California Age Verification

Reading the whole law matters. While the definition of “operating system provider” is broad, the rest of the statute assumes a commercial platform model: device account setup, a covered application store, and apps requesting an age signal when downloaded and launched.

That describes ecosystems like Apple, Google, and Microsoft that control devices, accounts, and app stores. Fedora and most Linux distributions do not operate that kind of platform.

It is also worth remembering that when legislators write laws like this they are usually thinking about smartphones and large consumer platforms, not community Linux distributions.

So while the definition could be clearer, the structure and apparent intent of the law appear aimed at commercial platform ecosystems, not community Linux distributions.

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