California passes bill exempting open source from age verification

California lawmakers have passed Assembly Bill 1856 (AB-1856), which includes specific exemptions for open-source software from the state’s Digital Age Assurance Act. The bill, which has been sent to Governor Gavin Newsom for signature, aims to protect the open-source ecosystem from mandatory age-verification requirements.

The amendment clarifies that an “operating system provider” does not include entities that distribute operating systems or applications under licenses allowing recipients to copy, redistribute, and modify the software. This exemption covers major distributions such as Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, and Arch, as well as software under GPL, MIT, BSD, and Apache licenses.

Additionally, the law excludes software components and libraries distributed through package managers, provided they are not offered as standalone applications through covered app stores. While this provides relief for Linux and BSD users, proprietary systems like Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android remain subject to the law, which is set to take effect on January 1, 2027.