Colorado’s SB051 age verification bill was amended to exclude apps from free public code repositories, carving out open source projects from compliance.
Key Takeaways
“Covered application” targets consumer software accessed through an app store that processes users’ personal data.
Apps that do not process personal data are explicitly excluded from coverage.
Apps from a “free, publicly available code repository” are also excluded by name.
Hacker News Comment Review
The carve-out language is ambiguous: “free” could modify the repository or the project, raising questions about source-available but not truly open-source software.
A project that makes source public without a free license may still qualify for the exemption depending on how courts interpret “free” in this context.
Notable Comments
@vegadw: notes you could be “source-open but not open-source” and still evade the bill depending on how “free” is read.
