Linux devs are fighting the new age-gated internet

A striking development has emerged in artificial intelligence. Tech TechPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. FollowSee All Tech Policy PolicyPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. FollowSee All Policy Report ReportPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.

FollowSee All ReportLinux devs are fighting the new age-gated internetThe open-source community is looking for a way out of the wave of new laws requiring operating systems to collect users’ ages. by Stevie Bonifield Stevie BonifieldNews WriterPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. FollowSee All by Stevie BonifieldMay 14, 2026, 6:58 PM UTC Image: The Verge, Getty Images Tech TechPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.

Technical Details

FollowSee All Tech Policy PolicyPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. FollowSee All Policy Report ReportPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. FollowSee All ReportLinux devs are fighting the new age-gated internetThe open-source community is looking for a way out of the wave of new laws requiring operating systems to collect users’ ages.

by Stevie Bonifield Stevie BonifieldNews WriterPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. FollowSee All by Stevie BonifieldMay 14, 2026, 6:58 PM UTC Part OfLet me see some ID: age verification is spreading across the internetsee all updates Stevie Bonifield Stevie BonifieldPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. FollowSee All by Stevie Bonifield is a news writer covering all things consumer tech.

Stevie started out at Laptop Mag writing news and reviews on hardware, gaming, and AI. In January, Colorado lawmakers introduced a proposal to make operating systems collect users’ ages and pass them to app developers. The bill, SB26-051, had clearly been designed for commercial platforms like iOS and Android — one of numerous plans to age-gate the internet through users’ devices.

Industry Implications

It was intended to provide information that would let developers disable age-inappropriate experiences for kids. But as it made the rounds online, Linux laptop maker Carl Richell read the proposal with dismay. Carl Richell is the founder and CEO of Dever-based System76, which also develops the Pop!

_OS Linux distribution. The law, he realized, would likely apply to his own small business. Without the resources of a company like Apple and Google, complying with Colorado’s bill would be a major logistical headache.

More broadly, Richell believed it would betray the principles of open source and limit its potential. Open source is “the best way to learn computing,” he told The Verge. “There is nothing like learning from example, and the Linux desktop is a free, open-source example of how to build an entire operating system.

This advance offers important signals about the future of the sector, and the tech world is watching closely.