This is a feature and not a bug. The biggest distro maintainers will try to comply and the smallest ones will start banning usage or even closing up shop.
this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2026
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Why do I get the feeling I will be distro hopping in the not-too-distant future?
Im just glad BSD is getting press.
haha I guess that's one way to deal with it and do nothing at all. Doubtful they block the connections from those areas
IDK. It puts them at the forefront of this fight.
If governments successfully prosecute distro maintainers (if they can) for this, then distro maintainers are liable.
And distro maintainers would then have to pursue non-compliant users to cover that liability, or fold.
Which is a huge loss for open source.
Or, there would be a huge legal fight and it turns out that the licence of a distro protects it from its users actions.
Which would be awesome and a massive win. It also makes sense. Nobody is suing an OS maintainer because it was used for a data breach.
And then the governments have to pursue the actual users. Which... is gonna be useless wrt these laws
how its done
Personally, I don't think this is the answer. Like, I get it, and it's a sure way to avoid having to deal with all this bs. But at the end of the day, the only people who suffer from this decision are the end users. It's punishing them for something their government has implemented. Doesn't seem right to me.
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Ironic for "the bsd for everyone"
Edit: not trying to imply this is their fault. Just thought it was funny that something labeled as "the bsd for everyone" had to be limited to "not for everyone". I agree with their move to restrict downloads in these locations because of these laws
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