Now in early 2024, that guess looks pretty good. The final CRA text is much improved, due to careful liaising and advocacy by @OpenForumEurope, @EclipseFdn, RedHat and others. The law’s effects on #opensource work are in much better shape now. However, the scope of these reforms is much broader than #FOSS.

This is part of a much bigger story. The EU program to modernize the laws underpinning the Single Market (including its digital sector) starting in 2008 was called the New Legislative Framework. The GDPR, new product liability laws, the CRA, new data interoperability rules, and the new AI Act all are part of the NLF arc. Just as the GDPR changed *global* data protection practices and liabilities, these new laws will have an evolutionary effect on global, not just European, software and data services.

Nations influence commerce by defining a market with common trade rules that become dominant over time. French and later UK admiralty customs structured international shipping risks and practices for several centuries. US commercial, financial and securities laws largely ruled international commerce in the second half of the 20th century. The NLF may give Europe that same kind of outsized influence in shaping commerce and data in the 21st.

🇪🇺 #LexMercatoria 2/2

A few months ago, deep in the fog of #CRA parliamentary negotiation, my friend Alexandre was watching the the CRA’s long drafting progress, which seemed scattered and confused at times. He asked me if this was all going to result in tolerable, sensible rules for open source and standards people acting in good faith.

I said yes; and I didn’t have a lot of basis for it. It just looked like there was a lot of good will on all sides, and it probably was going to work out OK.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XkPUwwYpA0
🇪🇺 #LexMercatoria #standards #opensource 1/2