OSDev.org

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In that case, you are in violation of the TOS, which - due to US Federal regulations - require all members to be at least 13 or have written parental permission to be on the group, regardless of whether the members are themselves in the US or not. It's a serious issue of liability, the sort that could get this message board (and the hosting company) shut down and the moderators fined or even imprisoned, regardless of whether anything untoward occurred or not.

The primary issue is privacy and exchange of Personally Identifying Information (PII), not because of any possible misconduct involving minors but because minors don't have the legal ability to consent to sharing that information at all without their guardians' explicit, written permission.

In other words, just giving the forum system your real name when you signed up is enough to put the admins in legal hot water.

Furthermore, by clicking on the "I am over 13" checkbox when you created the account, you violated a legally binding contract - at the time you were making it - meaning that the admins could, if they wanted to be total jerks, sue you and your parents for breach of contract. I can't imagine they would (and odds are the court would dismiss the case out of hand), but it is possible.

It may not be fair, but it is the law.

Seriously. You, NunoLava1998, and any other underage members really need to leave, or there won't be a forum to post to. While we will miss you (well, some of you), we simply can't allow you to be here until after your 13th birthday.

Schol-R-LEA wrote:Seriously. You, NunoLava1998, and any other underage members really need to leave, or there won't be a forum to post to. While we will miss you (well, some of you), we simply can't allow you to be here until after your 13th birthday.

So do you mean all underage people or all people under the age of 13, because in my country you are underage if you are younger then 18, not 13.

No, COPPA is for 13 year old barrier.
Anyways that barrier is made for stupid kiddows which could not protect their privacy on the internet nor understand privacy policies or licenses.

Furthermore, by clicking on the "I am over 13" checkbox when you created the account, you violated a legally binding contract - at the time you were making it - meaning that the admins could, if they wanted to be total jerks, sue you and your parents for breach of contract. I can't imagine they would (and odds are the court would dismiss the case out of hand), but it is possible.

Please, how could they even know in which city do you live, your phone number or maybe even your last name. No one could be sued for such thing, COPPA is used to help parents protect their kiddows on the internet.

In Serbia, there is no law for pirated software in private use, but even Serbian government violates its own law by using pirated Windows XP in commercial use. But anyways, who could pay 200$ for OS and 100$/year for Office!?.

Check this out : https://inserbia.info/today/2014/06/ser ... e-pirated/
Yes, that's right, 70% are pirated, including government.

kenod wrote:

Schol-R-LEA wrote:Seriously. You, NunoLava1998, and any other underage members really need to leave, or there won't be a forum to post to. While we will miss you (well, some of you), we simply can't allow you to be here until after your 13th birthday.

So do you mean all underage people or all people under the age of 13, because in my country you are underage if you are younger then 18, not 13.

Underage in the sense that this law (COPPA) defines, that is. I don't know how the legal age for this particular law came to be set at that, or why, nor am I defending either that age limit or the law in general, but the point is, the law sets the age for being able to consent to give others PII without supervision at 13, and applies to the site regardless of whether the person in question is in US jurisdiction or not, so long as the site is hosted in the US.

As for whether a lawsuit could be brought against someone, or that such a lawsuit would make sense on any level, I agree that it would be a fool's errand, but I was trying to make a point about the potential legal implications of breaking this kind of agreement. I don't see any way it could or would happen, but it is in principle a possibility, however absurd it might be in the real world.

A lot of things in the law are equally absurd, but until someone has sufficient reason to push for it to be changed, it is still going to be the law, and more importantly, in this instance it could potentially put the site and the mods in legal jeopardy.

I'm not sure what the rule would be if the site were hosted outside of the US, though, but frankly, I expect that the tangle would just get worse in that case.

Hmmm. Well I couldn't remember saying I was over 13 when I joined [though being in my 60s (a) I wouldn't have given it much thought and (b) cell deterioration has probably compromised my memory]. Anyway (very naughtily) I joined again under a different name and I still didn't have to say I was 13. So it looks as if the COPPA requirement is not active on this site anyway. [It is configurable by the administrator]

Schol-R-LEA wrote:

kenod wrote:

Schol-R-LEA wrote:Seriously. You, NunoLava1998, and any other underage members really need to leave, or there won't be a forum to post to. While we will miss you (well, some of you), we simply can't allow you to be here until after your 13th birthday.

So do you mean all underage people or all people under the age of 13, because in my country you are underage if you are younger then 18, not 13.

Underage in the sense that this law (COPPA) defines, that is. I don't know how the legal age for this particular law came to be set at that, or why, nor am I defending either that age limit or the law in general, but the point is, the law sets the age for being able to consent to give others PII without supervision at 13, and applies to the site regardless of whether the person in question is in US jurisdiction or not, so long as the site is hosted in the US.

As for whether a lawsuit could be brought against someone, or that such a lawsuit would make sense on any level, I agree that it would be a fool's errand, but I was trying to make a point about the potential legal implications of breaking this kind of agreement. I don't see any way it could or would happen, but it is in principle a possibility, however absurd it might be in the real world.

A lot of things in the law are equally absurd, but until someone has sufficient reason to push for it to be changed, it is still going to be the law, and more importantly, in this instance it could potentially put the site and the mods in legal jeopardy.

I'm not sure what the rule would be if the site were hosted outside of the US, though, but frankly, I expect that the tangle would just get worse in that case.

Its amazing how much of a nanny state the US government has become. I think the US needs to "drain the swamp" as Trump puts it.

Well, if the admins aren't applying or enforcing the rule, then I will leave the matter lie. I don't want to be 'that person' - the one who makes a fuss over trivial rules which they don't have any authority about - but I was concerned about the continued existence of the site. If the admins don't think it is an issue, then it probably isn't.

Lukand wrote:But anyways, who could pay 200$ for OS and 100$/year for Office!?.

That's not a reason to pirate it, which is both illegal and immoral. If you don't want to pay, that's fine - just don't use it then. It's as simple as that.

You also don't feel that you have a right to steal a Ferrari just because you can't afford to buy one, right?

Well, I would never steal anything physical .
But when even government use it (Yes, it could be seen on police & hospital computers)...
But now, it seems that we gone bit offtopic...

Lukand wrote:In Serbia, there is no law for pirated software in private use, but even Serbian government violates its own law by using pirated Windows XP in commercial use. But anyways, who could pay 200$ for OS and 100$/year for Office!?.

Check this out : https://inserbia.info/today/2014/06/ser ... e-pirated/
Yes, that's right, 70% are pirated, including government.

Who uses Windows XP these days?

ziggyfish2 wrote:

Lukand wrote:In Serbia, there is no law for pirated software in private use, but even Serbian government violates its own law by using pirated Windows XP in commercial use. But anyways, who could pay 200$ for OS and 100$/year for Office!?.

Check this out : https://inserbia.info/today/2014/06/ser ... e-pirated/
Yes, that's right, 70% are pirated, including government.

Who uses Windows XP these days?

We're getting further and further offtopic.

Anyhow, the Dutch government actually payed Micro$oft 1.7 million euros to keep their remaining 5000 windows XP systems secure for another 6 months about a year-and-a-half ago. That's a whopping 340 euros per machine!
Don't know what the current state of things is but it seems they can't simply upgrade the systems still running it.

FusT wrote: We're getting further and further offtopic.

Anyhow, the Dutch government actually payed Micro$oft 1.7 million euros to keep their remaining 5000 windows XP systems secure for another 6 months about a year-and-a-half ago. That's a whopping 340 euros per machine!
Don't know what the current state of things is but it seems they can't simply upgrade the systems still running it.

I don't think that their software is that good to begin with. When using their study loan website (duo) it crashes after loading a few pages (making it almost impossible to change settings).

kenod wrote:

FusT wrote: We're getting further and further offtopic.

Anyhow, the Dutch government actually payed Micro$oft 1.7 million euros to keep their remaining 5000 windows XP systems secure for another 6 months about a year-and-a-half ago. That's a whopping 340 euros per machine!
Don't know what the current state of things is but it seems they can't simply upgrade the systems still running it.

I don't think that their software is that good to begin with. When using their study loan website (duo) it crashes after loading a few pages (making it almost impossible to change settings).

Couldn't agree more. The Dutch government is very good at completely screwing up major IT projects.

Back on-topic:
As Brendan points out you don't really need an OS to begin with.
A simple scheduler implementation is one possible way to solve the problem, using a completely interrupt-driven system is a second.
You could also consider using an event-based system (which basically means a scheduler anyway) where the main application is simply an event loop and peripherals (sensors, etc) trigger events that the rest of the program uses to do things (draw data on an LCD, send out through the serial port, etc.). This works a lot like using message queues for IPC.

However, since your underlying question isn't really related to OSdev, I think your question could be answered better on a forum dedicated to microcontrollers and/or the ARM processor you're using.