Proposed European CE software mark

[howardpc]

Does anyone have understanding of how the proposed European legislation mentioned here might affect the FPC and Lazarus projects?
If passed into law will the effect on open source projects be as adverse as the article seems to suggest?

[MarkMLl]

If it's anything like the standard "ce" mark, the requirement will be on the person manufacturing a product to certify that all elements comply with all relevant legislation.

As such, it's not got much to do with actually writing software (open-source or other), which is already covered by ISO9003 with which everybody does, of course, comply.

MarkMLl

[TRon]

I quick skim through the proposal shows that it can have a very great impact.

Not on the writing itself, that is not a problem but the usage/publishing/usage of the software.

If that CE mark becomes mandatory (I was unable to locate such a thing in such short notice) it will impact every software out there that makes use of open source libraries/frameworks.

Having said that things like that can take two roads: commercial parties improve on existing open-source frameworks that their software use (which would be nice) or they ignore that and go closed-source altogether.

The regulation seem to focus on the responsibility/liability of the manufacturer. Lots of blah about cybersecurity, AI etc.

[korba812]

It seems that no one read this proposal, but only read the media reports.

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.

[Thaddy]

No, I have read the proposal (ad. 10) and fully agree with Olaf Kolkman's - I worked with him in two commitee's - concerns referred to in the provided link.
( https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/2022/10/the-eus-proposed-cyber-resilience-act-will-damage-the-open-source-ecosystem/ )
I also broadly agree with the intentions of the EU, but the proposal needs refinement and/or rephrasing. Especially regarding commercial support on otherwise open source software.
That's why it is a "proposal".

[TRon]

It seems that no one read this proposal, but only read the media reports.

quick skim through the proposal itself.

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.

fully agree with Olaf Kolkman's

Exactly /that/