EU Wanting to Kill Open Source

[Dave The Man]

Info:

https://fossforce.com/2023/07/bad-news-for-open-source-eu-committee-approves-the-cyber-resilience-act/

https://news.apache.org/foundation/entry/save-open-source-the-impending-tragedy-of-the-cyber-resilience-act

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnMfST__vy8

[Pi]

VPT rude alert; VPT rude alert; someone being critical of the EU, attack the unbeliever.....

[pietillidie]

There are expected to be amendments. The consensus seems to be that the intention is good because cybercrime is becoming a nightmare, but the act is too imprecise at this stage, roping in hobbyists and non-commercial actors on the one hand, and discouraging commercial donors on the other.

Solutions preserving the intention of the act have been put forward ahead of the next legislative steps, with a 4-6 months left and various opportunities for intervention.

Absolutely no one thinks tightening standards to reduce the economic impact of cybercrime (up to 5 Australian economies of cost per year by some estimates), which is increasingly a national security and infrastructure risk, is a bad idea. AI tools are also making quality assurance easier, so it's getting easier to maintain standards cheaply.

There are also huge players involved here, so it's not the David and Goliath battle being implied. Think orgs such as Linux, Apache, Github (MS) and Creative Commons. Moreover, commercial software itself is heavily dependent on the success of open software, so there is plenty of heft in the reaction.

One hopes sensible amendments will follow before further passage of the bill. While no one trusts clueless politicians, see what happens next before going too Orwellian.