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The level of vitriol from the commenters here is honestly frightening. If the Commission was proposing a law mandating that cars have seat-belts, people would

The level of vitriol from the commenters here is honestly frightening. If the Commission was proposing a law mandating that cars have seat-belts, people would be jumping in to shout "Europe is destroying free enterprise, they're trying to destroy small car-makers!" Seriously, when you look at the list of concerned software, you have password managers, operating systems, certificate infrastructure, remote access software, industrial IoT, etc. For any software in these categories, it's not completely insane to think that "This software is provided as-is with no warranty whatsoever, good luck!" doesn't quite cut it. And yes, open-source is concerned as well, when it's part of a commercial activity. Again, if you're being paid to provide software, it seems fair to say you're leaving the "lobbyist" category and entering the "paid professional" category and you have to worry about security requirements. Especially given that, outside of the critical projects mentioned above, you're allowed to display the CE mark if you self-audit. Are there deeper discussions to be had here, concerns to be addressed, etc? Absolutely. I think a critical point is how "commercial activity" is defined. A threshold of gross revenue could be an interesting solution. Are these deeper discussion happening in this thread? No. It's all "Europe hates innovation" and "I hate the EC and cookie banners so much!" Most commenters seem to automatically assume that any level of regulation is automatically going to drown small businesses and favor FAANG-scale corporations, which is more extreme than even the article calling out the regulation.

boxed 4y ago
I think the fundamental problem here is that it's all about avoiding mistakes, not about doing good things. This attitude in general is a pox on humanity. Once you start to see the pattern it's everywhere. Schools, science funding, hospitals, building codes, policing, banking, aerospace, and on and on. No one cares if you improve anything. They just care if you make a mistake. This attitude is a disaster.
ExoticPearTree 4y ago
As an european I do believe that the European Comission really hates innovation and they believe everyting should be regulated as if only the politicians know what's best for every one. Like they're trying to regulate what kind of chargers we can use, the maximum speed cars can reach, what you can say on the internet and so on. All in the name of safety, terrorism and all other buzzwords politicians throw around to make it sound important. If we'd had the EC 30-40 years ago, most probably would all still be using dial-up for internet or maybe DSL at best and still have BBSs. And PoignardAzure, yes, I do believe seatbelts and motorcycle helmets should be optional. If you die because you're too cool for them, you die - simple as that.

boxed 4y ago

I think the fundamental problem here is that it's all about avoiding mistakes, not about doing good things. This attitude in general is a pox on humanity. Once you start to see the pattern it's everywhere. Schools, science funding, hospitals, building codes, policing, banking, aerospace, and on and on. No one cares if you improve anything. They just care if you make a mistake. This attitude is a disaster.

ExoticPearTree 4y ago

As an european I do believe that the European Comission really hates innovation and they believe everyting should be regulated as if only the politicians know what's best for every one. Like they're trying to regulate what kind of chargers we can use, the maximum speed cars can reach, what you can say on the internet and so on. All in the name of safety, terrorism and all other buzzwords politicians throw around to make it sound important. If we'd had the EC 30-40 years ago, most probably would all still be using dial-up for internet or maybe DSL at best and still have BBSs. And PoignardAzure, yes, I do believe seatbelts and motorcycle helmets should be optional. If you die because you're too cool for them, you die - simple as that.