I wish larger and more popular distros like arch, debian or mint would take a stand aswell. I get ubuntu or fedora having to comply as these are run by american companies, but debian and mint opinion would probably have major sway over the entire ecosystem
Im just curious, but how would arch implement age verification if it wanted to? I mean, its basically just the linux kernel, with supporting software like systemd, no? I know systemd is making moves to add “age verification” in the form of an environment variable or something, but that would be trivial to remove as I think about it off the top of my head, or worst case you would just get a fork of systemd without the age verification if they bake it in too deep and make it so the entire systemd ecosystem doesnt work without that variable set
They’re being the adults in the room by seeking legal guidance and not prematurely putting their foot in their mouth. We must be patient. The penalties on some of these laws could be fatal, even to the biggest foss players.
And what would those penalties be? If you are not based in the country having these moronic laws, they can’t do shit (see: fines for 4chan in the UK, fines for Google in Russia), except maybe ‘banning’ your distro, which amounts to nothing, since whoever is determined enough can just find it online anyways.
Legal guidance for what? If California of the USA wants to ban Debian for not requiring age verification, let’s see how that pans out for their tech companies.
Legal guidance is not necessary because these laws should not be followed. Stop letting the US impose its will on the rest of the world.
This is my thought process as well. Its ridiculous that a single state of the US - not even the entire country - can have so much sway over a global project.
it’s not just the U.S. The UK, EU as well as malaysia are all pursuing some kind of digital age-gating legislation.
