyists from the 3-D printer must certify you are not printing gun parts pending legislation.

hardwaresofton•about 1 hour ago

AGPL…?

California lawmakers unanimously pass Linux exemption from age-verification law

⚡ Community Insights

Discussion (18 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews