Mastodawn

OK this is a stupid question, but why have Linux projects (apparently) fallen over themselves to comply with an age-recording statute in a single US state (albeit a large one), when those projects have been failing for decades to respect national and even international law regarding disability?

#accessibility #disability #linux #FreeSoftware #fascism #AgeVerification #infantilism

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Diogo Constantino 2d ago

@iaruffell it's not true that it's on a single USA state, more countries are approving laws like this, and Brasil has since last week one that is in force. Also California is not just any state, that's probably where much of the business for FOSS companies is, so are a lot of the developers, and so are a lot of the users. There's nothing to be gaining by loosing all of that. The fight is at the legislatures and court level, will be won by making FOSS illegal for large parts of the world.

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Drew Mochak 1d ago

@DiogoConstantino @iaruffell Sorry but are there not relevent accessibility laws that are also not specific to a certain state or country? In fact they have been around much longer, so if anything, accessibility should be a higher priority.

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Diogo Constantino 1d ago

@prism @iaruffell can you mention one that is not being followed? Or that would be a crime not to follow? or that would impact as many people? While I personally agree, it's not us who set the priority, neither are the developers.

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Drew Mochak 1d ago

@DiogoConstantino @iaruffell This is a curious statement. Who does set the priority of a free and open source project, if not the developer? Is that not the whole point?

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Diogo Constantino 1d ago

@prism @iaruffell sometimes it's, other times, because we live in society, it's societal mechanisms such as the state.

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Isabel Ruffell 1d ago

@DiogoConstantino @prism

But the devs choose how to respond to the social, political or legal context. That is the whole point.

They may calculate that enforcement will be lax, or not be serious about Linux on the corporate or institutional desktop,or believe that disabled people lack resources, but all of that their action or inaction is a choice..

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Diogo Constantino 1d ago

@iaruffell @prism That's a really bad point that puts developers, users and companies at risk, specially because we do know that some places FOSS companies are specifically being monitored for compliance of age verification laws, like in Brazil.

It's a choice, but it should only be for those who take the risks, who shouldn't be pressured by others into taking them, specially not with personal attacks saying they are not ethical if they comply with the Law.

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Diogo Constantino 1d ago

@iaruffell @prism we should also be aware that non-compliance would also likely result in stuff like reduced, rollback of adoption of FOSS in schools, public institutions in general, and places were regulation and compliance takes a very active stance. And I belive it would ultimately lead to further escalation of legal requirements, like blocking downloads of FOSS, and possibly even forbidding FOSS (in many places they are already trying to forbid VPN).

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Drew Mochak

@DiogoConstantino @iaruffell as I said before, this is also the case for accessibility law, except you see a whole lot of action in one space and none whatsoever in the other. There's a reason for that.