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Update: Graduated to the OSI Blog.

Like me you may be surprised to see the suggestion from the IMCO Committee to change “free and open source software” in the CRA to “freeware and open source software” in an amendment from Karen Melchior MEP¹. It's not a word I have heard much this decade, so I checked with her team and discovered this was an informed and intentional choice, not a misunderstanding (by them, at least).

I just read a news story about how Chinese tech companies are threatening Europe by registering so many patents. Turns out it's in the context of “open standards” and is actually Chinese companies copying what European multinationals have done for years with patents embedded in standards. That Sword of Damocles cuts both ways.

Update: This has now graduated to the OSI Blog.

No, open source advocates are not engaged in “special pleading” to try to get open source given an unreasonable artificial market advantage in Europe, as some are alleging. From the very beginning I have heard people claiming that open source advocates are trying to get open source software per se excluded from the scope of regulation by the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA). Even now it seems people are still hearing this.

It's good news that the European Commission is now considering the value and needs of open source in its policy deliberations. What's less good is that it does so through the wrong lens. The Commission needs to extend its consultations, Expert Groups and other work to include and consider the fourth sector.

Update: This post has graduated to the OSI Blog.

Update: This has now graduated to the OSI Blog.

Update: This has now graduated to the OSI Blog.

Update: Graduated to the OSI Blog