Age Verification laws

[wmiler]

Under California's Age Verification law (AB 1043 effective Jan 1, 2027), when downloading any app, the app provider must ask for the user's age, and the software, when run, also has to verify the user's age, verification must happen via a real-time API call. Failure to comply runs from $2,500 per child and up.

JS8Call, itself, has no need for age verification. If you have a license, you can transmit, if you don't, you can listen.

Midnight BSD has recently added geographical restrictions to using it's OS, with more expected to follow.

The compilation of software known as MidnightBSD is distributed under
the following terms:

Residents of any countries, states or territories that require age verification 
for operating systems, are not authorized to use MidnightBSD. This list currently includes 
Brazil, effective March 17, 2026, California, effective January 1, 2027, and
will include Colorado, Illinois and New York provided they pass their currently 
proposed legislation.  We urge users to write their representatives to get
these laws repealed or replaced. 

[rruchte]

Looks like both California and Colorado are adding carve-outs for open source software.