TL;DR they are lawyering up and hasn't said for or aginst
Fair enough, that means they're probably gonna sue over it.
Eh, more like they are having a lawyer help determine whether they comply or not (to avoid being sued/held liable for non-compliance).
I read it as "we're not gonna do it, and we're getting the lawyers to tell us what we have to do to to avoid this bullshit"
WTF?
How is this not reasonable? Everyone's potentially got a lot to lose here.
Asking an expert for their opinion, even if that expert is a lawyer, is not "lawyering up", nor is their any evidence whatsoever that the Debian Project or the SPI is going to "probably sue over it".
The summary under the heading "TL;DR" was nothing more than an inflammatory opinionated interpretation of the headline and as interpretations go, it was not in any way, shape, or form, anything that might be considered a summary, which is what the "TL;DR" implied.
Hence my "WTF?" response and subsequent top level reply with the actual text and its source as sent by the DPL.
I note that the issue of "age verification" is an extremely troubling trend and I think that discussion about it needs to be considered and nuanced, neither of which were in evidence.
Software in the Public Interest is a US- based non-profit organization that legally represents and handles donations for Debian, Arch, LibreOffice, systemd and a lot of other projects. And if they're in violation of US law, they can unfortunately be sued into oblivion. So they're right to check with their legal team before making an informed decision.
And fortunately they can just change their fiscal host. That's one thing the lawyers will tell them, if needed
This is why I stick with Debian. Adults make decisions over there.
Can you verify this? Maybe we should require Debian contributors to prove they are adults. /s
They voted to switch to systemd so yeah, no problem there.
He also noted that, from a non-lawyer perspective, it remains uncertain how these regulations would apply to a non-commercial, volunteer-driven project like Debian, which does not sell software and distributes it in a decentralized manner.
FUCKING THANK YOU.
My coffee maker has an operating system... Okay well actually i use an electric kettle but some of them do.
This law is impossible
Our office coffee machine runs Android. Every time I wonder why...
I’m against these laws, strongly, but I think sending vitriol at systemd and distrust is not constructive.
The battle is legal and pretending it isn’t and fighting our maintainers who realistically can’t afford to be sued over good, is not helping the cause.
It’s humans at the end of the pipe. Thoughtful and vulnerable humans.
I'd say it's less a legal fight than it is a fight for control , using the law this time.
Pretending that what people are upset about is the field rather than the pre-capitulation is not helping the cause.
Most of the hate isn't for the technical implementation of a field, though some FOSS people are upset at that as well.
You can sidestep the legal fight by not serving the places where it is illegal.
That's doesn't necessarily align with the goals of whatever project, but it is possible.
There is one small benefit to this speedbump on our road to freedom:
Governor Gavin Newsom, Democrat of California? Has been acting like he wants to run for President in 2028. He signed this into law for his state.
Make this an albatross on his neck. Sink him. Let him know that this crushed his dreams of ever being President. Publicly. Loudly. Don't be satisfied until he quits twitter and retires from public life altogether, not just politics.
And for anyone in New Jersey? Get loud at your state reps phonelines now, they're trying to pass the same in your state.
I don’t know how anyone can pretend to care about gay, trans, or black people and support this law.
It’s going to be used to ban “critical race theory” and lgbtq topics first.
I don’t see how the Dems can defend this
Just fucking block Brasil and California from using debian
Dont they just have to put a disclaimer saying that usage of the OS isnt legal in those places? That works for all sorts of other stuff so why not here?
That does nothing to address the issue. What happens when the requirement is adopted elsewhere? Just keep excluding territories?
It seems like a simple fix, but this would play right into the hands of the corporate overlords. And California is not some tiny state.
If California were an independent nation, it would rank as the fourth largest economy in the world in nominal terms, behind Germany and ahead of Japan.
Slap a label on it that it's not legal to use in those areas and move on while they fight it out legally. It's distributed via p2p anyway so if people in those places still want to use it they can. Absolutely no reason to bend on this.
I agree that that solves some problems, 100%. But I've seen the downward slide of society take hard-fought civil rights away for several decades now. It's never a sudden process, it always starts small and then slowly grows.
This is just the beginning, and it should be fought against with tooth and nail now, not just postponed so that we have to deal with this issue once the fascists already have some momentum.
Which is why I included the bit about fighting it out legally.
But I’ve seen the downward slide of society take hard-fought civil rights away for several decades now. It’s never a sudden process, it always starts small and then slowly grows.
That's what happens by adding features that comply with these stupid laws. Step one is NOT doing that. People can still use the software even if it doesn't comply. What is the government going to do break into everyone's home and look at their computers?
Just keep excluding territories?
Yes.
What happens to the California economy if they can't use Debian? Could it survive that?
This is what the DPL actually wrote on the subject:
Recent discussions have started around new age verification legislation that may affect free software operating systems. In particular, the California Digital Age Assurance Act (AB 1043), expected to take effect in 2027, raises questions about whether operating systems and package distribution mechanisms could be required to provide age-related information to applications. In parallel, a recently adopted law in Brazil appears to introduce similar requirements and is already in force, with initial interpretations suggesting it could apply to components such as package management tools. These developments are currently under discussion within Debian and other projects, and SPI has initiated efforts to obtain legal guidance. At this stage, the situation remains unclear, and further analysis is ongoing.
From a non-lawyer perspective, it is not yet clear how such regulations apply to a non-commercial, volunteer-driven project like Debian, which does not sell software and provides it in a highly decentralized way. It seems plausible that obligations, if any, may primarily affect redistributors or commercial entities building products on top of Debian. In such cases, Debian would as usual be open to contributions that help downstreams meet their requirements, while keeping such features optional and respecting the needs of users in other jurisdictions. However, this is an area where proper legal analysis is still required.
Source: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2026/04/msg00001.html
From a non-lawyer perspective, it is not yet clear how such regulations apply to a non-commercial, volunteer-driven project like Debian, which does not sell software and provides it in a highly decentralized way. It seems plausible that obligations, if any, may primarily affect redistributors or commercial entities building products on top of Debian. In such cases, Debian would as usual be open to contributions that help downstreams meet their requirements, while keeping such features optional and respecting the needs of users in other jurisdictions. However, this is an area where proper legal analysis is still required.
I found this part very reassuring. Being neither a lawyer nor having read any of the legislation (of which I am not a subject, anyway), the "it's not our job" approach seems very reasonable. Facilitating downstream vendors who do want/have to comply seems like an exceptional effort to show good faith to local legal processes, while remaining, fundamentally, just people freely sharing knowledge.
I hope their lawyers can make that work.
I wonder what the perspective is on Systemd, which debian uses, starting to implement this shit already, ~~with the same bootlicker already ruining XDG~~
I read that as "new-age" verification. LOL
We gotta inspect your Chakra dude.
Now that’s a policy I would support.
Meditate with your verification crystal to access the hidden knowledge.
We didn't recognize your verification crystal. Please enter your recovery mantra
The problem isn't the specific nature of the rule: having an api call in the background that can broadcast a user's age range (if it isn't a clearly identifiable marker) makes sense.
The problem is that if the government is able to tell open source developers "YOU MUST INSERT THIS CODE OR ELSE!!!" then what's next?
Will in 5 years they require Persona in order to install an Operating System to combat terrorism?
Will in 7 years they require a closed source module created by the government to be running at all times and the kernel must check to make sure if the closed source module is running?
Part of open source software is creativity, freedom, and freedom of speech. Some software is created because developers like creating things.
I hope Debian fights back against this on first amendment grounds. Great code is not that different from a great work of art, there is unique creativity in something elegantly coded that functions well, and telling developers they can't code how they want is the path toward totalitarianism.
It's one thing to force this into Microslop and Android and iOS because those are large profitable companies who don't actually care as long as they make money. It's another thing to force FOSS developers who develop for free because of the love of software and great code that they must change their code in a certain way.
The problem is that if the government is able to tell open source developers "YOU MUST INSERT THIS CODE OR ELSE!!!" then what's next?
What's next is that code gets a build flag that's turned off in the makefile, and maintainers have to explicitly turn it on for that code to compile in. Distros maintain patches that add this sort of thing all the time, even if upstream refuses to do so.
And Debian is saying that, as a non-profit, all volunteer org? This bullshit doesn't apply to them. They are building a legal basis for the makefile solution I'm describing above, and its default-off state in their repositories.
All of your catastrophising can be addressed this way. We need devs like you who can help make sure this solution is implemented exactly as described.
Debian repos are great - we can even blacklist official repos and replace them with bare, sketchy IP addresses if we like, and share binaries through them.
You cannot stop the signal. Quit thinking like a voter trapped in a Fascist hellscape, and start thinking like a hacker that the state cannot outmaneuver.
I think the position to adopt is very clear:
Thus you achieve the only reasonable position towards this nonsense.
FYI : a place where some of these PRs have been created , and unfortunately, one already merged into Systemd
https://lemmy.world/post/44679693
In Systemd, already merged.
In xdg.desktop.portal (a portal frontend service for Flatpak and other desktop containment frameworks), still open.
In Arch Linux, still open.
In Freedesktop.org, still open.
Minor clarification: your Arch Linux link is for archinstall, the easier install script, not Arch Linux itself. IIRC it's not even the officially recommended way to install Arch.
Tille suggested that, if such obligations arise, they would likely affect redistributors or commercial entities building on Debian, rather than the Debian project itself.
if my edgerouter 4 adds age verification i'm going to burn everything to the ground
Will drop debian like that if they capitulate a single inch
Imagine having to verify your age for every docker container spun up by GitHub/forgejo actions.
then it would be time to switch all my LXCs to alpine, i guess. if they'll even still work. they're all debian 12/13 right now.
Right now the only Debian system I have is on Oldstable. If Debian decides to implement age verification/attestation, do you think it's going to be backported to that version? 🤔
Choosing not to decide is a choice for age verification..
Choosing to claim a niche where the law doesn't apply is... A choice in favor of the law, instead of a circumvention method?
You're thinking like a voter instead of a hacker. Stop that.
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