Comment by bruce511 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bruce511 | Hacker News Reader

On the one hand the legislation seems unimplementable for many OS makers, not just FOSS ones.

(The issue of "primary owner of the device" being the most problematic.)

Equally the concept of "app store" is different for different OS's. iOS and Android are clear. Mac and Windows are mostly "download and run from website" (although both want to pivot to appstore, with varying degrees of success.)

Then we need to wonder if yum and apt are stores, given that they aren't actually owned by "linux".

In truth though it kinda doesn't matter. It's trivial to add an "age" field to account creation. It's trivial for users to enter any date they like. So on the one hand it's easy for OS makers to comply, it's easy for users to lie.

Presumably if the law could have mandated age checks then would have, so I'm not even sure thus is slippery slope. Most minors don't have photo ID. Most desktop hardware doesn't have a camera (at the time of account creation.)

This feels like performative law-making. Vague language. Unenforceable user participation.

> Then we need to wonder if yum and apt are stores

IMO this is quite simple - as they provide software, they are "stores" too. Although I think most would associate a store with e. g. MS store, Apple store and so forth.

The word "store" is weird though. Would it not be easier to use different words? Anyone providing software for download; and perhaps add a size threshold to stop pestering small business or solo users. This really seems to target Linux here.

yum and apt are binaries that reference config files et. al. to search a url tree via a manifest, they are no more stores than curl or wget.

curl and wget surely facilitates the download.

isn't that like saying the telco companies facilitate the downloads?

I’m not defending this law, just discussing the wording.

First, either this law, or another already on the books, or established case law, defines what an app store is. Sovereign citizens get hung up on legal wordplay because they mistake legal jargon for English. It’s not, any more than I move a small furry mammal (mouse) to click religious imagery (icons) on my desktop (not a desktop).

But second, if you really want to wordsmith it, “store” can mean “place where you keep stuff”, not only “place to buy things from”, as in in short for storage. Where do you save work documents? A file store. That’s not where you buy docs, but where you keep them. A crafty DA could probably say, lacking a definition otherwise, that an app store is where you store apps, and buying them is incidental. And they’d probably win over you and me arguing otherwise, because they can speak legal to the judge and we can’t.

apt and yum don't sell software, so they are not stores

No one could interpret yum or apt as stores on their own. The "store" would be the repository that the software is coming from.

As the user interface through which users download (among other things) apps... it absolutely is an "app store". It's not where the binaries are hosted, but you don't see anyone claiming the App Store iOS app isn't an app store because the apps are ackshyually on Apple's CDN servers, do you?

Ok. Take something like Gnome software or KDE discover, where you can add different sources. You can point to both your distro's repos AND Flathub. Is the store the app? Is it Flathub? Theres different sources depending on which distro you use and users can tweak it.

Apple App store is a disingenuous example because it's a proprietary app hard-coded to use Apple sources, you can tweak the sources... Apt or yum are no more app stores than curl or git.

The app is a store, and Flathub is also a store if it allows downloading and installing the packages directly.

Apple's App Store is a perfect example because there is no difference between stores with private sources and stores with open sources for the purposes of whether or not it is a store.

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