As an US citizen, I pretty much count on EU regulations to protect me since my own government is too rife with fascist agitators and oligarchs to respond to the needs of the people.
this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2023
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This opinion reminds me a bit of Covid. I live in NJ, and was often grateful that our governor (Phil Murphy, Democrat) tried to protect us from Trump’s idiocy. He actually accepts science, unlike some other governors.
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.
Yeah, it's always very two sided with the EU. On the one hand it brings forward a lot of progressive and positive change, on the other hand it's used to "quietly" walk around the local political climate. Political actors push unpopular things on the EU level, but as soon as people catch wind of it, they market themselves as always having disagreed with them. They often keep pushing for it anyway, because people really don't notice things on the EU level. Everybody only ever pays attention to the national sphere of politics.
In German politics it's often the case that high-ranking national politicians that "fail" in the public eye are pushed higher up into the EU level. Take Ursula von der Leyen for example. Too many scandals in Germany, immediately pushed out of the way and now holds an important position in the EU.
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.
Now if only they did the same antitrust they did with Microsoft back in the day but targeting Google.
... or targeting Microsoft again too
Both is good.
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.
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.
They have. Why do you think they are currently trying to make open source illegal?
I honestly don't know much about the EU outside of the consumer friendly headlines.
Yeah, thats the reality of much of politics. Headlines make up most people's world view.
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.
You need to be able to Open the phone without tools to swap the battery with the new law
You need to be able to open it with commercially available tools or ones provided by the manufacturer. This isn't to bring back swappable batteries, only replaceable ones.
So we all end up with fatter phones that aren’t waterproof like we had in 2006?
I would like my phone to stay somewhat water proof. This will make that very difficult.
It was close to never happen again, i guess
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.
You mean the GDPR, the amazing piece of legislation that allows any user to see all the tracking websites do and even allows the user to limit said tracking, just by deselecting some toggle switches?
Incidentally, it's mostly people who know NOTHING about technology who keep complaining that it's sooo hard to click a button.
Besides this: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/10/tech/eu-us-data-sharing-deal/index.html
Overwhelming people with information doesn't work, never worked. Do you think the majority of people in Europe care about accepting all the consents that come up when they open a web page? Incidentally they don't come up when they open the web through their phone application, which is what majority of people browse.
The EU legislators don't know tech, and don't understand people. I am pro-eu like most of my countrymen but it's absurd not to critize some of their choices, even if they have good intentions.
Yeah but atleast they are trying
And it's the job of the european citizens to point out they should try harder, and since they are allowiing the transfer of europeans data back to the US they are actually doing the opposite.
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