This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Despite signing it, Newsom issued a statement urging the legislature to amend the law before its effective date, citing concerns from streaming services and game developers about "complexities such as multi-user accounts shared by a family member and user profiles utilized across multiple devices."
then why did you fucking sign it in the first place??
words cannot describe the depths of my seething hatred for the complete, museum grade, massive piece of shit that is Gavin Newsom
Why not parents responsible for their own goddamn kids? Stop interfering with the rest of our privacy for this bullshit. Parental controls have existed for decades. Fucking use them.
Because this isn't about parenting or children, it's about a creeping surveillance state
The new California republic seems to be the only people who see this coming
User age required to be entered. There is no verification.
Why lawmakers are so stupid at understanding technology
Considering the massive number of servers running Linux used in the industry, this sounds like a good way to kill the Tech Industry in California.
This is a gift to Microsoft.
This law only applies to computers used by children. The law explicitly defines "users" as minors. It does not apply to machines used solely/primarily by adults. It does not apply to servers, or other machines with no local users. It won't affect the tech industry directly.
This law effectively prohibits your children from (legally) using anything but Microsoft/Google products until they are 18.
With this law, Linux cannot be installed on a school computer. With a FOSS OS, the local systems administrator would be considered the OS provider, and would be liable under this idiot law.
Think about it this way: how do people learn enough about it to program for and admin Linux systems as adults?
Unless things changed a lot since my days (granted it was over 3 decades ago), the path to knowing all about using, administrating and programming software for running under Linux was through being able to play with it for fun as a teenager.
That said, thinking further about it, this might actually push more teenagers to try Linux out to avoid age-gating since they can just download a distro from anywhere in the World and install it in their own PC.
Yep. Back in the day all the MUD servers ran on Linux. I wanted to set up my own. I knew my cousin used it so I asked him about it.
He never answered my questions directly. But he did show me how to look up the answer to my question using man pages and/or search for info online.
That first install was so painful... My friend and I didn't know how to set up the network and it turns out the tulip driver wasn't installed by default. So we'd boot to Linux, try something to get the network working, write down the error message on a sheet of paper. Boot to windows to research the fix to the error message. Rinse and repeat until we finally got it working.
This law keeps Linux out of schools and businesses. Google and MS are "Operating System Providers" and would be the responsible parties under this law.
If a school sysadmin decides to adopt a Linux desktop for his school, that sysadmin becomes the "OS Provider": they have full and complete control over the OS; they are fully responsible for everything that happens with it.
My point is that forcing age-gates on anything provided via such formal systems incentivizes kids to go around those systems and install themselves an OS that doesn't do age-gating to evade it, not necessarily at school were they're unlikely to control the hardware, but at home.
Even before this, MS and Google have used their money to create a situation were very few of the formal systems for kids to access computers, such as schools, put anything other than their OSes in front of kids, so only kids who are naturally geeks/techies might have tried Linux out on their own - those kids would always end up trying Linux out because they're driven by curiosity and enjoyment from tinkering with Tech.
My point is for the other kids, the ones who wouldn't try out on their computing devices any OS other than the mainstream stuff that they've been taught about at school: with this law California might very well just have created a strong incentive for those kids to go around those formal systems and try Linux out on hardware they control, which not all will but certainly more will that they would if there wasn't a law in place to limit what they can do when using a mainstream OS - if there's one thing that is common in all societies and historical times is that teenagers naturally rebel against outside control and try and find ways around it, so limiting what they can do in the officially endorsed systems will push them towards alternatives systems which won't limit what they can do.
System 76 have very controversially committed to supporting this in Pop OS, so there would be at least one Linux option.
oh fml seriously? system 76 what the hell!??!
Saw someone say this on the last article I saw regarding this, but:
What's stopping the OSes from just putting "Not for use in California" on their product/website? Seems like a simple and easy fix lol.
Luckily this dogshit is completely unenforceable. It doesn't excuse the people who introduced this law, of course.
I love the definitions section... So, first it defines the 4 age brackets a user can be: Under 13, 13-16, 16-18, or over 18. Then they define "Child" as anyone under 18. Then, and this is where it gets good, they define a "User" as a "Child". So by these definitions, no one can be considered a user if they are over 18. (which, then, why is there an "over 18" age bracket defined earlier??)
Not only do these people not seem to understand technology, they also don't understand that people over 18 use technology, or maybe exist?
It's hard enough trying to get Linux adoption in schools and businesses. This law makes it an additional liability.
Administrators of FOSS systems will be considered OS Providers under this law, and will be liable at $2000 to $7500 for every child they expose to a non-compliant OS.
Those few schools that have adopted Linux will be forced to switch to M$ and Google products.
You keep saying that, but nothing about it is carved out specifically one way or the other for FOSS. As it is worded, any network sysadmin is considered the "OS Provider" exactly the same under Windows or Linux as they "control the operating system software on a computer". They don't "develop" or "license" the software in either case, windows or Linux. They control the OS the same amount under either windows or Linux.
Maybe it could be argued they are more likely to choose windows since the people developing and licensing the software are a big corporation and is therefore more likely to be compliant? But it isn't like Canonical and RedHat are just some guy in a basement - these are commercial entities developing and licensing software just like Microsoft.
I agree the definitions in this bill are absolutely insane - the idea that the developer, licensor, and administrator of a computer's OS would ever be the same person is astronomically unlikely. Maybe they mean something different by "control", but it isn't defined so that makes it up to the courts to decide with no direction.
This is just another charge to add when someone is accused of a crime involving computers. It doesn't have to be a computer related crime but just be part of their property.
Did you guys know I was born January 1st 1901?
I was born in Feb 4th, 1987
I thought we were born April 20th, 1969
Shockingly, 2000-01-01 suffices.
Or to put it more bone crumblingly:
There's no need to go back into the last millennium.
The law does not require photo ID uploads or facial recognition, with users instead simply self-reporting their age
That part is good at least. It also makes the California law an exercise in wasting everyone's time and money.
The law was designed this way specifically so that people won’t fight it as hard because it doesn’t provide any verification requirements. That bill would come later once the outrage over this has waned and the age gating becomes normalized in the local culture so that people just shrug off the verification requirement in the future.
They’re not wasting any time or money, they're just playing the long game.
California users practice penmanship in preparation to expected return to paper and pen.
No way this is enforceable
