There has been a lot of talk recently about the age verification requirements
which are beginning to impact the Linux community (among other OSs).

One concern I have is when you look at the talk among those who are active in
development for GNU/Linux they often tend to start getting into the
implementation details.  I think this is a mistake that programmers often make.
We have trained our mind to try to solve puzzles, to figure out how we are
going to make this or that happen.  At this stage these are not the questions
we should be asking and we should actively avoid this whole train of thought.

Well, okay I shouldn't say "we".  I say "We" because I am also a programmer
and I have also found myself in this situation; jumping to the "how" and
getting excited about applying my puzzle solving skills on this new, meaty,
challenge.  But I am not a contributor to Linux or any of the components of
the operating system so I should remove myself from the "we" from this
paragraph on.

At this stage the question *they* should be asking is how are they going to get
away with not doing this?  Let them start with the assertion that their
distro will consider age verification or any kind of baked-in data mining /
surveillance off the table.

There are lots of ways to do this.  I think there are at least one distro
that will simply add a notice to the installer stating that if you are in the
a state which is enforcing this then you are not allowed to continue with the
install.

Of course there will be push back, there will be more states, and this could
become federal and even expand beyond the US.  But it is important not to
pre-comply, make your opponent work for their evil goals don't just give it to
them.

I know there are some who will not see the big deal here, any user can just
put in any date of birth they want.  But this is only the beginning, once the
API is set up and the government mandated pathway to obtain user information
from an individual's operating system is in place you can be sure they will
be adding to that data payload.  It's not just going to be whatever arbitrary
date you put in during setup.

If you give them an inch, they'll take a mile.
.