I love this sort of guerilla open source activism.
The whole “manifesto” style of the main webpage is extremely well done and makes a compelling argument, even if we don’t choose this as our core distro.
I like that it also serves as a good page to send to even non-Linux folks, to explain why these dystopian cudgel laws must be resisted at every turn.
I mean they made some strong arguments for their existence. I don’t think creating a technically novel piece of software was the goal. This is a technical solution to a legal issue that they expect will soon exist. The sheer existence of this acts as a warning and hurdle for politicians and those funding these laws for the next more invasive version of these laws. I don’t expect I’ll ever use this, but I’m glad it exists, as its existence is enough for it to work.
This will never be seen by federal or state-level legislators or executives. If you visited the website, you saw the unanimous support in California for the age verification bill. In the event it’s sent to legislators as a link, there’s almost zero chance they’ll visit, let alone read it through. In the narrow chance that, like, one out of thousands actually reads it, it will not act as a warning to them, let alone a hurdle. It doesn’t materially threaten anything they’re doing – not in a technical sense and not in the sense that anybody but an excruciatingly tiny minority will actually adopt it.
Niche communities like this wildly overestimate their reach and influence among the people outside of them. I don’t like it either, but I try to be mindful of it.
See also: