Ariadne Conill 🐰
a fairly detailed analysis of the california "age assurance bill" by fellow #AlpineLinux contributor @RunxiYu
in practice i think it does not really concern #AlpineLinux
the intent of this law is clearly to go after operating systems with app stores
JdeBPIt concerns #AlpineLinux the same as it concerns every other Linux-based operating system that has a package management utility that talks to a public WWW site.
As I said at https://mastodonapp.uk/@JdeBP/116156019252249071, and as @RunxiYu has also said, the statute as written covers all such systems. (It's an Act now, by the way, not a Bill.) Alpine Linux has a covered application store.
Here, for example, is what 'publicly available internet website' apk as the 'software application' uses to 'facilitate the download' of the third-party rustc 'application' from the 'store' in Alpine Linux on the aforementioned #mainframes used by the aforementioned naughty 16-year-olds in #California:
https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.23/main/s390x/
Yes, #CaliforniaLaw as written is this expansive. Yes, the legislators did not even consider how the BSDs and Linux-based operating systems work. None of the objectors apparently even mentioned how these work.
Bobulous 
@JdeBP @ariadne @RunxiYu Can the operating system distributors declare that users in the state of California are not permitted to download, install, or use the software?
From what I've understood of it, I have to agree that this act does sound like one of the dumbest proposals of recent times, almost certain to be totally ineffective at protecting children. But lawmakers and mainstream journalists seem to be technically illiterate.
See the widely publicized announcement by the developer of #MidnightBSD, which precipitated a lot of people, including me, into looking at the actual law.
https://nitter.net/midnightbsd/status/2027101491211718765
The only people concerned with free software, apparently, as the bill made its way through the #California legislature, were Oakland Privacy, and they were only interested in 'gratis' free software on the Google and Apple Stores and the impacts on its development.
The various committee analyses are on that legislature page, and they give the objectors's objections. I have yet to find a mention of BSDs, Linux-based operating systems, or even Unix.
Goodness knows what #IBM is going to do about #RHEL and #RPM. Clearly they completely missed a very important lobbying opportunity. I wonder if the IBM legal people know about this even yet.
@ariadne @RunxiYu @reallyflygreg @toddalio
#USLaw #CaliforniaLaw #FreeSoftware #RedHat