On 3/9/26 09:56, David C Rankin wrote:
On 3/8/26 1:05 PM, David C Rankin wrote:
It would be difficult to make the argument that any Arch content
falls within the scope of the proposals. That notwithstanding, even
if you could make the argument it applied to Arch, the individual
state laws are currently enjoined on free-speech grounds and will
take years to be settled (social media co's have plenty of money to
extend the litigation near indefinitely).
Now the laws requiring the OS to collect and provide age information
may well need to be discussed, though same caveat, while California
and Colorado are slated to require this by 2027, it is doubtful these
laws won't be enjoined before actually taking effect. (California's
Assembly Bill No. 1043; Colorado's Senate Bill 26-051)
Another option is the MidnightBSD notice, simply advising residents of
states that requires age collection and provision are not authorized
to use the FOSS offering:
"California residents are not authorized to use MidnightBSD for
desktop use in the state of California effective January 1, 2027."
Solves all the problems without changes, and places the burden on
resolving issues correctly with the citizens of the state promulgating
the law.
This may end up being an interesting exercise to watch. Nothing short
of a war between the privacy advocates, and the advocates for the
protection of children. Not to mention the FOSS community's eagerness
to have more personal information captured in the OS -- and then by
what, systemd?
Funny, when I grew up, child-rearing was the responsibility of the
parents making nanny-laws an unwanted intrusion on the libertt rights
of the parents rendering them unnecessary. Curious when/where that
became not the case.
I wouldn't bluntly restrict the use of the software from residents of
those states. You can also simply state that users are not allowed to
use the software if it does not comply with local law. I doubt this
phrasing can be seen as non-compatible with the GPL, since that would
imply that copyright licenses grant software authors the power to other
people to be allowed to break the law.
It also doesn't single out any Californians, and it avoids the need to
update the license if any other countries/states get funny ideas. And if
someone writes the required software to comply with the law, suddenly
Arch Linux with that installed is legal again.
I mean, still, who is going to get prosecuted for lack of a feature in a
free community maintained open source project? Probably this is a storm
in a glass of water anyway.
-- Maarten
