MidnightBSD, a FreeBSD-based desktop operating system, has quietly updated its README to reflect a new geographic restriction. The project has added a clause that bars residents of any country, state, or territory with OS-level age verification mandates from using MidnightBSD
You can’t spell “based” without BSD.
Also, that’s pretty much the main reason why FOSS OS are better than proprietary ones. They’ll just say “okay, I guess we’ll just stick to free countries” (while subtly gesturing at the nearest VPN).
Meanwhile, Windows and MacOS are going to fold like origami.
how its done
Personally, I don’t think this is the answer. Like, I get it, and it’s a sure way to avoid having to deal with all this bs. But at the end of the day, the only people who suffer from this decision are the end users. It’s punishing them for something their government has implemented. Doesn’t seem right to me.
It is not up to the developer community to take responsibility for the stupid decisions made by their government.
People get the leaders they deserve.
Good. I’m glad they’re standing up to this insanity.
It’s ironic though because it’s a California based OS.
By the way, anyone tried gaming on BSD?
Gaming on BSD isn’t as bad as you’d expect. There are Linux compatibility tools that let you run proton/wine on FreeBSD
Random shit breaks sometimes but once you get past the steep learning curve you can play a lot of titles
Genuinely asking, why would you use FreeBSD when there already is Linux?
See the headline we are all commenting on
Why do I get the feeling I will be distro hopping in the not-too-distant future?
Speaking as a brazilian resident, the law will not be enforced. No such laws are ever enforced here. Everybody openly pirates everything, people sell retro gaming systems preloaded with thousands of ROMs openly online and in physical shops, and the government doesn’t even have 1% of the surveillance infrastructure needed to make enforcement attractive. The law is just electoral posturing and lip service to please evangelical idiots… but I repeat myself.
This is different from pirating. The government will be going after the developers like they did Kim Dotcom.
Remember what the maintainer of The Pirate Bay once said?
Never be too certain something won’t be enforced, as the power of capitalists are far worse than the public can imagine.
Maybe I’m too pessimistic, but this may just be the start. Big corps may find their way to control every aspect, step by step.
The amount of bootleg dvd shops I saw in Paraíba and the amount of friends that have uTorrent installed on their phones is more proof of that. I’m all for it, I wish bandwidth was better all around Brazil to make it easier for everyone to just download whatever you guys want, especially if it’s from an American company
Dedo no cú e gritaria
Is it strange that i understood this even though i’m Italian?
Well, Portuguese is a Latin language, so there’s a common root.
The law isn’t going to be enforced in CA either
That may be the best way to deal with the potential legal liabilities introduced by this unmitigated abject idiocy.
Good thing everybody can still torrent whatever they want from where ever they want. Or use IPFS. Or IRC DCC. Or Usenet. Or just a VPN.
Australian legislation specifically notes that all sites must age challenge users connecting via a VPN
Well, good for them. I’m not Australian, get to vote for Australian lawmakers or host websites in Australia.
Is Australia going to pay every single website admin for the burden of implementing this wonderful magical logic to detect a given source IP(v4) belongs to a VPN provider? What about IPv6?
If I host a simple static website on a static webhost in Denmark say, and provide some otherwise perfectly legal OS ISO’s for download, how would I implement any logic at all? Why the fuck should I be subject to Australian laws?
The cookie acceptance of the GPDR was already bad enough and ruined so much of the Internet with no appreciative improvement of the privacy of visitors. If every Tom, Dick and Harry are going to place spurious demands on every website, it’ll do nothing except raise enormous barriers to entry and ensure that only huge players with the capacity to comply with demands from legislators all over the world will even be able to “legally” run websites at all. And then we can’t have an Internet or FOSS for that matter.
Maybe legislators should stop writing half-baked laws the consequences of which they apparently cannot comprehend.
It applies to websites not hosted in Australia, that may have Australians visiting the site via VPN
Enforcement is going to be interesting to watch
There are already services that catalogue VPN sources for webmasters to implement block lists
That’s why a said static webhost, i.e. paying for the ability to serve files, not run scripts or manage the webserver configuration. Sure, the hosting provider could be made responsible for the implementation, but now they have been encumbered with the burden and liability of policing which hosted sites needs this bullshit enabled and which are just a blog about making strawberry preserves or something.
Point is, it’s complete and utter twattery of the highest order. Never mind enforcement, I don’t even see how it would be reliably or consistently implemented.
And all that is in any case absolutely futile, because there’s still the matter of people being perfectly able of obtaining those self-same ISO’s from any number of other sources that are even more difficult to police, like the ones I originally mentioned, and about a thousand more where they came from.
This is a feature and not a bug. The biggest distro maintainers will try to comply and the smallest ones will start banning usage or even closing up shop.
Im just glad BSD is getting press.
haha I guess that’s one way to deal with it and do nothing at all. Doubtful they block the connections from those areas
IDK. It puts them at the forefront of this fight.
If governments successfully prosecute distro maintainers (if they can) for this, then distro maintainers are liable.
And distro maintainers would then have to pursue non-compliant users to cover that liability, or fold.
Which is a huge loss for open source.Or, there would be a huge legal fight and it turns out that the licence of a distro protects it from its users actions.
Which would be awesome and a massive win. It also makes sense. Nobody is suing an OS maintainer because it was used for a data breach.
And then the governments have to pursue the actual users. Which… is gonna be useless wrt these laws
Ironic for “the bsd for everyone”
*Terms and conditions may apply
I came here to say, “þey’re going to have to change þeir motto to: The BSD for everyone, except Brazilians and Californians, and probably soon New Yorkers too. And probably the British, sooner rather than later.”
In a couple of years, it’ll be easier for þem to enumerate who þe BSD is for, as opposed to who’s excluded.
