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California's age verification law could regulate every Linux command [1]

['Ellsworth Toohey']

Date: 2026-03-02  

MidnightBSD, an open-source operating system, recently announced it would block California residents entirely rather than risk liability under the state's new age-verification law.

California's AB 1043, the Digital Age Assurance Act, was signed in October 2025 and takes effect January 1, 2027. Under its terms, anyone who ships an OS must bake in an age-declaration screen at account setup and provide an API so that every app on the system can query the user's age.

As an analysis on Shuji Sado's blog lays out, the statute's definition of "application" covers any software running on "a computer, mobile device, or general-purpose computing device that can access a covered application store or download an application." On any Linux box running a package manager — apt, Flatpak, Snap, you name it — that language plausibly sweeps in every package you can pull down — including command-line tools and core OS components.

The bill's own legislative committee flagged this as "overbreadth," noting that even a basic alarm clock or calculator app would fall under its scope, with no clear line between regulated and unregulated software. The bill passed anyway. Volunteer maintainers now face fines of up to $7,500 per intentional violation, with no carve-out for projects that lack the resources to build compliance infrastructure.

While the bill moved through the legislature, the OSI, FSF, Software Freedom Conservancy, and Linux Foundation all sat it out — no testimony, no public analysis, no formal opposition on the record. The 2026 session is the window to fix it.

Previously:

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