Good news! Linux isn’t getting “locked out” of age-gated services (those checks happen at the site itself for ID vendors, digital ID wallets), not via the OS. There’s no mechanism in these laws that transmits an OS age signal to websites, so there’s nothing to lock Linux out of. Sites just fall back to their own verification, same as they must for any desktop browser.
The “they’ll quietly exempt Linux as a trap” framing also doesn’t match reality: California’s AB 1856 passed 69-0 explicitly redefining “OS provider” to exclude GPL/MIT/BSD/Apache software, Colorado exempts open-source OS outright, and the exemption bans requesting age signals unless legally required , the opposite of a DRM channel. Servers are untouched because there’s no obligation on servers.
That said, the core worry is legitimate: these laws are scope creep waiting to happen. An earlier draft of AB 1856 would have forced browsers and websites to demand age signals and, that would have hit Linux hard. It died this time, but nothing says it stays dead. So the threat isn’t today’s statutes, it’s the next round of amendments, plus hybrid cases like SteamOS sitting in legal gray zones.
You’re right, the law shouldn’t exist at all, and the trajectory deserves skepticism.
However, the mechanism is not there Nobody’s DRM’ing Linux off the internet, YET.
Good news! Linux isn’t getting “locked out” of age-gated services (those checks happen at the site itself for ID vendors, digital ID wallets), not via the OS. There’s no mechanism in these laws that transmits an OS age signal to websites, so there’s nothing to lock Linux out of. Sites just fall back to their own verification, same as they must for any desktop browser.
The “they’ll quietly exempt Linux as a trap” framing also doesn’t match reality: California’s AB 1856 passed 69-0 explicitly redefining “OS provider” to exclude GPL/MIT/BSD/Apache software, Colorado exempts open-source OS outright, and the exemption bans requesting age signals unless legally required , the opposite of a DRM channel. Servers are untouched because there’s no obligation on servers.
That said, the core worry is legitimate: these laws are scope creep waiting to happen. An earlier draft of AB 1856 would have forced browsers and websites to demand age signals and, that would have hit Linux hard. It died this time, but nothing says it stays dead. So the threat isn’t today’s statutes, it’s the next round of amendments, plus hybrid cases like SteamOS sitting in legal gray zones.
You’re right, the law shouldn’t exist at all, and the trajectory deserves skepticism.
However, the mechanism is not there Nobody’s DRM’ing Linux off the internet, YET.
The fight is making sure that stays true.