this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2026
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You guys are asking the wrong questions.
How is Linux going to do this? There's no server for the os to send the information to report the age of its users, no way of forcing its user base to comply and no single person or entity to fine, arrest or otherwise force into compliance.
They made a law they cannot enforce.
Or they made a law to attempt to ban operating systems with free software licenses.
But that's the thing you can't ban them.
It's just software that's freely available. There's no one corporate entity that controls Linux. Anybody can literally make a distro for it make notation for it illegal for California and be done with it.
But they can fine every single developer of every single application. Sure, a lot of people won’t be in the jurisdiction of the state of California, but there are a hell of a lot of developers who are.
Linux is not a company. There is no CEO of Linux sitting in Sacramento waiting for instructions. It is a decentralized, global, open source ecosystem. If one U.S.-based distro tried to bolt on age verification, someone would fork it almost immediately and strip it out. You cannot age gate software that people can freely download, modify, compile, and redistribute.
From a technical standpoint, what would this even look like? Government ID verification at the kernel level? A biometric scan before you can run apt update? A centralized identity server for Arch users? That runs directly against how Linux is designed. The ecosystem prioritizes privacy, user control, and minimal centralized telemetry. Age verification requires centralized identity services, persistent user binding, and logging. Those models do not align. Even if someone tried, it would be trivial to bypass. VPN, foreign mirror, alternative distro. Done. You cannot meaningfully regulate something that is globally mirrored and open source.
And this law is aimed at online services and platforms anyway. The harms legislators are worried about do not originate in your bootloader. They happen on social media platforms and content services. The operating system is simply the wrong choke point.
The only places where age verification is realistically enforceable are platforms, app stores, and tightly controlled commercial device ecosystems. Not a globally distributed kernel maintained by volunteers across multiple jurisdictions. The idea that Linux is going to meaningfully comply in a way that changes outcomes is technologically naive. At best you get some compliance language from U.S. commercial vendors. At worst you get symbolic features that any moderately technical user can remove in minutes.
That is not how open systems work. Pretending otherwise just advertises a lack of understanding of the architecture being regulated.
I am fully aware of the open source ecosystem. I have contributed to dozens of projects, including the linux kernel, CPython, Perl, and others.
It’s astonishingly obvious that you haven’t bothered to read the bill at all and are just spewing nonsense. Take ten minutes and then pull your head out of your ass.
Sections 1798.501.b, 1798.502.a and b. Every developer of every application that can be downloaded from every website, platform and package system MUST request your age bracket every time it is downloaded. And every time it is launched.
Thats every application, from ‘ls’ to World of Warcraft. Thats every place on the internet that hosts software packages. It doesn’t matter if you feel like it is only aimed at “online services and platforms “ or “social media platforms and content services”.
It is written to cover everything that runs on a computer that can be downloaded and the places that host them. PyPI, crates.io, flathub, Debian mirrors, everything.
And that’s every individual developer who lives in or visits CA.
The law doesn't require sending the data anywhere, so that's not a problem.
The law doesn't require anything of users, it requires something of OS providers. OS providers have addresses and entities to fine.
Yes it fucking does. Go read the bill, particularly section 1798.501.b, 1798.502.a and b. Every developer of every application that can be downloaded from every package system MUST request your age bracket every time it is downloaded. And possibly every time it is launched. Basic utilities like ‘ls’ and ‘cat’, that pong example I pushed as a test, everything.
For a FOSS OS, any user with root access would be considered an "OS Provider" under the definitions provided in this law. With FOSS, there is no real distinction between "user" and "developer".
You are right, it just says whoever "controls the OS", which is very vague. Even without going to open source, a user still controls the OS even on Windows or macOS. To a lesser degree of course, but in the same way a driver controls a car even if they can't or won't try to modify it.
The windows user uses the OS. The windows user does not control the OS. They only have access to the functions that Microsoft has provided. The Attorney General of California won't be able to argue that the sysadmin is the OS Provider of a Windows installation. The OS Provider of Windows is Microsoft.
The Attorney General of California would easily be able to argue that the OS Provider of a particular Linux instance is the sysadmin of that instance.
And a user of Ubuntu only has access to the functions that Canonical has provided.
Unless they have root access and modify the OS. Or they have administrator access on Windows and modify the OS. Which is the case for both by default. I don't really see the distinction. There is clearly a provider company behind both, and in both cases the user could add this age check functionality by themselves by installing an utility that provides it.
That is not at all accurate.
Administrator access to Windows is not at all comparable to root access on Linux. Windows "root" access is held solely by Microsoft, and granted only to Microsoft employees and contractors. They are the only ones with the capability of changing Microsoft's binary blobs.
Canonical doesn't restrict root access. Everyone who installs Ubuntu has root access by default.
Suppose Canonical adds this capability to Ubuntu. Suppose I take an Ubuntu install, and remove this capability. Who is the provider of the resulting OS, Canonical, or me? Obviously, I am responsible for the changes; I am obviously the OS Provider in this scenario. What I am saying is that I was the OS provider before I made the changes. For FOSS software, the end user fits the OS Provider definition that California creates with this law.
What does the comparability of root/admin access change in this situation?
Suppose Microsoft adds this capability to Windows, and you edit the registry to disable it. How is that any different?
I can see the argument for something like iOS. But on Windows you would be able to add or remove such functionality. What is the difference that makes the user the OS Provider on Ubuntu but not on Windows, in your eyes?
Let's say you own a computer store in California, you sell Windows laptops, and you setup your preinstalled Windows image with the registry edit made, because customers don't like the silly age prompt. How are you not the OS Provider?
By allowing the end user to change it instead of locking it down, they are not making a good faith effort to comply, and they lose their liability protection. To maintain their immunity, at the very least they will need to prohibit Californians from disabling the feature.
Canonical is prohibited from adding comparable terms.
How is iOS any different from Windows here?
Again, to maintain their immunity under this law, they would have to prohibit me from doing this in their licensing agreement. My violation is what protects Microsoft. I would, indeed, be the OS provider in that scenario.
But in the scenario you describe, I'm not the end user.
Neither Canonical nor I can include the same restrictive terms in our OS offerings. We can simply inform our users that the OS is not California compliant. Our users become their own OS Providers as soon as they decide to use them in California.
All right, then your argument relies on the licensing difference, not any technical differences between Linux root / Windows admin or source code access. Which makes sense, but it's all hypothetical since neither company addressed this yet, either in the product or in the licensing.
No addresses or entities tied to the distro respins I've made.
That was not a requirement in the software license.
Great, but how does that help? 99.9% Linux users use a Linux distro that has, ay the very least, a website behind it, with a domain name, that has a registration info.
That the 0.01% of people that use an OS only hosted by anonymous devs on a Russian website does not make this law any better for the rest of us.
What if banning Linux is part of the Agenda? And what will they do for the servers? I am declaring my pc a server as of right now...
How do you want to do this? Linux is a kernel the world relies on. It powers your car, your fridge, your satellite, your phone, the entire Internet, the army, etc. Nothing comes close to Linux in market share. The distros are built upon the kernel. System76 may have to comply, but the other maintainers don't give a flying fuck. They could even write a small line somewhere on their repo that says "this distro is not allowed in California" and call it a day.
I wonder if that "this distro is not allowed in California" approach is even compatible with the various free software licenses.
Terms of Use / Terms of Service are different from Licenses. That said, even if it was compatible that would be a good thing, as the impression I've got is that the "hard-liner" Free Software licenses are becoming a thing of the past now that what is needed is "Ethical Source" licenses, that eg.: restrict usage in AI.
Which is why we all should aspire to join linux, and reject newsome and other greasy california politicians cynically playing us for the billionaires.
From what I understood, it's a requirement for a local API (for apps to use) and could be implemented during user creation.
It will be a slippery slope and IANAL, just my interpretation.