I received the amended Colorado Age Attestation bill.
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@carlrichell what about stuff like Amiga Workbench? They still make Amiga OS. How would something like that work?? That's not FOSS... but Amigas lack the ability to even phone out to facilitate age verification. Amigas don't even have an RTC. This entire idea is technologically infeasible.
@carlrichell I began doing computer programming at 8. If this bill had been in place in the early 90s, I wouldn't have my career today. This will lead to immense brain drain in the US.
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@eickot @carlrichell Nothing like updating Ubuntu and rebooting the PC without GPU drivers

@moonleay @eickot @carlrichell "Oh, I suddenly only have single monitor support again, I must have updated."
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@carlrichell dunno if this anywhere near what you aimed for, but my son made this game using the open source game engine Godot and also used Krita to create some of the art: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3565330/Squinky/
He's still 13, started at the age of 11 with this project.@Tom_ofB that's impressive! Thank you for sharing.
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@moonleay @carlrichell I remember once that I broke my Xorg config just before an exam. (Yes, it was an update of debian testing)
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@carlrichell @neal I'm assuming you've seen that this has gone national? Any activity there?
Are you working with @eff on any of this? I hope they're also poking about here.
@jzb @neal @eff I did catch that and it's one of the more draconian efforts with full verification. I don't expect it to go far but it is scary. Companies that provide verification services are pushing these laws.
There is apparently a group of open source projects starting to coordinate. I heard this from the FreeBSD Director and am supposed to receive an invite soon. I don't know who is involved yet.
Other projects like RockyLinux have reached out as well as others.
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I received the amended Colorado Age Attestation bill.
* Open source OS's and apps are excluded
* Code repos are excluded (github/gitlab)
* Containers are excluded (docker/podman)I testify Thursday and can use your help! I need your stories about incredible things kids have made thanks to access to open source software. Share here or DM me.
@carlrichell This is going to be a bit long..
Heya, hopefully me counts, but am is 15 years old and me has used lin ucks since like uhh age 11 (mom introduced me to Zorin OS, and I explored more to Linux), me was already interested in programming and breaking software since age 9 and open source software helped me even more with that with good documentation and community.
When I was 13 close to 14 I discovered IRC (with Libera.Chat), and that changed my whole life and it also became my comfort zone on the internet, the people there also inspired me to get a domain (https://swee.codes) and i also became a furry after using IRC :3
IRC also inspired me to start self hosting stuff, I currently selfhost a ZNC with 128 users (and also seen in https://wiki.znc.in/Providers), and some others listed on https://swee.codes/services
oh and not to mention the many projects on my self-hosted git site - https://git.swee.codes/swee just has 63 public repos, not that much /s
I've lost interest in looking at Linux distros and became more interested in exploring more unixes, my home server runs FreeBSD (https://oreo.node.swee.codes) and I've also tried Haiku and SerenityOS
At least I'm not an idiot that searches "how to convert .bat to .exe" and uses Scratch anymore, thanks to open source software. :3
I really hope Washington doesn't copy California and Colorado, and that we find a way to fight for anonymity

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@carlrichell can we just not pass the bill? Is that even considered?
@qbit @carlrichell can we honestly expect politicians to do the right thing?
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I received the amended Colorado Age Attestation bill.
* Open source OS's and apps are excluded
* Code repos are excluded (github/gitlab)
* Containers are excluded (docker/podman)I testify Thursday and can use your help! I need your stories about incredible things kids have made thanks to access to open source software. Share here or DM me.
@carlrichell I would like to have the feature to enable parental control on my Linux for my kids but I'm not happy with the laws. I would like the law to require sites and apps that want kids as users/customers to be required to provide a PEGI like signal. This way I control if I enable the feature on my machine and the OS and the browser does the checking if the user can launch the app or open the site.
Also distributions could add the PEGI class to the packages in their repos. -
I received the amended Colorado Age Attestation bill.
* Open source OS's and apps are excluded
* Code repos are excluded (github/gitlab)
* Containers are excluded (docker/podman)I testify Thursday and can use your help! I need your stories about incredible things kids have made thanks to access to open source software. Share here or DM me.
@carlrichell Idea: Challenge those pushing this idea to define operating system in precise technical terms. Do not allow them to use vague, layman definition for operating system. Because I guarantee you they will be conflating "operating system" with "desktop environment' and they are not at all the same thing. OSes exist because monolithic computer programs owning the entire processor was considered unsafe and outdated by 1998 when Apple finally was dragged screaming across the line.
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@carlrichell Idea: Challenge those pushing this idea to define operating system in precise technical terms. Do not allow them to use vague, layman definition for operating system. Because I guarantee you they will be conflating "operating system" with "desktop environment' and they are not at all the same thing. OSes exist because monolithic computer programs owning the entire processor was considered unsafe and outdated by 1998 when Apple finally was dragged screaming across the line.
@carlrichell The entire purpose of modern operating systems is to facilitate multitasking operation by interacting with context switches with the scheduler. When you break down what this means in plain english, the bill becomes "It's illegal to run multiple programs at once without giving your age." Which should be nakedly obvious as to why this isn't accomplishing their stated goals and only hurts non-corporate technologists as a whole.
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@carlrichell The entire purpose of modern operating systems is to facilitate multitasking operation by interacting with context switches with the scheduler. When you break down what this means in plain english, the bill becomes "It's illegal to run multiple programs at once without giving your age." Which should be nakedly obvious as to why this isn't accomplishing their stated goals and only hurts non-corporate technologists as a whole.
@carlrichell I thought law was supposed to be the realm of ultra-precise language for a reason. You can't build a law against a vague vibes definition. The vast amount of normal computer users have no idea what an operating system is despite thinking they do, and I 100% guarantee these lawmakers you speaking of are just as ignorant. If the logical arguments won't hold sway, turn to the argument of the language.
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@carlrichell I thought law was supposed to be the realm of ultra-precise language for a reason. You can't build a law against a vague vibes definition. The vast amount of normal computer users have no idea what an operating system is despite thinking they do, and I 100% guarantee these lawmakers you speaking of are just as ignorant. If the logical arguments won't hold sway, turn to the argument of the language.
@carlrichell give one final argument: You can very easily write monolithic programs that will do everything they are trying to avoid, without being classified as an OS. And, in fact, those monolithic programs would be harder to regulate because at that point, they simply become programs without any real defining characteristics to isolate them by the language beiung used.
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@carlrichell give one final argument: You can very easily write monolithic programs that will do everything they are trying to avoid, without being classified as an OS. And, in fact, those monolithic programs would be harder to regulate because at that point, they simply become programs without any real defining characteristics to isolate them by the language beiung used.
@carlrichell Wasn't it just a yearish ago that these same types of lawmakers were trying to pass a built to make using C and C++ illegal for government contracts because they aren't threadsafe? Ask them how this bill is at all in line with their previous attempts at safety. Because this bill would give more utility towards those monolithic programs, thus making them more attractive to use. And monolithic programs are not safe beyond being threadsafe.
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@qbit @carlrichell can we honestly expect politicians to do the right thing?
@vandorb12 @carlrichell we absolutely should! And if they aren't we need to inform them of what and why they are doing wrong!
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@qbit @carlrichell can we honestly expect politicians to do the right thing?
@vandorb12 @carlrichell we absolutely should! And if they aren't we need to inform them of what and why they are doing wrong!
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I received the amended Colorado Age Attestation bill.
* Open source OS's and apps are excluded
* Code repos are excluded (github/gitlab)
* Containers are excluded (docker/podman)I testify Thursday and can use your help! I need your stories about incredible things kids have made thanks to access to open source software. Share here or DM me.
@carlrichell I learned to use Kivy thanks to some kid (ShawCode) on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChB6no22fVJ-6dGNTfbb05w
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I received the amended Colorado Age Attestation bill.
* Open source OS's and apps are excluded
* Code repos are excluded (github/gitlab)
* Containers are excluded (docker/podman)I testify Thursday and can use your help! I need your stories about incredible things kids have made thanks to access to open source software. Share here or DM me.
@carlrichell if brilliant kids like him can't use open source tools growing up, it's not only a personal tragedy for said kids, but a loss in innovation, competitiveness and tax revenue for the country as a whole
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@neal with the way this worked out, I believe we now have a sound template to start working in other states. I haven't found the amended text online but will post as soon I do. Our next step is a letter to the CO reps that we need to pass the bill with these amendments, then adapting that letter to other states and working with the open source community to raise awareness.
@carlrichell Respectfully, I disagree with your attitude here. "Now that this doesn't affect us, fuck everyone else on Windows/Mac." This is not gonna be enough to push the masses toward Linux, so all this is doing is putting Mac/Windows users at risk. Furthermore, what happens when Linux becomes a mainstream tool and then lawmakers decide that now they need to expand the law to include open source software?
This is very much a "first they came for Windows users" attitude.
