On 3/9/26 5:00 PM, Louis wrote:
But that doesn't matter, this law is in and the Arch Linux leadership must make a decision that mitigates detrimental impact to the project as a whole. I'd like to see more discussion about what _we can do_ on a technical and practical level rather than "this law sucks, why aren't we opposing this law harder".
I've been refraining to chime in because I wanted to avoid contributing to the chaos. Having said that, I think that having a technical dialogue would be great.
As far as I know ubuntu has made an announcement regarding this topic but no technical solution has been provided or even hinted at. I'm sure they'll come up with something eventually, but it would be nice to be able to provide something more in the spirit of arch (as minimalistic as possible). Maybe we can even make something cool in the process.
One of the problems I can think of is the standardization of whatever API is designed (it's intended to be consumed by others eventually, right?), and its privacy implications. Having briefly read the law, I don't think a "Share / Don't share" option on a permission dialogue would be out of the question. It would be super interesting if there's any lawyers (or so inclined) in the mailing that could provide more insight into this.
In the end, integrating something like this into -let's say- a dbus package is not hard at all. I think the real challenge is to find a solution that is technically sound and that still complies properly with the law, while being modular enough so that users outside of california don't even have to install it or be bothered by it.
Kindly, Fermín
