Wait, the world is spinning on Linux and they are trying to make it illegal?
Posted by twofive7@reddit | linux | View on Reddit | 45 comments
The tension between Linux, Windows, and global politics is going wild. We’re seeing Linux hit from all sides, from aggressive corporate moves to U.S. sanctions forcing out kernel maintainers. It feels like the megacorps want the power of open source without the freedom that comes with it.
But couldn't Linux just fight back? Couldn't the maintainers change the license to block these companies, pull the plug on the systems they took from us, or what else could be done?
fek47@reddit
Could you point out current examples? Which corporate moves? Which kernel maintainers?
glity@reddit
Systemd force updating the age field in the kernel(wrong word most people understand this concept so I’m useing it) with out high level free open source dev and no notice updates. They did the update before the laws fyi. Timing matters.
FriendlyProblem1234@reddit
systemd has an optional age field in an optional component completely unrelated to the kernel.
Maybe consider using the right words, so you do not confuse people any further.
glity@reddit
It’s not optional. The field exhausts. Regulations make it non optional stop spreading false information about process please.
FriendlyProblem1234@reddit
The field is optional: you can leave it blank, or even put any value in there, nobody checks.
The component is also optional: it is disabled by default, and everything else works if disabled.
The field did not exist before someone add it. Well, duh. This applies to everything.
I am pretty sure no regulation mentions systemd. Anyway, your words were "Systemd force updating the age field". systemd does not: the field is optional, in an optional component.
So far, the one spreading false information was the one who claimed that "Systemd force updating the age field in the kernel". That is you.
Why would you consciously use the wrong word? It makes it sound like either a) you have no idea what you are talking about, or b) you are consciously lying or confusing people. Neither option does any good to your arguments.
glity@reddit
Look I’m talking about how three things make a new thing if you want to use your logic to prove me wrong inherently you can’t. Go shill your thoughts on someone who believes the “proof”. When you get time look up the religious term “apologist” that’s essentially what you’re doing and I don’t bible bash when the other side is arguing with their paycheck on the line.
Just one small example of your flawed logic then we can go our separate ways(flawed in my opinion I’m not interested in yours anymore if you didn’t price the post was taken down then your just a bot as well)
They updated systemd with no support of the non paid developers.
It’s that simple, they had the system ready waited for the right time then instituted it.
At this point time will prove me right or you right. You logic is still flawed because you never address my if then statements as a flow only as single entities.
Thank you for the engagement and being civil. I am not trying to be aggressive if it reads that way I was raised by apologists.
Ohh use the wrong word because the people in charge have changed definitions in lost people who only scroll. Kernel is not the algorithms feed systemd is not.
FriendlyProblem1234@reddit
I am sorry, but this reads like a chaotic, unhinged, rambling. This absolutely does not do any good to your arguments.
Slight_Manufacturer6@reddit
Yea. It was a good idea to create a spot within the users database for distros to use if they want to.
But great that they kept it optional so nobody has to use it if they don’t want to.
So much better than forcing all the distros to come up with their own way to log it. That would have been a fractured mess.
glity@reddit
The people in power put in the door. The regulators will open the door. The companies will shove us through the door because the regulators told them to. Watch Brazil and the Facebook is going into the schools.
Slight_Manufacturer6@reddit
I’m thinking OP is a Russian bot upset about being kicked out of the community.
glity@reddit
Or an opesource dev worried about the world because he doesn’t want to develop for the machine that kills his fellow man.
triplenested@reddit
Lol nobody is trying to make "Linux" illegal, stop reading the histrionic posts on here that intentionally misrepresent what's happening. It's bad enough that we're going towards age verification even if right now it's just self-declared ages, you don't need to be alarmist.
RvstiNiall@reddit
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/8250/text Actually....
dc469@reddit
Can you quote which part of that bill is the 'actually'?
It's an age gating bill, which triplenested acknowledged, not something that makes the os illegal.
twofive7@reddit (OP)
Since many Linux distros can't technically follow these new age-verification and ID laws, they would technically become "illegal" to distribute in those regions.
RvstiNiall@reddit
And circumventing it would make it doubly illegal for a user.
glity@reddit
In Brazil they made it a fine for the companies effectively killing open source for a country that relies on it if you want any sort of privacy from multinational companies like Facebook.
RvstiNiall@reddit
It's happening here too, and not enough people seem to see a reason to worry.
glity@reddit
They deleted the post because of the noise people like us make. Make the noise everywhere they train ai on our noise. Be the noise in the machineZ
glity@reddit
Yes. Brazil.
Infinity-of-Thoughts@reddit
Whether a distro can follow these laws come down to the distribution just implementing the ability to do so.
Age verification being bad isn't the same as them trying to outlaw Linux.
glity@reddit
Brazil passed a similar law.
triplenested@reddit
A BILL To require operating system providers to verify the age of any user of an operating system, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the “Parents Decide Act”.
SEC. 2. REQUIRED AGE VERIFICATION FOR USERS OF OPERATING SYSTEMS.
(a) Requirements.—An operating system provider, with respect to any operating system of such provider, shall carry out the following:
(1) Require any user of the operating system to provide the date of birth of the user in order to—
(A) set up an account on the operating system; and
(B) use the operating system.
(2) If the relevant user of the operating system is under 18 years of age, require a parent or legal guardian of the user to verify the date of birth of the user.
(3) Develop a system to allow an app developer to access any information as is necessary, collected by the operating system to carry out this section and any regulation promulgated under this section, to verify the date of birth of a user of an app of the app developer.
(b) Safe Harbor.—An operating system provider may not be held liable for a violation of a provision of this Act or a regulation promulgated under this Act if the provider follows the requirements described in such provision or regulation.
(c) Enforcement By Commission.—
(1) UNFAIR OR DECEPTIVE ACTS OR PRACTICES.—A violation of this section or a regulation promulgated under this section shall be treated as a violation of a regulation under section 18(a)(1)(B) of the Federal Trade Commission Act (15 U.S.C. 57a(a)(1)(B)) regarding unfair or deceptive acts or practices.
(2) POWERS OF COMMISSION.—The Commission shall enforce this section and any regulation promulgated under this section in the same manner, by the same means, and with the same jurisdiction, powers, and duties as though all applicable terms and provisions of the Federal Trade Commission Act (15 U.S.C. 41 et seq.) were incorporated into and made a part of this Act. Any person who violates this section or a regulation promulgated under this section shall be subject to the penalties and entitled to the privileges and immunities provided in the Federal Trade Commission Act.
(d) Regulations.—
(1) IN GENERAL.—Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Commission shall promulgate, under section 553 of title 5, United States Code, regulations to carry out this section, including regulations relating to the following:
(A) How an operating system provider can—
(i) verify the date of birth of a parent or legal guardian described in subsection (a)(2); and
(ii) carry out the requirements described in subsection (a) with respect to an operating system of such provider that may be shared by individuals of varying ages.
(B) Data protection standards related to how an operating system provider shall ensure a date of birth collected by the operating system provider from a user, or the parent or legal guardian of the user, to carry out this section and any regulation promulgated under this section—
(i) is collected in a secure manner to maintain the privacy of the user or the parent or legal guardian of the user; and
(ii) is not stolen or breached.
(C) How an operating system provider shall—
(i) ensure an app developer can access information collected by the operating system provider to carry out this section and any regulation promulgated under this section, subject to the data protection standards under subparagraph (B), to verify the date of birth of a user of an app of the app developer; and
(ii) ensure the parent or legal guardian of a user of an operating system who is under 18 years of age is allowed to control what such user is allowed to access on a device.
(2) BRIEFING TO CONGRESS.—Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Commission shall brief Congress on the following information:
(A) The rulemaking process of the Commission with respect to such regulations.
(B) Any considerations of the Commission with respect to implementing such regulations.
(e) Report.—Not later than 18 months after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Commission shall submit to Congress a report on—
(1) how operating system providers carry out the requirements described in subsection (a); and
(2) any recommendation for legislative action related to updating such requirements.
(f) Effective Date.—This section, and any regulation promulgated pursuant to subsection (d)(1), shall take effect on the date that is 1 year after the date of the enactment of this Act.
(g) Definitions.—In this section:
(1) APP.—The term “app” means a software application or electronic service that may be run or directed by a user on a computer, mobile device, or any other general purpose computing device.
(2) APP DEVELOPER.—The term “app developer” means a person that owns or controls an app that is available for use in the United States.
(3) COMMISSION.—The term “Commission” means the Federal Trade Commission.
(4) OPERATING SYSTEM.—The term “operating system” means software that supports the basic functions of a computer, mobile device, or any other general purpose computing device.
(5) OPERATING SYSTEM PROVIDER.—The term “operating system provider” means a person that develops, licenses, or controls the operating system on a computer, mobile device, or any other general purpose computing device.
your point that you're implying contradicts mine is?
rfc2549-withQOS@reddit
Sadly, this is contradicting the GDPR (minimal data collection), so this will not roll out globally, at least. Maybe it's sufficient to tell the OS you are in the EU ;)
glity@reddit
You guys have it already it’s inside Unix already.
glity@reddit
Did you look at brazils law? It was the first to market.
RvstiNiall@reddit
Can y'all not read the vagueness of "verify the date of birth" part that isn't defined? Key word VERIFY
jonathancast@reddit
It explicitly says the FTC is supposed to promulgate regulations defining it.
The FTC can also be lobbied btw.
If you care about this, and you live in the US, calling your congressman is 10x as effective as complaining about it on the Internet.
But I'm still waiting for someone to tell me how Facebook can protect kids from using their service if they don't know which users are kids, lol.
triplenested@reddit
because "verify" is vague, this contradicts my point that it's bad enough that we're going towards age verification?
RvstiNiall@reddit
Sorry if I need to spell that out for you, but it makes it illegal to circumvent it, in accordance with DMCA. And left just vague enough to make it however enforceable as they want.
AiwendilH@reddit
Sounds like a great idea...let open source software fight back by stop being open source.
TerribleReason4195@reddit
I mean Linux could go for a stronger copy left like agpl, can't they.
AiwendilH@reddit
Not easily..it would require all contributors to agree to the license change. The Linux kernel can't even move from GPL2 to GPL3 because they removed the "or any later version" term from their license.
But I agree that moving to AGPL can be a good move for several projects...that just doesn't "block these companies" as OP wanted. Everyone who complies with the AGPL can still use it. That's one of the important corner-stones of open-source: You can not discriminate against specific user groups, the terms of your license must be the same for all user.
And especially when dealing with machine learning this gets even more complicated as companies claim they use the code under USA's "fair use" terms...a license change wouldn't make any difference here as they "think" they don't use it under the license in the first place. If that is true remains to be seen of course but is something for judiciary to answer...and legislative to decide what is actually wanted. It doesn't look like it's something you can counter with a new license.
TerribleReason4195@reddit
They can still make the change if they all agree to it of course. The agpl license would just scare a lot of corporations because it would be hard to incorporate closed code like the microcode's for closed drivers in the kernel. If the corporations do comply, they could still use it, so yeah, you are right.
AiwendilH@reddit
I am not sure that is true under AGPL (assuming microcode means firmware). The microcode uploaded to devices can be seen as payload not part of the source-code. The AGPL doesn't prevent programs dealing with non-free data. You can have a AGPL licensed sftp client upload a proprietary program to another device just fine..so not sure what the difference for an AGPL driver uploading proprietary firmware to an attached hardware device would be...the code doesn't run as part of the driver but on completely different hardware. So not sure if AGPL makes any real difference compared to GPL3 here. But I am not an expert there...so might be wrong.
TerribleReason4195@reddit
I am not lawyer, but I do know that the GPLv2 allows tivozation.
AiwendilH@reddit
Yes...but as far as I understand it that's a bit different from they way firmware/microcode works.
"Tivoization" as far as I know is if you have a open source (GPL2) software, comply with the terms and make all your changed public and GPL2 as well....but in order to upload the software to the device need to sign the software with a secret key checked by the hardware. So everyone will have access to the changes made...but nobody is able to actually run the software because they can't upload it. GPL3 fixes this by demanding that the users also have to be able to run an own version of the software (in addition to having source access and getting all changes).
With firmware it's a bit different as the open source code is always able to run...it just take a binary blob from an external file and uploads it to the devices. But that's another program so not covered by the license of the driver code. The GPL parts of the driver you can compile yourself and then run them so they fulfill the requirements.
The linux kernel (well, Torvalds back then) had the opinion that GPL2 is what they want...giving people access to the source-code and all changes is enough and users don't need to be able to actually run own versions. That's why the kernel decided to be only GPL2 without "or any later version".
( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivoization )
But I am not an expert at all here...so take this all with a huge grain of salt ;)
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curiousgaruda@reddit
Do you have any source for these allegations?
glity@reddit
Brazil passed the first of these laws already.
glity@reddit
Linux is owned and maintained by systemd. What are the names of the people who control it?
If you don’t know that assume any open source project is owned by corporate interests to convince normal people to work for free. That’s not how it starts but that’s what happens when the people who build things get to the top and stops working because “they worked hard and want an exit to get their “reward”.
Swedophone@reddit
what?
WanderingInAVan@reddit
First off I hate the idea of the Age Verification laws and see it for what it is. A backdoor digital ID so people in power can target dissent. Whether it's Washington or Brussels. But what do you expect from people who think the American 1st Amendment is a threat to them.
That being said look to Brazil where the Age Verification law was first instituted nationally. Or California for a closer example. How bad has it gotten in those spots at the moment.
I don't like that SystemD complied but thats a personal opinion.
Slight_Manufacturer6@reddit
Sounds like a good fictional dystopian future story.
Good thing none of this is actually happening today.
BraveNewCurrency@reddit
Changing the license would require the approval of everyone who contributed. That is impractical, since there are probably tens of thousands of contributors at this point.
And if you try to "pull the plug" on specific companies by putting it in the license, it will no longer be Free Software (or even Open Source), and many people would be against that.
So the answer is no.
Companies (and countries) switching to Linux.