I wasn't implying that with my comment. The implication was the responses to your thread.
As far as I understand the situation, it means that every provider of an OS needs to verify the age of the "purchasing person" (not necessarily the same as the user) by official means (ID card or similar)
Only for new installed OS, or also existing ones?
If the later, all Windows, Mac, Android owners need to go via some kind of screening and age verification process, right?
Brave New World and 1984 is coming closer.
Someone i trust to report properly on the situation is "Nicco Loves Linux" on YouTube. He hasn't done a video yet, because i am going to guess he's going to properly research it first. He's done some very good explorations of problematic proposed EU legislation in the past.
Brodie Robertson has made a Video to this Topic, too:
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BTW Will Zorin based in Ireland comply with his nonsense/rubbish legislation?
I enjoy using Zorin and it would be a shame to need to find another distro/operating system.
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When You are in Colorado or California it could happen when Zorin doesn't exclude them.
But this Law is for every OS as far as I understand that.
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Spot on comment here posted on PC Gamer:
"It's not age verification and it's not about child safety. It's de-anonymization. The authorities, hell bent on more and more control, are seeking to ID the entire internet by any means.
We have decades of precedent that the ever increasing demands for personal data has never satisfied them, so I no longer buy these demands.
These various authorities have completely forgotten that it's also their responsibility to uphold our individual rights to privacy."
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Interesting that Switched to Linux actually covered this before Louis Rossman, so perhaps he should really be the person cited as the first person who covered it 4 months prior.
If all user age data is held centrally on a database run by the OS, that will never be hacked... I do not like this proliferation of private data being held everywhere.
October 2025 - UK foreign office servers hacked.
Presumably, it might be possible for competent people to remove the age verification code from a distro, and make that available?
I can also see where this might go - perhaps then a web browser be required to ascertain the user's age before connecting to a website, transmitting the age to the website (in a header) which the website will be required by law to act upon, serving only appropriate content. I'm sure that sounds good to some of these lawmakers. All easily spoofable and bypassed, of course.
Never mind the sheer amount of legacy systems in use.
So will comply with EU legislation.
In Bernstein v. United States, code was considered free speech under the first amendment, provided it doesn't explicitly violate unprotected speech. What we're witnessing is the truth of America. The Constitution never really mattered. Free speech is a myth, just like everywhere else.
sic. "Democracy? What is that?"
Interesting thread on LM Forum:
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It won't be.
What the law requires is that the O.S. operates an API that assigns an age bracket of the registrant - that age bracket is to be transmitted - not birthdates.
It is Self Reporting, so it gathers no actual Identity Information.
Will Zorin OS need to comply?
By the legalese, yes.
There are multiple ways they could:
- Include a disclaimer that states "Not For Use in the state of _______."
(Fill in the blank with the state name that has passed the law). - Modify Zorin OS to comply with the California law - as stated above
- Ignore the law and hope that enforcement is simply too expensive and difficult to actually happen (They are located outside of the USA and Open Source, with many contributors, makes it very difficult to isolate a source to prosecute.
You can see that last one is risky enough that I don't know they would entertain it much.
The valid question that beats beneath speculation is of the Slippery Slope.
This CA law is a Soft Block. Self reported Age brackets - I mean... a minor could lie. Age Brackets cannot transmit Identification or actual birthdates...
But as a Step Toward Something more strict - it is valid to question the validity of such a Soft Block in the first place. In time, they could claim the "Soft block" is not working, after people have gotten used to being asked to Age Bracket themselves, and get minimal pushback. If they did it right away, it would not be minimal.
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Wouldn't here be a Point the Ubuntu Base that Zorin uses? When Ubuntu would based on this Law implement a whatever Form of Age Verification, it would land in Zorin, too - except the Zorin Dev's would actively take it out.
Just like the UK legislators are finding out re: 4Chan/Kiwi Farms, laws in one country do not apply in other countries. Therefore it will be relatively easy to find an OS (Temple or Plan 9 if I have too) that is made outside of California/USA.
Good breakdown by Gardiner ...
Where it is made doesn't matter. When it is for Users in California (and Colorado as I heard) it has to offer that. An OS Developer could only exclude these States in their Terms like MidnightBSD has done that.
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