Their definition of "app store" is a mile wide: "(e) (1) “Covered application store” means a publicly available internet website, software application, online service, or platform that distributes and facilitates the download of applications from third-party developers to users of a computer, a mobile device, or any other general purpose computing that can access a covered application store or can download an application."
Grats, github is an appstore. apt-get is an app store. You posting software on your own website is an app store.
Apt… yes is an App Store run by an operating system organization (Debian org). That feels pretty unsurprising. Debian’s parent organization (headquartered in the US) probably needs to comply with this.
And that right there is exactly the fucking problem. A zero profit collective “store” that publishes zero profit hobbyist “apps” is now going to have to invest in some kind of harebrained compliance scheme that will only grow from here.
In a couple of years is my “app” in Debian’s store going to require some goddamn TPS report and certification to tell California that everything is above board? It’s incredibly likely! By itself this law does nothing but lay the groundwork for regulation of “apps”, which by itself might be acceptable, but including FOSS distribution channels and hobby apps in the scope of this law is nothing short of evil. It’s laying the groundwork for a frontal assault on FOSS, and if you don’t see that then I don’t know what to tell you.
My guess is that Linux wasn’t extensively considered in the writing of this law, but when the next stage comes along and people start complaining, legislators will shrug and say “oh well, they need to comply”—and lobbyists for the big 3 proprietary software firms will back that position up. This is setting up a killshot for consumer Linux.