I received the amended Colorado Age Attestation bill.

[neal@social.gompa.me]

@carlrichell Is there any communication with California and New York yet?

[mcneely@indieweb.social]

@carlrichell I'm not from Colorado but I do follow tech policy somewhat closely; it's my understanding that Colorado likes to view itself as one of the leaders in tech policy at the state level. I think it would be very helpful if you pointed at the carve outs for Open Source OSs and Apps and compared that to the state of CA AB1043 and the vagueness of who it applies towards as "Operating System Provider" and "covered app store". Clarity is better here IMO

California AB1043

California AB1043 2025-2026 AB 1043 Wicks Age verification signals software applications and online services Existing law generally provides protections for minors on the internet including the California AgeAppropriate Design Code Act that among other things requires a business that provides an online service product or feature likely to be accessed by children to do certain things including estimate the age of child users with a reasonable level of certainty appropriate to the risks that arise from the data management practices of the business or apply the privacy and data protections afforded to children to all consumers and prohibits an online service product or feature from among other things using dark patterns to lead or encourage children to provide personal information beyond what is reasonably expected to provide that online service product or feature or to forego privacy protections This bill beginning January 1 2027 would require among other things related to age verification with respect to software applications an operating system provider as defined to provide an accessible interface at account setup that requires an account holder as defined to indicate the birth date age or both of the user of that device for the purpose of providing a signal regarding the users age bracket to applications available in a covered application store and to provide a developer as defined who has requested a signal with respect to a particular user with a digital signal via a reasonably consistent realtime application programming interface regarding whether a user is in any of several age brackets as prescribed The bill would require a developer to request a signal with respect to a particular user from an operating system provider or a covered application store when the application is downloaded and launched This bill would prohibit an operating system provider or a covered application store from using data collected from a third party in an anticompetitive manner as specified This bill would punish noncompliance with a civil penalty to be enforced by the Attorney General as prescribed This bill would declare its provisions to be severable

(trackbill.com)

[carlrichell@fosstodon.org]

@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@fosstodon.org]

@McNeely the amended version is not online yet (checked last night but not this morning). I will post as soon as soon as I see it.

[thomasfuchs@hachyderm.io]

@carlrichell idk if this is anything, but my whole career as a programmer and software creator is thanks to being able to freely tinker with computers and the software running on them back in the late 80s and 90s

[jackryder@infosec.exchange]

@carlrichell It might be a tad dated but

Avi Schiffmann - Wikipedia

(en.wikipedia.org)

Avi Schiffmann built a Covid-19 tracker when he was in Highschool.

[jzb@hachyderm.io]

@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.

[moonleay@mastodon.de]

@carlrichell I am using Linux since I was 15 or so. If wouldn't know half as much about computers, servers and networking, if I hadn't had access to Linux, FOSS & open computer equipment at a young age.

[ernmander@squatch.online]

@carlrichell Good luck on Thursday Carl

[carlrichell@fosstodon.org]

@moonleay yes, and gotta have root to really learn!

[carlrichell@fosstodon.org]

@jackryder that's a great story. Thanks for sharing!

[carlrichell@fosstodon.org]

@thomasfuchs the public's idea of computing has shifted to consuming apps. Open platforms are more important now than ever.

[eickot@mastodon.social]

@carlrichell @moonleay nothing like breaking linux, to learn how to fix it (replace linux with almost anything)

[human3500@ottawa.place]

@carlrichell Linus wasn't quite a kid when he started Linux, but you don't start a big project like that without some small ones under your belt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds

[evanwolf@mastodon.social]

@carlrichell Computer literacy starts young. I started coding at age 12.

Kids are citizens too. And civic life, learning what's going on and using your freedoms of speech and assembly, is thru computers. This steps on constitutionally protected civil rights from the first amendment on...

[vandorb12@infosec.exchange]

@carlrichell most would rather this bill not going forward. This does nothing to protect those at risk.
Seeing a carveout for FOSS is not enough of an olive branch.

[tom_ofb@23.social]

@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.

[chip_unicorn@im-in.space]

@carlrichell

Just visit https://scratch.mit.edu/ for some adorable projects that kids wrote.

[moonleay@mastodon.de]

@eickot @carlrichell Nothing like updating Ubuntu and rebooting the PC without GPU drivers

[kgf@hachyderm.io]

@carlrichell I started learning programming in high school (around age 16) and was messing around with QBASIC years before then. Can't say I would've known to pursue computer science if not for all of that.

I also attribute a significant amount of my Linux literacy to an amazing Swedish friend I met online, who IIRC was around 17 years old at the time. He got me started on Slackware in 2002 or 2003. (He was a couple of years younger than me, and unfortunately passed away due to cancer not long after that.)

So yeah kids do some pretty cool stuff and can even teach their elders new tricks that can help shape their entire careers.