Colorado Amended SB051 (Age Verification Bill) to Exclude Open Source Projects

Good development, along with the most recent changes to https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...

A colleague is hosting a virtual session on these and other similar bills around the world in two days https://maintainermonth.github.com/schedule/2026-05-22-age-a...

Or, now slightly out of date, read https://github.blog/news-insights/policy-news-and-insights/w... Added: I had not scrolled far enough on the front page, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48214215 is on this blog.

I foresee a wave of new porn-related open source applications in Colorado's future.

As someone working on an open source project in CO, this is a welcome fit of common sense. How do these laws typically work in other jurisdictions, do they block non-conforming sites? Or does it open you up to lawsuits?

(5)(a) "COVERED APPLICATION" MEANS A CONSUMER SOFTWARE APPLICATION THAT IS ACCESSED THROUGH A COVERED APPLICATION STORE AND THAT MAY BE RUN OR DIRECTED BY A USER ON A DEVICE.

(b) "COVERED APPLICATION" DOES NOT INCLUDE:

(I) A SOFTWARE APPLICATION THAT DOES NOT PROCESS USERS' PERSONAL DATA; OR

(II) AN APPLICATION FROM A FREE, PUBLICLY AVAILABLE CODE REPOSITORY.

I know this is attached to a stupid bill, but I really like the general idea of special carve outs for open source projects.

hopefully if each state starts crafting dumb laws like this they all get banned via commerce clause due to infeasibility of compliance

Contributing to an open source project is one of the very few things on the net that I actually would want id verification on.