Colorado and California age verification bills exempt open source operating systems

Remember all the ruckus with various US states introducing operating-system level age verification laws? Colorado and California thankfully exempt open source.

For Colorado, we heard from System76 CEO Carl Richell back in April, that a fight was going on to at least get open source excluded from it - but back then we didn't have the final bill details. We do now have the "Final Act" version (source) of the Colorado bill, which on Page 9 notes under who it doesn't apply to:

AN OPERATING SYSTEM PROVIDER OR DEVELOPER THAT DISTRIBUTES AN OPERATING SYSTEM OR APPLICATION UNDER LICENSE TERMS THAT PERMIT A RECIPIENT TO COPY, REDISTRIBUTE, AND MODIFY THE SOFTWARE WITHOUT ANY PLATFORM-IMPOSED TECHNICAL OR CONTRACTUAL RESTRICTIONS IMPOSED BY THE PROVIDER OR DEVELOPER ON INSTALLING ALL MODIFIED VERSIONS.

The Colorado bill should go into effect July 1, 2028.

As for the California bill, the official page notes a few revisions to it since last covering it here on GamingOnLinux. This bill is now onto its third hearing, so it's not quite a done deal yet for California but it is also promising. The good news for Linux and open source, is that it has a similar exemptions listed for operating systems and application developers:

"Application" does not include software components that are not themselves offered to consumers as a stand-alone executable application through a covered application store.

"Operating system provider" does not mean a person or entity that distributes an operating system or application under license terms that permit a recipient to copy, redistribute, and modify the software.

If it gets final approval, it should go into effect January 1, 2027.

Considering SteamOS includes Valve's proprietary bits for the Steam client, this likely still applies to Valve and any hardware shipping with SteamOS including the Steam Deck, Steam Frame, Steam Machine and the Legion Go S. This will also apply to Windows and any other proprietary system. But regular Linux distributions should by that wording be exempt from needing to age-check.