Sidebar on the CRA, which was mentioned

Posted Oct 3, 2025 16:53 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
In reply to: Sidebar on the CRA, which was mentioned by mbunkus
Parent article: F-Droid and Google's Developer Registration Decree

> So yeah, if you're the completely altruistic OSS developer only ever spends their time & money on such a project without even trying to make server infra costs back, you'll be fine. But a ton of us out there will have to deal with it.

As far as I'm aware, though, the people on the ground who are Europeans (eg me) are all quite happy with the CRA. The people voicing the loudest concerns (like pizza) are not - an American?

Doesn't that say something? I'd be interested to know if there are Europeans (who've bothered to read, learn and inwardly digest - there've been plenty of pointers to the legal texts themselves) who are seriously concerned.

Cheers,
Wol

Sidebar on the CRA, which was mentioned

Posted Oct 3, 2025 17:15 UTC (Fri) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> As far as I'm aware, though, the people on the ground who are Europeans (eg me) are all quite happy with the CRA. The people voicing the loudest concerns (like pizza) are not - an American?

...I see the CRA as a warning of what's coming next. While the CRA's worst bits (with respect to individual F/OSS authors) were watered down after the massive outcry (from EU-based entities), it has yet to be actually implemented in individual member nations and as such there's still a lot of room for things to go sideways (even if only unintentionally). That said, only a fool would say that some form of strict individual liability for software authors -- and SaaS providers -- isn't looming. And it will apply regardless of said software/SaaS is ultimately funded (or not).

Sidebar on the CRA, which was mentioned

Posted Oct 3, 2025 18:35 UTC (Fri) by mbunkus (subscriber, #87248) [Link]

I'm also European, but I also fall into the grey zone I outlined in my reply in order to recoup the outright cost I have and get a bit of compensation for all the hours I've spent over the last decades. As such I'm too small to fall into any of the categories that're usually talked about in coverage of the CRA. I'm not against the CRA, I'm just unsure and confused about the actual impact on my particular case. Hence me railing against The Register's misleading headline, which some might take too literally.