(e) (1) “Covered application store” means a publicly available internet website, software application, online service, or platform that distributes and facilitates the download of applications from third-party developers to users of a computer, a mobile device, or any other general purpose computing that can access a covered application store or can download an application.
Also, where does anything in the CA bill mandate age verification? It's saying the OS needs to prompt for age bracket info and allow the third party apps to query that. That is far different from verification.
> Also, where does anything in the CA bill mandate age verification? It's saying the OS needs to prompt for age bracket info and allow the third party apps to query that. That is far different from verification.
Regardless of the technical details of the law(s), the devs are sensibly refusing to prompt for age on a fricking calculator.
Hopefully Linux distros get on board with this and announce non-CA/CO compliance as policy.
Ultimately, it does not matter. This legal notice is just theater, as anyone from CA or CO can still download, build and use the program. Linux distributions will just do the same.
For Linux it will be way more problematic because:
- A lot of of corporate contributions comes from SV.
- Linux Foundation is incorporated in CA.
- Linus himself is CA's resident AFAIR.
So there is zero chance of claiming no jurisdiction. The only hope is whoever is enforcing this batshit wouldn't go after what is essentially not an OS for the purpose of the bill, but rather an internal component (it would be like going after a vendor of bolts and nuts for noncompliance of a toaster).
Does it run applications? The point of the law is to collect (and device setup) the age of the (I guess primary?) user, and communicate that (as a range?) to any applications it runs.
So, if you don't run applications, does this matter? Also, enforcement is by the CA attorney general, so random people can't go after you.
(c) “Application” means a software application that may be run or directed by a user on a computer, a mobile device, or any other general purpose computing device that can access a covered application store or download an application.
IANAL, but the whole thing feels quite problematic. Should we interpret the prohibition as a licensing condition "a resident using our IP is violating the contract" or as an informative note "we are not compliant and we are not ever going to be compliant so a resident using the IP is violating local laws"? I'd expect the intent to be the latter, but would it hold in front of a judge? If the notice is a licensing condition, the whole thing is problematic as hell:
- Does such prohibition has any legal force at all? Does it do anything to prevent responsibility according to the bill? Wouldn't just saying "CA/CO have zero jurisdiction over us, get screwed" be a saner choice (of course it would be better if the project wouldn't host on M$'s servers).
- The main project license is GPLv3. GPLv3 clearly has no provisions to introduce arbitrary prohibitions into the license without losing compatibility. But they still keep GPLv3 LICENSE.txt, which is problematic in itself - if LICENSE.txt says one thing and LEGAL-NOTICE.txt another, the conclusion might be that no license applies so no one may use the software at all!
- If they are reusing any GPL software that they don't hold copyright on, they might be or might not be in violation (would need a real lawyer to say if that's the case or not).
And on the actual matter of things, it's really sad to see California to be on the front line of this crap (this screams ageism). And, dear "adults", screw your parental authority so much. Whatever skills I've gained before the university I've done against an explicit parental prohibition. This is what I live off now. Screw you all.
There is no carve out in the law for open source. I don’t think it matters for this calculator’s firmware, because there’s no covered App Store, but it certainly would for most Linux distributions.
The law is irrelevant when it comes to open source. There is no one to turn to and bully for compliance. A government could presumably request that GitHub delete the repo, but the software will then simply move somewhere else, in a jurisdiction where these laws don't apply, or be distributed peer-to-peer. These attempts at curbing the freedom to write and distribute software are pathetic and will fail.
> simply move somewhere else, in a jurisdiction where these laws don't apply, or be distributed peer-to-peer
Each of these options lead software to become less and less discoverable leading to the fact that most people will never use anything that isn't complying with these laws. So the end result still hits the desired effect.
So DB48X provides a covered application store?
(e) (1) “Covered application store” means a publicly available internet website, software application, online service, or platform that distributes and facilitates the download of applications from third-party developers to users of a computer, a mobile device, or any other general purpose computing that can access a covered application store or can download an application.
Also, where does anything in the CA bill mandate age verification? It's saying the OS needs to prompt for age bracket info and allow the third party apps to query that. That is far different from verification.
> Also, where does anything in the CA bill mandate age verification? It's saying the OS needs to prompt for age bracket info and allow the third party apps to query that. That is far different from verification.
Regardless of the technical details of the law(s), the devs are sensibly refusing to prompt for age on a fricking calculator.
Hopefully Linux distros get on board with this and announce non-CA/CO compliance as policy.
Ultimately, it does not matter. This legal notice is just theater, as anyone from CA or CO can still download, build and use the program. Linux distributions will just do the same.
You might say the bills themselves are theater. Respond to theater with theater.
For Linux it will be way more problematic because:
- A lot of of corporate contributions comes from SV.
- Linux Foundation is incorporated in CA.
- Linus himself is CA's resident AFAIR.
So there is zero chance of claiming no jurisdiction. The only hope is whoever is enforcing this batshit wouldn't go after what is essentially not an OS for the purpose of the bill, but rather an internal component (it would be like going after a vendor of bolts and nuts for noncompliance of a toaster).
Unfortunately, most people think he made everything since he gets all the credit for the work GNU did
I don't see a definition for "operating system" in this legislation (California).
"Operating system provider" is defined, but that's kinda useless unless "operating system" is defined first.
It seems there's also a definition error:
> 1798.500. For the purposes of this title:
> (i) “User” means a child that is the primary user of the device.
Child is defined:
> (d) “Child” means a natural person who is under 18 years of age.
But that means this is impossible:
> (b) (4) Whether the user is at least 18 years of age.
Does it run applications? The point of the law is to collect (and device setup) the age of the (I guess primary?) user, and communicate that (as a range?) to any applications it runs.
So, if you don't run applications, does this matter? Also, enforcement is by the CA attorney general, so random people can't go after you.
Well, it’s a programmable calculator, so…how does the law define “applications”?
(c) “Application” means a software application that may be run or directed by a user on a computer, a mobile device, or any other general purpose computing device that can access a covered application store or download an application.
IANAL, but the whole thing feels quite problematic. Should we interpret the prohibition as a licensing condition "a resident using our IP is violating the contract" or as an informative note "we are not compliant and we are not ever going to be compliant so a resident using the IP is violating local laws"? I'd expect the intent to be the latter, but would it hold in front of a judge? If the notice is a licensing condition, the whole thing is problematic as hell:
- Does such prohibition has any legal force at all? Does it do anything to prevent responsibility according to the bill? Wouldn't just saying "CA/CO have zero jurisdiction over us, get screwed" be a saner choice (of course it would be better if the project wouldn't host on M$'s servers).
- The main project license is GPLv3. GPLv3 clearly has no provisions to introduce arbitrary prohibitions into the license without losing compatibility. But they still keep GPLv3 LICENSE.txt, which is problematic in itself - if LICENSE.txt says one thing and LEGAL-NOTICE.txt another, the conclusion might be that no license applies so no one may use the software at all!
- If they are reusing any GPL software that they don't hold copyright on, they might be or might not be in violation (would need a real lawyer to say if that's the case or not).
And on the actual matter of things, it's really sad to see California to be on the front line of this crap (this screams ageism). And, dear "adults", screw your parental authority so much. Whatever skills I've gained before the university I've done against an explicit parental prohibition. This is what I live off now. Screw you all.
Clickbait title, the legal notice explicitly states that an open source project cannot and will not implement age verification.
There is no carve out in the law for open source. I don’t think it matters for this calculator’s firmware, because there’s no covered App Store, but it certainly would for most Linux distributions.
The law is irrelevant when it comes to open source. There is no one to turn to and bully for compliance. A government could presumably request that GitHub delete the repo, but the software will then simply move somewhere else, in a jurisdiction where these laws don't apply, or be distributed peer-to-peer. These attempts at curbing the freedom to write and distribute software are pathetic and will fail.
> simply move somewhere else, in a jurisdiction where these laws don't apply, or be distributed peer-to-peer
Each of these options lead software to become less and less discoverable leading to the fact that most people will never use anything that isn't complying with these laws. So the end result still hits the desired effect.