California's AB 1043, the Digital Age Assurance Act taking effect January 1, 2027, requires operating systems and app stores to implement age verification and pass age signals to applications. Its broad definition of 'operating system provider' inadvertently covers open source projects like Linux, FreeBSD, and FreeDOS, exposing maintainers to fines of $2,500–$7,500 per affected child. A proposed amendment, AB 1856, would explicitly exempt open source operating systems distributed under licenses permitting copying, redistribution, and modification. The author urges developers to contact state and federal representatives to prevent similarly broad laws from passing elsewhere, noting Colorado's SB26-051 and the federal Parents Decide Act as comparable concerns.
