California's Assembly voted 68 to 1 to exempt open source Linux from its age verification law, then extended age-gating to browsers and websites in the same bill

California's Digital Age Assurance Act, signed last October, was written to push age verification down to the operating system level. The definition of operating system provider was broad enough to sweep in open source systems like Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu and Arch, which have no company behind them to collect anything at setup.

After privacy advocates and the Linux community pushed back, the Assembly passed AB 1856 this week, 68 to 1, exempting software you are free to copy, redistribute and modify, which sounds great, but the parts we should be talking about:

• The same bill extends age-gating obligations to browsers and websites
• The EFF reads this as a net expansion of the regime, not a narrowing
• SteamOS is not exempt because it ships Valve's proprietary Steam client on top of Linux
• The amendment was introduced by the same lawmaker who wrote the original law

The bill still has to clear the Senate, and the underlying law takes effect in 2027.

Full write-up and source list: https://s.vp.net/wv0fJ