California lawmakers unanimously pass Linux exemption from age-verification law

	California lawmakers unanimously pass Linux exemption from age-verification law(tomshardware.com)
	791 points by shscs911 11 days ago \| 396 comments
	tl;dr: California's legislature unanimously passed AB 1856, exempting open-source operating systems (Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, Arch, BSD, GrapheneOS, etc.) from the Digital Age Assurance Act taking effect January 1, 2027. The amendment excludes software distributed under permissive licenses like GPL, MIT, BSD, and Apache, and also carves out package manager dependencies and browser extension stores. Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android remain subject to the law's age-verification requirements, while SteamOS's status is unclear due to its bundled proprietary Steam client.
	HN Discussion: ↓Exemption will backfire by forcing social media to ban Linux users entirely ~Sarcastic optimism that this will finally bring the year of the Linux desktop ↓The underlying law is flawed and no OS should need exemption; privacy laws are the real fix ↓Unanimous passage is suspicious and suggests a hidden catch or ulterior motive ↓Concerns about arbitrary framing at the OS level and implications for custom/future OS development