MidnightBSD Excludes Calif. From Desktop Use Due to Digital Age Assurance Act

4 hours ago (ostechnix.com)

I envision sysadmins rebooting 10,000 servers, each one asking to verify the op's age, and even better, each time a web server forks off a process. (OK, this is hyperbole, but sometimes you need hyperbole to point out absurdity)

But not to worry. Very large companies "somehow" manage to get exemptions adn carve-outs from California laws that burden most of us. It's the golden rule. Whoever has the gold, rules. (stares at PG&E bill)

Do you remember the disappearing "billionaire tax"?

No idea how this will affect much of FOSS, for example, source code and binary repo's being blocked (I haven't read all the fine print).

"Shoot, if you must, this old gray head (with a camera, thank you) but spare free and open source operating systems, I said."

  • I guess it is users' accounts, so service accounts are exempt? I would hate to see a headless server rebooting and waiting for an age verification from a service account at a power or water sanitation plant...

    Maybe all laws should have a "dev environment", starting with the politicians. All their systems will demand their age and proof of age for say 12 months? Toaster, washer, dryer, cell, dishwasher, car, calculators, etc. Then, if they still want to pass the law, 3 months of red teaming by the "general public" for all the systems that have their data. And, if they still want it, go for it.

https://github.com/c3d/db48x

> The DB48X project intends to rebuild and improve the user experience of the HP48 family of calculators

They just updated their license to exclude California residents. The law is so vague there is a possibility to apply it against the project, per project team.