Luke James writes that California's legislature has passed Assembly Bill 1856, which provides an exemption for open-source operating systems from the state's Digital Age Assurance Act. The bill, which was amended by the Senate before passing with a unanimous vote in both chambers, ensures that software distributed under licenses like GPL, MIT, BSD, and Apache is not required to collect user age data during setup. This decision resolves uncertainty regarding whether Linux distributions or SteamOS would need to implement mandatory age verification alongside major platforms like Windows or macOS.
- The exemption applies because these open-source licenses allow recipients to copy, redistribute, and modify the software.
- Software components such as libraries and dependencies distributed through package managers (e.g., apt or pacman) are also excluded from being classified as "applications" under the law.
- Browser extension stores are carved out because they distribute add-ons that run within a host application rather than acting as standalone executables.
- The amendments removed a problematic definition of "user" that would have technically classified every device owner in California as a child.
- The exemption applies because these open-source licenses allow recipients to copy, redistribute, and modify the software.
- Software components such as libraries and dependencies distributed through package managers (e.g., apt or pacman) are also excluded from being classified as "applications" under the law.
- Browser extension stores are carved out because they distribute add-ons that run within a host application rather than acting as standalone executables.
- The amendments removed a problematic definition of "user" that would have technically classified every device owner in California as a child.
California's Digital Age Assurance Act (AB 1043) requires operating system providers to collect age information from users at account setup and transmit that data to app developers. This impacts Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, Linux distributions, and Valve's SteamOS.
