Too Long; Didn't Read
Open Source is Illegal
TL;DR
We might be accidentally fighting on behalf of worst-offending profiteering companies.
-
not all terms in (software) licences are legally binding
- only rare cases involving lots of money go to court
- “it is a necessary condition of a […] law that it should be enforceable” which is infeasible with most current software
- law cannot address both fraud/profiteering & indecency/rudeness (too broad scope)
-
recap of Open Source is Bad:
-
instead of funding, EU have suggested cybersecurity legislation
- Cyber Resilience Act & Product Liability Act proposed in Sept 2022 to hold profiteering companies accountable (via “consumer interests” and “safety & liability” of products/services)
- aim: anyone making (in)direct profit cannot hide behind “NO WARRANTY” licence clauses
- 131 feedback submissions + ongoing meetings
-
cons
- can liability traverse dependency graph (blame pushed onto
FOSS
free & open-source software
dependencies)? - could “indirect” profit include “self-promotion” and thus all FOSS?
-
surprisingly, some non-profits like the
PSF
Python Software Foundation
are unhappy- threatens to block
python&pipinstalls in EU - thinks proposed law could hold individual FOSS devs unfairly accountable (personal note: huge commercial orgs with ongoing
IP
intellectual property
cases against them happily regurgitate the same arguments)
- threatens to block
- can liability traverse dependency graph (blame pushed onto
FOSS
free & open-source software
-
rebuttal against “cons”
- FOSS devs & non-profits are fighting to dilute proposed laws on behalf of worst-offending profiteering companies
- people might be arguing without understanding prerequisite legal jargon nor seeking unbiased legal advice (most modern debates rely on media sensationalism & misunderstanding jargon)
- could just reword a little
- expressly (not just implicitly) exclude indie packages
- somebody should be accountable if critical infra (e.g.
PyPI
The Python Package Index
, Linux) breaks