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104 sats \ 1 reply \ @unboiled 5h \ on: freedesktop Closes Controversial Age Verification API Proposal devs Politics_And_Law
Concerns included privacy implications, embedding jurisdiction-specific policies into the desktop infrastructure, and whether this functionality should be part of the freedesktop core namespace.

I strongly agree with these reservations.
I'm also fairly confident they'd get forked in a heart beat if they went ahead with that proposal.

Unclear how OSs like Ubuntu and Debian will handle these increasingly common regulations.

If the OS cares more about market share than the spirit of freedom in open-source, and they can be effectively sued, they're very likely to comply.

If they don't care about market share, or not enough to override their freedom principles, then they may choose to disallow use in jurisdictions requiring age verification of that calibre.

And if there is no registered foundation with people that can be sued effectively, there is no need to comply.

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2 sats \ 0 replies \ @Scoresby OP 4h

I imagine that aggressive states might try to go after developers who work on a project, even if the project has no entity beyond a github repo.

Roman Storm and the Samurai guys are a different case in many ways, but I'm not sure that attorney generals have to stretch too far to start claiming that lead maintainers for FOSS operating systems are responsible for implementing their tyrannical age verification laws.

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