3 ms·

TLDR: In protest of the Cyber Resilience Act. FOSS projects have been raising alarms for a while. Today ITRE voted. Now it's game over for FOSS in Europe

Dah00n 3y ago
No it isn't. These kind of laws and doom saying is repeated again and again. Wait a week and see. Nothing changed.
rs999gti 3y ago
> it's game over for FOSS in Europe You mean the European Union. The rest of the world will be fine.
jeroenhd 3y ago
The CRA isn't law yet. Also, I don't see the problem myself: > In order not to hamper innovation or research, free and open-source software developed or supplied outside the course of a commercial activity should not be covered by this Regulation. This is in particular the case for software, including its source code and modified versions, that is openly shared and freely accessible, usable, modifiable and redistributable. In the context of software, a commercial activity might be characterized not only by charging a price for a product, but also by charging a price for technical support services, by providing a software platform through which the manufacturer monetises other services, or by the use of personal data for reasons other than exclusively for improving the security, compatibility or interoperability of the software. I'm not sure where people get the idea that donations are considered commercial activity. Support subscriptions and such make you liable (but I don't see why that would be a problem). Ubuntus's Snap store is a platform through which the manufacturer monetises other services. Half open source (i.e. FileZilla Pro) also counts as closed source software, of course. Most of the protests seem to come from people who operate a business that sells their open source software and wants to remain off the hook to get an advantage over their closed source competition.

3 ms·

TLDR: In protest of the Cyber Resilience Act. FOSS projects have been raising alarms for a while. Today ITRE voted. Now it's game over for FOSS in Europe

by pseudotrash 3y ago

Dah00n 3y ago
No it isn't. These kind of laws and doom saying is repeated again and again. Wait a week and see. Nothing changed.
rs999gti 3y ago
> it's game over for FOSS in Europe You mean the European Union. The rest of the world will be fine.
jeroenhd 3y ago
The CRA isn't law yet. Also, I don't see the problem myself: > In order not to hamper innovation or research, free and open-source software developed or supplied outside the course of a commercial activity should not be covered by this Regulation. This is in particular the case for software, including its source code and modified versions, that is openly shared and freely accessible, usable, modifiable and redistributable. In the context of software, a commercial activity might be characterized not only by charging a price for a product, but also by charging a price for technical support services, by providing a software platform through which the manufacturer monetises other services, or by the use of personal data for reasons other than exclusively for improving the security, compatibility or interoperability of the software. I'm not sure where people get the idea that donations are considered commercial activity. Support subscriptions and such make you liable (but I don't see why that would be a problem). Ubuntus's Snap store is a platform through which the manufacturer monetises other services. Half open source (i.e. FileZilla Pro) also counts as closed source software, of course. Most of the protests seem to come from people who operate a business that sells their open source software and wants to remain off the hook to get an advantage over their closed source competition.