The EU Cyber Resilience Act will effectively make open-source software illegal, and that sure as hell isn’t pro-consumer. Neither is all the spooky surveillance and crippled cryptography they keep trying to mandate.
How exactly is open source illegal?
I mean… lol
How are they even gonna enforce that?
Probably the same way they’ll enforce their upcoming ban on encryption (yes really).
Fines, gigantic fines since people seem to love those.
Really? According to this site they claim that “The Cyber Resilience Act should only apply to free open-source software that is developed or supplied in the course of commercial activity.” While that could be a broad scope, I don’t think it applies to most FOSS. Linux is really the big thing I see it applying to and Linux is very Cyber secure, so I don’t really see issues there.
Are there other parts of the law that ban FOSS? Or is that site too pro EU and glosses over the bad parts?
According to this site they claim that “The Cyber Resilience Act should only apply to free open-source software that is developed or supplied in the course of commercial activity.”
Almost all FOSS development happens as part of a commercial activity.
The most obvious example is of course corporate sponsorship of FOSS projects, but even things like pull requests submitted to FOSS libraries by corporate employees qualify as “develop[ment] in the course of commercial activity”.
Linux is really the big thing I see it applying to and Linux is very Cyber secure, so I don’t really see issues there.
Linux does not and cannot comply with the demands of the Cyber Resilience Act. For example, the Act demands automatic update installation, which within a kernel is infeasible and unsafe. Linux will be illegal in the EU.
Furthermore, no company in its right mind is going to sponsor, or allow its employees to contribute to, any FOSS project if doing so creates the risk of fines. All corporate sponsorship of and contribution to FOSS projects—which, once again, is responsible for almost all FOSS development—will completely and instantly disappear in the EU, severely damaging the worldwide FOSS movement.
Needless to say, this proposal is catastrophically bad.
Things like the new right to repair laws will hit everyone.
Most Android phone manufacturers have been sealing in their batteries as well, and Android is 2/3 of the European phone market.
I’m hearing mixed things on how impacted Apple will be re:batteries, since they already sell replacement kits to the users. It sounds like they may just need to make them available to all member states? Not sure if anyone has actual insight beyond reading a headline.
How is it that billion dollar tech companies haven’t infiltrated the EU leadership yet?
The “EU leadership” changes every few years, through something called democracy.
You cant just pay off 1 person
Sure, but that explains nothing.
It doesn’t really change, the same people are voted over and over and over like in most democracies. To some extend the EU is even antidemocratic, since people don’t really have a saying in who’s the president.
What, other than profit, is stopping big companies like this from stopping support in the EU if most of their sales are in the US? Would the redevelopment be worth it?
Don’t forget that the EU is controlled by people who know NOTHING about technology. Case in point: the cookies.
Yeah but atleast they are trying
Fuck the EU and forcing me to have a removable battery. It’s fucking stupid. USB C was cool though.
For real fuck them the ass with a hot rod. I do not want your shitty shitty removable batteries.