CRA Standards Request Draft Published

This article now forms part of an OSI position.

The European Commission recently published a public draft of the standards request associated with the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA). Anyone who wants to comment on it has until May 16, after which comments will be considered and a final request to the European Standards Organisations (ESOs) will be issued. This process is all governed by regulation 2012/1025, of which more in a future post.

This development is important for every entity that will have duties under the CRA (“manufacturers” and “software stewards”). Conformance with the harmonised standards that emerge from this process will allow manufacturers to CE-mark their software on the presumption it complies with the requirements of the CRA, without taking further steps.

For those who depend on incorporating or creating open source software, there is an encouraging new development found here. For the first time in a European standards request, there is an express requirement to respect the needs of open source developers and users. Recital 10 tells each standards organisation that

“where relevant, particular account should be given to the needs of the free and open source software community”

and that is made concrete in Article 2 which specifies:

The work programme shall also include the actions to be undertaken to ensure effective participation of relevant stakeholders, such as small and medium enterprises and civil society organisations, including specifically the open source community where relevant

and that requirement is made concrete in article 3 which requires proof that effective participation has been facilitated. The community is going to have to step up to help the ESOs satisfy these requirements – or have corporates masquerading as community do it instead.

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