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The most concerted and dangerous attack on Open Source since a long while. Even as it is, it will kill a lot of Open Source projects due to the risk of not only

The most concerted and dangerous attack on Open Source since a long while. Even as it is, it will kill a lot of Open Source projects due to the risk of not only ambiguous, but !unbounded! fines. There isnt a cap on the fines like 'X% of your revenue' like in GDPR. Not that the majority of Open Source projects have any revenue. Only the biggest ones that are like Linux etc, who are sponsored by major corporations that use them can be at ease with this law. And in that you can understand how evil this law is: Its carefully crafted to avoid risking the major software that megacorps are using. But it cripples & bankrupts all Open Source and also private small software producers. Whose users will have to turn to big corp apps and SaaS as a result. Whereas the large Open Source projects that are sponsored by corporations as a foundation will become totally beholden to those corporations as if they were external product organizations of those corporations because they cant risk funding themselves in any other way... It looks like something that is crafted by the German private interests that currently dominate the Euparl.

Scandiravian 4y ago
From the second sentence of the article: > Non-adherence comes with Significant Fines (15 million euros or 2.5% of annual turnover, whichever is higher) I don't know where you got the idea that this proposal suggest unbounded fines. Do you have a source for it?
- nivenkos 4y ago
  Whichever is higher implies no upper bound no?
  - Scandiravian 4y ago
    No, it implies that there's a minimum upper bound for all companies, but that it scales based on the size of the company at a certain point It can never be higher than either 15M euro or 2.5% of global annual revenue depending on the size of the company
- unity1001 4y ago
  Are you aware that an Open Source project with scarce revenue or small private software maker will get fined up to 15 million Euros if they found to be non-compliant, based on however the regulator interprets the legal maximum like in GDPR? Uncharacteristically outside the civil law principles that require solid, written guidelines for everything. Which Open Source software project or small software producer has the funds to fork out from tens of thousands to millions of Euros? That's as unbounded as it gets. Its a great risk to take. Solely this law going out would kill a lot of Open Source projects or move them out of the Eu. Considering how most projects are just collection of a few people without any organization and the individuals would be legally responsible, it would definitely kill any participation in an Open Source project by a Eu resident.
  - Scandiravian 4y ago
    Given the track record of how the EU has administered fines for GDPR violations there's a legal precedence for large corporations being given large fines and smaller companies being given warnings Claiming that open-source maintainers will get fined 15M euro is scaremongering and is not supported by legal practice in the EU
    - unity1001 4y ago
      > there's a legal precedence "Precedent" is not a concept that applies to civil law. Its a common law tenet. > Claiming that open-source maintainers will get fined 15M euro is scaremongering Read the actual legal document. The static, non % amounts are totally left to the interpretation of the regulator in the 'legal maximums' section of the draft law. It doesnt need to be full 15 million. No Open Source contributor would risk getting fined a few dozen thousand euros. Even a few thousand is too much for anyone who contributes to Open Source.

Scandiravian 4y ago

From the second sentence of the article: > Non-adherence comes with Significant Fines (15 million euros or 2.5% of annual turnover, whichever is higher) I don't know where you got the idea that this proposal suggest unbounded fines. Do you have a source for it?

nivenkos 4y ago
Whichever is higher implies no upper bound no?
- Scandiravian 4y ago
  No, it implies that there's a minimum upper bound for all companies, but that it scales based on the size of the company at a certain point It can never be higher than either 15M euro or 2.5% of global annual revenue depending on the size of the company
unity1001 4y ago
Are you aware that an Open Source project with scarce revenue or small private software maker will get fined up to 15 million Euros if they found to be non-compliant, based on however the regulator interprets the legal maximum like in GDPR? Uncharacteristically outside the civil law principles that require solid, written guidelines for everything. Which Open Source software project or small software producer has the funds to fork out from tens of thousands to millions of Euros? That's as unbounded as it gets. Its a great risk to take. Solely this law going out would kill a lot of Open Source projects or move them out of the Eu. Considering how most projects are just collection of a few people without any organization and the individuals would be legally responsible, it would definitely kill any participation in an Open Source project by a Eu resident.
- Scandiravian 4y ago
  Given the track record of how the EU has administered fines for GDPR violations there's a legal precedence for large corporations being given large fines and smaller companies being given warnings Claiming that open-source maintainers will get fined 15M euro is scaremongering and is not supported by legal practice in the EU
  - unity1001 4y ago
    > there's a legal precedence "Precedent" is not a concept that applies to civil law. Its a common law tenet. > Claiming that open-source maintainers will get fined 15M euro is scaremongering Read the actual legal document. The static, non % amounts are totally left to the interpretation of the regulator in the 'legal maximums' section of the draft law. It doesnt need to be full 15 million. No Open Source contributor would risk getting fined a few dozen thousand euros. Even a few thousand is too much for anyone who contributes to Open Source.