RE: https://social.treehouse.systems/@wwahammy/116264430375745593
I want everyone who says "this is the law, distros need to comply" I want you to explain a plausible set of circumstances to lead to the following:
* That the AG of California will sue a random Linux distro which has effectively no money
* Prove who the OS distributor actually is (is it the committers? Committers of what part? Their bank account with $12 in it?)
* Prove by preponderance of the evidence how many children used the OS in order to set the fines
* get a judge and jury to think this isn't a massive waste of their time
* That it isn't just a violation of the law but is a "negligent" or "intentional" violation
* all the while, the OS maker and everyone else having effectively zero knowledge of who uses it since there's no continuing relationship with users.
How does all of this happen?
1. The AG of California sues the biggest Linux distro because their real goal is destroying Linux, not age verification. The smaller ones will fall through legally questionable means, once the big ones who can resist are destroyed.
2. Debian has a committee, Redhat is a corporation, and they don't care who the OS distributor actually is. They'll incriminate some random Joe off the street, just to set a precedent, and then they can start sending threats and unlawfully raiding other organizations that distribute and maintain Linux. Because it'd probably hold up in court, so who'd risk fighting it!
3. Prove? All they have to do is get a jury who knows nothing about computers to feel like their children are in danger. And once they find a jury that mistakenly rules in their favor, that's precedent, so future juries who are saner or more prepared will be completely ignored since USA law is only based on precedent.
4. Easy for them to buy a judge. Their lawyers can finagle it to happen in the worst court and cherry pick the worst jury.
5. You don't think they intended to violate the law? They're trying to cook your children into stew! Are they guilty, or do you love dead children? Did we mention children?
6. Once the OS maker has been taken down, it doesn't matter who uses it, because all they can do is buy a proprietary OS, or have no computer. And a few will "break" the "law" but 99% of everyone else will get bullied into compliance, and those few will get locked out of everything in society, since the 99% won't even be aware that the locks are in place.
So uhh, this is a big deal. Also US law sucks sweaty monkey balls. It's true that assuming proprietary software giants like Microsoft, Apple and Google always play by the rules and never do anything in bad faith, then that California law can't possibly become a problem. No punishment awaits them for lawbreaking and cheating the courts though, nothing but either reward, or people complaining about it online and doing nothing until the corporation gets to try again.
@cy the AG of California doesn't care about Linux. It's not an issue they have ever thought about or considered.
Eric Schultz
Cy