> Our FOSS code is constitutionally protected free speech and I would defend on those grounds.

You have precisely zero additional speech rights as a FOSS project than any other organization has. If "free speech" was a valid defense for you, then Meta would be doing the same.

> The technical design of the project just makes it so no one can force changes on the distro unwanted by the maintainer team regardless of any courtroom outcomes.

Being unable to comply is not a valid legal defense.

> Like, what if someone made a law that said Bitcoin nodes must KYC? They could make the law I guess, and the international network operators would just laugh at it.

This is the law in various places under various mechanisms. It is handled by putting people in prison or taking people's assets.

The concern here is probably with the shipping of the product (i.e. the binary artifacts), not the code itself. I can imagine a situation in which you could continue to make the code available, but could not produce a shippable artifact from it that Illinoians could access.

Technical solutions may be seen as kindly as handcuffing yourself to something when told to leave. "I can't, I've made it impossible for myself to obey the law".

They might not be able to break your private keys, but they can fine you or jail you for not complying.

> No need to hack the law. Our FOSS code is constitutionally protected free speech and I would defend on those grounds.

"Der Proceß" [The Trial] by Franz Kafka is just a realistic description of the court system (Franz Kafka studied law).

What if you "complied" and released your personal version/fork with age verification that no one would use?