In this episode, I’m joined by Rebecca Rumbul, CEO of Rust Foundation, and Mirko Boehm from Linux Foundation Europe. Between them, they have decades of experience in open source.

We start by discussing the critical role open source has grown to play in the world of software and how this, along with its growing complexity, presents significant challenges. We then turn our attention to the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), a piece of EU legislation that is actively under development, designed to make end-user products more secure.

Early drafts of this act detailed significant obligations on open source maintainers, despite the fact that they often work without financial reward. This caused concern, fear and some anger in the open source community. We discuss the latest update to the CRA, which has thankfully addressed these concerns, and ponder whether it will actually solve the problems it has set out to tackle.

Links from the podcast

• Panel Discussion: The Impact of the CRA on the Open Source Ecosystem – Cheukting, Mirko & Greg, Laura, Justin, Philip

• The EU’s new Cyber Resilience Act is about to tell us how to code – Bert Hubert’s writings

• Will the Cyber Resilience Act help the European ICT sector compete?

• Understanding the Cyber Resilience Act: What Everyone involved in Open Source Development Should Know

• EU CRA: What does it mean for open source? – Bert Hubert’s writings

• The EU’s Proposed CRA Law May Have Unintended Consequences for the Python Ecosystem

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