@kirschner @techlore @fsfe @pjitendra Excellent article. The #MidnightBSD situation is super absurd. They decided to become proprietary software over this by punishing users from the "wrong" countries. 🤦

I also like the radical idea that young people are still people who have agency. Good calling out that esp. potentially young devs are being punished by the age verification bullshit.

(Linux news in previous posts)

FOSS NEWS

MidnightBSD 4.0.4 Released With Aged & Agectl For Age Verification/Attestation:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/MidnightBSD-4.0.4
(I wonder what the heck is going on in the project that they didn't want to comply, and then they suddenly do... Hopefully it won't happen to more currently non-compliant projects)

GhostBSD says no to age verification, but will probably comply with age attestation laws:
https://forums.ghostbsd.org/d/793-freebsd-and-age-verification/35
(Now that's pretty sad, GhostBSD was one of the systems I would consider if I ever decided to switch to BSD. I'll stay on Linux because there are quite a few distros who openly oppose this nonsense, but I'd like to see at least one BSD system fully opposing just in case)

Introducing Proton Meet: Confidential video calls for work and life:
https://proton.me/business/blog/introducing-proton-meet

Waterfox to integrate Brave adblock engine, with search ads enabled by default:
https://alternativeto.net/news/2026/4/waterfox-to-integrate-brave-adblock-engine-with-search-ads-enabled-by-default/

Floorp introduces Zen Mode and enhanced Split View with 4 panes:
https://alternativeto.net/news/2026/3/floorp-introduces-zen-mode-and-enhanced-split-view-with-4-panes/

OBS Studio 32.1.1 Is Out to Improve the Audio Mixer and Audio Deduplication:
https://9to5linux.com/obs-studio-32-1-1-is-out-to-improve-the-audio-mixer-and-audio-deduplication

Gaim 3 Is In Development For Restoring The Original Gaim Instant Messaging App In GTK4:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Gaim-3-In-Development

Jami “Euclid” brings revamped UI, improved accessibility, better RTL support, and more:
https://alternativeto.net/news/2026/4/jami-euclid-brings-revamped-ui-improved-accessibility-better-rtl-support-and-more/

OptiScaler tool gets a huge new release with more upscaling and frame generation goodies:
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/04/optiscaler-tool-gets-a-huge-new-release-with-more-upscaling-and-frame-generation-goodies/

ScummVM 2026.2.0 "Railmonicon" out now supporting more retro games:
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/03/scummvm-2026-2-0-railmonicon-out-now-supporting-more-retro-games/

OpenGOAL project adds the Naughty Dog classic Jak 3:
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/04/opengoal-project-adds-the-naughty-dog-classic-jak-3/

Chiaki-ng the open-source PlayStation Remote Play app gets better streaming quality and stability:
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/04/chiaki-ng-the-open-source-playstation-remote-play-app-gets-better-streaming-quality-and-stability/

Heretic II has a new reverse-engineered source port:
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/03/heretic-ii-has-a-new-reverse-engineered-source-port/

(more FOSS news in comments)

#WeeklyNews #OpenSource #FOSSNews #FOSS #OpenSourceNews #News #AgeVerification #BSD #MidnightBSD #GhostBSD #ProtonMeet #Waterfox #Floorp #OBS #Jami #ScummVM #Gaim #OptiScaler #Heretic #FosseryTech

@bytebro

It's very unlikely that anything of the sort will occur. There is simply a complete disconnect between Microsoft/Google/Apple user accounts anything that firmware can record in persistent storage before an operating system has even started up.

I predicted, as you probably saw, the form that the compliance measures would take for #Unix and Unix-like operating systems on 2026-03-01, and both 11 hours and about 4 days later they took that form from two different people. One with pull requests on GitHub, one in the very FediVerse thread that I began.

It is operating systems that will see (and indeed have seen) the updates bringing this. Not firmwares.

#AgeVerification #systemd #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #MidnightBSD