Will FreeBSD be available in California in 2027?

The really daft and scary part was the idea that programmers can be fined if they write code that fails to query the user's age from the operating system and then take account of that age. I guess it might make sense in something like a commercially provided browser, but that would be nonsensical for most types of software. Again, it seems unenforcable in open source. How might it be applied in programs like 'fetch', 'curl' or 'wget', for example.
 
As I wrote above, IMO this is not a problem. Because the fine is "per affected child". If your program is console calculator without age check, try to explain how and when a child can see adult content using it.
 
6502 said:
As I wrote above, IMO this is not a problem. Because the fine is "per affected child". If your program is console calculator without age check, try to explain how and when a child can see adult content using it.
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That would be the common sense approach.
 
jwillia3 said:
Finding the Mozilla Foundations name on the list of supporters is one of the more disappointing aspects of this debacle.
...
Their doublespeak on protecting Internet freedom becomes even harder to believe when they've just delivered our key personal information into the hands of their so called opponents.
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I don't find the "doublespeak" at all surprising. They are after all a google funded operation of astounding hypocrites, focused on anything but the web browser and associated software projects which they were originally founded to provide support for.

I also don't believe that MS, google, Apple, etc are the targets of this - they are clearly the instigators. "Follow the money"... If every web user requires an "account" with any of the aforementioned in order to prove they are an adult, then it's quite obviously win, win for them.
 
blackhole said:
I also don't believe that MS, google, Apple, etc are the targets of this - they are clearly the instigators.
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Oh, Apple, MS, Google, etc. are the ones with shady practices of sneakily extracting a user's real info. Yeah, they instigated the situation (by shamelessly engaging in the said practices), and are now being targeted by that Cal law - precisely for such behavior.
 
atax1a said:
that is, in fact, what their goal is. and then they'll say that trans people and queers are also porn and we need to ban them too. because of the children. there's a bit of historical precedent for this, even.
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atax1a said:
well, so, the issue of "age and identity verification" is also on topic for trans people, considering how difficult it is to get people to understand that we do have identities that are not the ones assigned to us by state-recognized authorities. :) basically, all of this shit sucks and it's going to hit weird queers like us before it hits anyone else, and that's again by design.
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Is there a name for this behavior or phenomenon? Something I can refer to it by? Also, Can you elaborate the the precedence you are talking about?

Something very similar just happened to me and I want to be able to articulate this argument as an example to people better.
 
vulpine said:
Is there a name for this behavior or phenomenon? Something I can refer to it by? Also, Can you elaborate the the precedence you are talking about?

Something very similar just happened to me and I want to be able to articulate this argument as an example to people better.
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i dunno, this is just how life is being multiply-marginalized. the broader society is built to keep us perpetually othered, which makes us, as a class, a convenient scapegoat. most people tend to dislike it when we discuss the deeper reasoning behind this, though.
 
vulpine, if you're loooking for a word, I'd say tribalism. Whether the group is gay, immigrants, different colored skin, or different religious beliefs, there are always people who just like to bully others. The comedian Emo Phillips once said his favorite joke that he wrote was one... in this case it was about religion but it could have been done about politics, sexual orientation, gender, or anything. Here's a link to the joke.

www.theguardian.com

The best God joke ever - and it's mine!

Emo Philips: This morning I received thrilling news: a joke I wrote more than 20 years ago has been voted the funniest religious joke of all time!
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

Here in the US the most obvious, in the past, has been race. But if you go somewhere, where all the people are the same race, they find something else to fight about. To put their tribe, whatever the definition of tribe is, in that particular circumstance, over another.
Humans can commit incredibly despicable acts. And yet, often, on an individual level, commit amazing acts of heroism, kindness, generosity, you name it.
 
scottro said:
if you're loooking for a word, I'd say tribalism.
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this is a terrible word on account of the native people who organized into tribes did not have these uniquely-capitalistic problems (they had entirely different problems, but the history of this has been obliterated)
 
I'd disagree. You're using the meaning in a different way. However, if it makes you think of native people tribes, feel free to suggest a better word, since, if you do think of it that way, I can certainly see why you'd think it a poor choice of words.. Hrrm, sect-ism? I mean, in general use it could refer to the lost tribes of Israel from the Old Testament. To me, it doesn't conjure up that image.

However, I'll fully agree that, especially if you are a native American, I might not see why it bothers you. For example, my nieces, when they were kids, had some silly chant they were doing that included the words, Chinese Japanese (I think it rhymed with knees, but we're talking 25 odd years ago). Afterwards, my wife, who is Japanese told me she found it offensive. I hadn't felt there was anything offensive about it--point being, that is is easy to miss why one group might be offended by something when someone who is not a member of that group thinks the offended party is overly sensitive. As I was always intimidated by my older brother, I didn't speak to the the niece's parents about it. I did what every grown, mature man does and called my mommy. I don't know what actually ensued after that but the older niece, who was probably 8 or 9 at the time, called my wife a day or so later to apologize.

Anyway, point is, I don't know if you're a native American, and even if you're not, I am sorry if you found the word offensive and freely admit that many of us can be offensive without intending to have done so.
 
Espionage724 said:
:rolleyes: https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/11/amer...teen-test-users-plan-violence-tests-intl-invs

While source-checking stumbled on another as-recent: https://www.ksat.com/news/world/202...-maker-openai-over-school-shooting-in-canada/
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Shocking news, all right, but what does that have to do with shady practices of teasing out a user's real info from accounts owned by minors?

That news is just the fallout of those shady practices, I'd say.

And my assessment is that the chatbot is acting like a mindless teen who is uninformed and doesn't do critical thinking about what's OK to do and what's not, what's the law, and why it's in place. Actions have consequences.
 
I think I understand the motivations for this and similar bills now:
  1. Protect the social media giants from liability: Shift the responsibility for age verification to the OS providers. Now families get to sue them when Timmy sees something gross on Facebook.
  2. Corporatize open source development: The fines are ridiculous for an individual to bear. Let's bring all open source development in-house at the corporate giants so that a single guy in Finland can no longer embarrass us. Also, the legal department will make mince meat of the families from 1.
  3. Make it look like politicians are doing something about social media: This is the classic "it's for the children!" ploy. It's possible and maybe even likely that some politicians are technically naive and believe this will actually help. I bet most are just going to cynically cash in the campaign talking points.
 
Jose said:
I think I understand the motivations for this and similar bills now:
  1. Protect the social media giants from liability: Shift the responsibility for age verification to the OS providers.
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Who are the OS providers? In practice, there are three: Google (Android), Microsoft (Windows), Apple (iOS, MacOS). Those are close or identical to what you call "social media giants".

Jose said:
  1. Corporatize open source development: The fines are ridiculous for an individual to bear.
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That has already happened. I bet over 90%, perhaps as high as 99% of open-source development is done by people who get paid for it. The *BSD are the exception to the rule, but they are pretty small.

Jose said:
  1. Make it look like politicians are doing something about social media:
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Agree. Old German saying: "The opposite of well done is well intended". Something needs to be done, politicians want to do something, this is something, therefore let's do it. Stupid, but reality.
 
scottro said:
I'd disagree. You're using the meaning in a different way. However, if it makes you think of native people tribes, feel free to suggest a better word, since, if you do think of it that way, I can certainly see why you'd think it a poor choice of words.. Hrrm, sect-ism? I mean, in general use it could refer to the lost tribes of Israel from the Old Testament. To me, it doesn't conjure up that image.

However, I'll fully agree that, especially if you are a native American, I might not see why it bothers you. For example, my nieces, when they were kids, had some silly chant they were doing that included the words, Chinese Japanese (I think it rhymed with knees, but we're talking 25 odd years ago). Afterwards, my wife, who is Japanese told me she found it offensive. I hadn't felt there was anything offensive about it--point being, that is is easy to miss why one group might be offended by something when someone who is not a member of that group thinks the offended party is overly sensitive. As I was always intimidated by my older brother, I didn't speak to the the niece's parents about it. I did what every grown, mature man does and called my mommy. I don't know what actually ensued after that but the older niece, who was probably 8 or 9 at the time, called my wife a day or so later to apologize.

Anyway, point is, I don't know if you're a native American, and even if you're not, I am sorry if you found the word offensive and freely admit that many of us can be offensive without intending to have done so.
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Factionalism

FACTIONALISM Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com

FACTIONALISM definition: a condition in which a group, organization, government, etc., is split into two or more smaller groups with differing and often opposing opinions or interests. See examples of factionalism used in a sentence.
www.dictionary.com www.dictionary.com
 
ralphbsz said:
Who are the OS providers? In practice, there are three: Google (Android), Microsoft (Windows), Apple (iOS, MacOS). Those are close or identical to what you call "social media giants".
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I'm struggling to think of what "social media" Apple and Microsoft have. To me the social media giants are Meta, Tiktok, and Twitter. In any case, liability for the online experience is no longer hypothetical as of today. Meta is allegedly behind these efforts to add an age API.

ralphbsz said:
That has already happened. I bet over 90%, perhaps as high as 99% of open-source development is done by people who get paid for it. The *BSD are the exception to the rule, but they are pretty small.
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I doubt it's 99%, but won't quibble over the number because I don't think it's knowable. There are notable exceptions like Lasse Collin, but I expect this will largely affect developers employed or sponsored by smaller firms that won't have the wherewithal to comply with the letter of these new requirements.

Thinking more about this, I believe the golden era of open computing is under serious attack.

Apple already has one of the most locked-down environments on their phones, and are making a pretty penny off of it. Now they're trying to lock down what can be run on their computers as well. Soon you'll only be able to run apps you bought on the Apple app store on your mac.

Google of course wants some of that sweet, sweet app store cash. They're also trying to limit what you can run on your hardware, and closing their phone OS.

Then there's Microsoft. They've been trying to make a Windows app store happen for decades. This is the perfect excuse to start locking down what you can run on your PC "for the children." The FCC could give them a big leg up by deciding that PCs without "secure" boot enabled are an unacceptable supply-chain risk and cannot be sold in the U.S.

In a few years we could be limited to a few overpriced options, running crapified apps that cost an arm and a leg, and spy on you constantly.

I used to think that the spying was not all that worrisome because at the end of the day, they were just doing it to try and sell me stuff. Turns out I naively underestimated how this data can be misused. The government is now buying this data without a warrant.
 
Jose said:
I'm struggling to think of what "social media" Apple and Microsoft have. To me the social media giants are Meta, Tiktok, and Twitter.
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You're probably right on that.

Jose said:
I doubt it's 99%, but won't quibble over the number because I don't think it's knowable.
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I don't know the exact number. But I have seen companies like Intel and IBM have hundreds or thousands of full-time Linux developers (that doesn't count RedHat, because I worked at IBM before the RedHat merger). And it seems the bulk of commits comes from people who are not amateurs.

Jose said:
Thinking more about this, I believe the golden era of open computing is under serious attack.
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I would not phrase it as "under attack", but "changing in character slowly". Software development is becoming harder, as a lot of the easy stuff has been done, we need to solve harder problems (scalability, security). I don't see AI as helping, only as changing the process. More and more it will require large groups with good funding to build useful things. That is the big reason amateurs are being pushed out.

On the other hand, the fraction of all computing that's done on "open systems" (meaning Unix / Posix) and using "open source" is very high. I look at it from the server side, and there most software is either open source (often internally curated and adapted by big users), or in-house developed and confidential. Commercial software is a smaller and smaller share.

Jose said:
Apple already has one of the most locked-down environments on their phones, and are making a pretty penny off of it. Now they're trying to lock down what can be run on their computers as well. Soon you'll only be able to run apps you bought on the Apple app store on your mac.
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But Apple still very much supports doing software development on the Mac, and they distribute what they call "Xcode", which is a big software development environment, which includes a good C/C++ compiler (based on LLVM/Clang).

Jose said:
In a few years we could be limited to a few overpriced options, running crapified apps that cost an arm and a leg, and spy on you constantly.
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As long as we can get compilers and interpreters, I'm not worried.
 
Jose said:
I'm struggling to think of what "social media" Apple and Microsoft have.
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Apple has iTunes, Microsoft owns Teams.

iTunes is not just an app store, it hosts podcasts (hell, they're the ones that invented the word 'podcast' in the first place!), music, etc. If you have an OS account on a Mac, that's the account that gets tied to iTunes that is installed on the given Mac machine. The "Social Media" tag applies to Apple at least in part because of the podcasts hosted on iTunes. Subscriptions to the said podcasts are also managed on iTunes.

Teams, a videoconferencing app, can be thought of as a social media channel. XBox and live.com can be thought of as more 'social media channels' that Microsoft owns.

Jose said:
PC "for the children
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Remember the Asus EE PC ?
 
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