CIRCLE WITH A DOT

@heydon

OK, but what if the Spidermen aren't fucking?

@wwahammy But the *heatmap* Eric! Think of the commit heatmap!

(Somehow I feel like /s is required here because *gestures*)

@neil Predictable response, I'm afraid. Is this their new compromise to the backlash? Instead of a total lockout, it's "only" a dark pattern?

@MLE_online This smacks of the same juvenoia that millennials slogged though with like. The paper napkin industry. The housing industry. The marriage industry. Etm.

Headlines like to blame younger people for just making up new culture and then tying it to economic trends that the previous generational culture propped up. I mean.

Yeah.

Things are going to change. And honestly? The fact that folks aren't engaging in a ton of substance abuse makes me feel a little better about the world.

@nixCraft This website is such an excellent rebuttal to the nonsensical parameters of the Californian law. Funny read!

@beandreams I mean, if they were willing to start there, why not Hot Dog Stand?

@blogdiva I'm ignorant in the language here. Does "decline to make a ruling" mean they don't want to step on anyone's toes, or they don't think there's a case?

Could this rear its head again later?

@nileane That's a very reasonable technical solution to an otherwise unreasonable law that kids will be able to squirm their way out of in like, a week, tops.

You're right, why are we even having this discussion? It's propaganda designed to force the conversation into a limited space to make it easier to defend in spite of its obvious flaws.

The law (conveniently) doesn't outline any technical requirements. Did someone with technical experience even review it? Was it just one reviewer? Did they have a conflict of interest? It looks like it is vague, open to iterpretation, and by all accounts, modest. Maybe even, at first glance, reasonable. Inoccuous.

This leaves it wide open to last minute revisions or a more dramatic interpretation. Persona wouldn't need to do much to outbid any other solution providers to make themselves the gold standard by going above and beyond what the law requires on paper. A future "clarifying" revision could go much much harder and essentially make that the case. A little lobbying pressure wouldn't be out of the imagination.

And I mean, that's the best case scenario. It's a vague, low effort way to get the door open and the powers it provides to lawmakers would be trivial to expand once there's a precedent.

It's a pass from me. Legislate better. Make the tech bros pay taxes first.

@cwebber @sleepyowl Yeah, the total refusal for some folks in FOSS to take this seriously because of a pinky promise in open licensing is going to make us sleep walk into this if we're not careful.

I think it's pretty easy to put up your blinders and refuse to acknowledge our individual shortcomings.

Most of us are software folks-- this will be a hardware based lock in. Many of us software people struggle with hardware issues and many of those simply cannot be sidestepped with a clever hack.

Just look at the ongoing issues with Nvidia drivers, Wayland support, LibreBoot, and standing community conventions like GUIX's tacit refusal to run on anything with proprietary drivers to get a taste of the absolute uphill slog we will all face if the community has to contend with this kind of low-level issue everywhere all at once.

The thing that drives me nuts too is that, although I suspect some issues on the internet can be solved with clever legislation, I don't think this is the way to do it. AT ALL. This whole thing feels like it was drafted by desperate polititicians who succumbed to a flashy tech bro slide deck and marketing pitches without a single thought to security, maintainence, economic impacts, etc. Like. Y'all. You have massive data centers filled with Linux boxes that some unlucky sod is probably going to get saddled with plugging their own biometrics into just to run a load balancer for the DMV. Does that feel sustainable?

Its the SaaS equivalent to legislation-- slap a bandaid on it and when people complain, blame them.

I don't live in either of the states where they're discussing this and my elected legislators are the "stick my fingers in my ears and yell real loud" types. What can I do now to help prevent this from being adopted? Are there any advocacy groups throwing their hat into the ring that we can rally behind?