alt.hn

3/7/2026 at 12:42:01 AM

Fork Off: Surveillance States Need to Fork Linux Themselves

 https://blog.devrupt.io/posts/fork-off-california-linux/

by ddtaylor

3/7/2026 at 10:32:24 AM

This is one of a very small set of reasonable reactions to such policies.

Yet, it is unrealistic to expect that Canonical and Red Hat would service and maintain separate distributions of their main products. System76 could just ship a different distribution particularly catered towards compliance in problematic jurisdictions.

I personally believe that such regulations will just be more or less ignored, having no more of an affect than a disclaimer in the Terms and Conditions; unless you are Canonical or Red Hat.

Brazil, Colorado, California, and even New York soon. The list is growing too fast.

by AlOwain

3/7/2026 at 11:59:05 AM

So California state governmemt wants its own computer operating system so that state regulators can keep an eye on it.

I see so much abuse coming from so much corners of the marketplace and business settings.

Who watches the watcher? Who declare where malware ends and surveillance begins?

No. As a veteran OS expert/malware analyst: Just stop.

OS is a tool, a hammer, no need to add watchers of who makes, certify, regulate, control or uses a tool. Western civilization prides on training of a tool and advances faster than any other kind of civilization in history of mankind.

by egberts1

3/7/2026 at 4:28:29 PM

> So California state governmemt wants its own computer operating system so that state regulators can keep an eye on it.

They have one.

> All of the documentation and software included in the 4.4BSD and 4.4BSD-Lite Releases is copyrighted by The Regents of the University of California.

I thank the Regents all the time as I use software derived from their OS.

by toast0

3/8/2026 at 11:39:04 AM

A more honest framing imo is liability, not philosophy. A distro that ships surveillance features takes on legal and security liability for those features in every jurisdiction where it runs. That's not a trade FOSS maintainers should be making for any government.

by 7777777phil

3/7/2026 at 9:10:00 AM

Gets my vote

by abstractspoon