> On Mar 1, 2026, at 4:41 PM, Jim Hall via Freedos-devel > <[email protected]> wrote: > > Some of you may have heard about this: > > California recently passed "AB-1043 Age verification signals: software > applications and online services" that is basically a "protect the > children" law. Here's a link to the full text: > https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1043 > > I think it's dumb and overly broad, but we should talk about it. My > thoughts are at the end. > > I think a fair summary is: > > [..]
> My thoughts: > > DOS was created long before the concept of an "app store" -- and DOS > has never had "accounts." My immediate impression is that this law > cannot apply to FreeDOS (or any DOS) because there's just no mechanism > to accommodate it. No DOS can: not MS-DOS, not DR DOS, not PC DOS, .. > no DOS can do this. Not to mention all the legacy DOS applications > from the 1980s and 1990s. > > It seems clear the law was intended for Windows and Mac. But that's > not how the law was written. As I said, I think it's dumb and overly > broad. > > I'm curious if anyone knows how (or if) other open source operating > systems are responding to this. I imagine the large Linux distros > (like Red Hat, Ubuntu, ..) have the resources behind them to do > something, but smaller distros will not. I have not read the full law as of yet. But going by your summary, it is over-reaching and poorly written. It reminds me of the early attempts to regulate the internet which were written by individuals who plainly did not understand the technology. As regards to FreeDOS and DOS in general, there is no such thing as a user account. Therefore, at no point will a user setup an account on the OS which would require such age related information. Possibly, one could argue that “during device setup” clause may be considered the OS installation. And sure, we could add a prompt for the user to select an age group. But, that would be mostly pointless. There is no such thing as an “App Store” for FreeDOS. I think there are some serious problems with this California law as written. For instance, requiring the OS to collect this information and provide it to a Store and requiring developers to retrieve this information for specific users feels like a big problem legally. Start thinking about how this will interact with HIPPA and GDRP. For fun, I threw a couple related questions at Google AI for a good chuckle. To summarize, it basically said.. "Nah, they are all privacy focused." Followed by… "The only conflict is that the CA law requires it send the information." So, yeah. As I see it, the CA law is in direct conflict with federal and international laws as written. But, I’m no lawyer. What I would love to see would be the major OS vendors that are based in California, say.. "Yah, no. We are going to relocate are headquarters and not allow sales or distribution in that state.” But, that will never happen. I understand why they wanted this law. It is well meaning and trying to help protect minors. That is a great thing to want to achieve. But as the law is now, it will only create more harm then good. And, where is the FSF on this issue? > > If this law is not amended before the end of the year, I suspect we'll > have a notice on the FreeDOS website in January that says something > like "Do not use if you live in California.” > Honestly, I don’t know if you can do it that way. We would need to go over all of the various open source licenses for the different programs one more time in order to verify we can legally just restrict use to individuals not in a specific location. For example, I think if the original or any developers of a GPL program resided or distributed their software in CA. Then, we would be required to make any later versions we provide available there as well. But again, I ain’t be no lawyer. Jerome _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
