CRA standards request draft published

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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 Organizations (ESOs) will be issued. This process is all governed by regulation 2012/1025, which will be discussed in a future post.

The publication of this draft is important for every entity that will have duties under the CRA, namely “manufacturers” and “software stewards.” Conformance with the harmonized 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 organization the following:

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

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 organizations, including specifically the open source community where relevant”

Article 3 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 corporations claiming to speak for the community will do it instead.

OSI applauds the Commission’s steps to include the Open Source community and will be pleased to work with the European standards organizations towards that initial goal of effective representation and consultation. Additionally, the OSI will:

• Work with our Affiliates to identify additional suitable participants with relevant skills and experience, and make connections between them and the ESOs.
• Assist the Commission in validating responses to Article 3.

Our goal is to ensure that the development and use of Open Source software is at best facilitated and at worst not obstructed by any aspect of the standards development process, the resulting harmonized standards, and the access and IPR terms of those standards.

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