• •EFF confirms California's AB 1856 provides an explicit carve-out for open-source software development.
• •The legislation mandates age-gating requirements for broader categories of online platforms compared to previous drafts.
• •Engineers and developers remain uncertain about how the bill defines 'participation' in development, raising concerns about potential compliance burdens for non-commercial contributors.

California’s AB 1856 provides a formal exemption for open-source software, protecting decentralized development from specific platform regulations. This shift follows significant pressure from the tech community, which previously argued that vague definitions would stifle innovation. However, the bill simultaneously expands mandatory age-gating requirements to more digital services, creating a complex compliance environment. Whether the open-source exemption is broad enough to prevent incidental liability for individual contributors remains the key question for the startup ecosystem.