WEBVTT

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Then let's get started.

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Hello and welcome to the Software Freedom Podcast.

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This podcast is presented to you by the Free Software Foundation Europe.

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We are a charity that empowers users to take control of technology.

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I'm Bonnie Mehring and I'm here with my colleague Alex.

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Hi Alex, nice to have you here.

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Hi Bonnie, nice to be here again.

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Hello, hello.

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So Alex, this week we will be talking about the CRA and I give up on the word cry if you notice.

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And especially focus on the questionnaire there.

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Yes.

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So can you give us a recap of what the CRA is?

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What are the roles in the CRA?

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Very, very quickly.

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Just to give everybody a quick overview of what we are talking about.

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Yes, sure.

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I mean, we already had a podcast episode on the Cyber Resilient Act.

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You can find it in the show notes as well.

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And there we also explained a bit about the Cyber Resilient Act.

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However, in short, the Cyber Resilient Act is product regulation and the aim

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is to make products more secure.

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And we talk about products with digital elements and this could be basically everything.

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It could be IoT device.

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It could be a piece of code and everything like operating system or operating system on your mobile.

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So whatever has a digital elements could be considered as a product.

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There are some exemptions for cars, for example,

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since they are regulated in other spaces.

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However, ultimately, it's about getting a CE label on those digital products.

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So it's also not only a product regulation but also a market entry regulation.

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So we only talk about products that are about to enter the market.

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Those are going to be pre-checked if there are, and so-called, yeah,

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let's say, verb flows in order to make the product more secure.

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One can say it's security by design.

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And once all of these workflows, applications are fulfilled,

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you get the CE label and can place the product on the European market.

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So that's what we are talking about.

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And yeah, since this obviously is regulating software,

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we advocated during the legislative process that there should be exemptions but also in detailed

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regulations for free software.

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Since you free software ecosystem is looking slightly different than normal software

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or not normal software, so it's a proprietary software.

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And by thus, we also need dedicated rules.

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So just imagine we are having those of projects that are not really placed on a market.

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They might be on GitHub.

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They might be on some websites.

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You can just download the code, install it, run it.

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You'll have all the freedoms of free software to use, study, share, and improve.

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Right? And so this is ultimately not really a product.

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Maybe you have sometimes charities around those projects.

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But sometimes these projects then ultimately also end up in a product.

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And that's why the legislative came up with the idea to also not only regulate the workflows

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differently, but also to come up with new roads.

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So they introduced the Stuart role and the manufacturer role.

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The manufacturer is pretty obviously that's basically the manufacturer that brings a product

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on the market. And the Stuart is then basically what could be a project that is then ultimately

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ending up in such a product by not being a product by its own.

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So and this also brings a couple of questions with it.

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For example, what is placing on the market?

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To which extent can you still have money in your project,

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while you are still not being a manufacturer?

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So again, let's imagine you are a charity or you are getting a few donations for your

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project. You have let's buy me a coffee button, whatever.

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So you don't really make a surplus with your project.

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But you just like keep it running or like have it as a hobby as a project,

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whatever the structure might be. And here those questions arise and then also some questions arise

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on like how the Stuart and the manufacturers shot in the activities each other.

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So let's imagine there's a security issue. A patch needs to be placed.

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So and how is this patch then finding its way into supply chain?

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Is it the Stuart and it's come up with the patch? Is it the manufacturer?

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The rules are clear. All applications are with the manufacturer.

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However, in order to make sure that the patch is then automatically ending in the project,

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you need to have somewhat a relationship with the project or so called Stuart then in this case.

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And this is basically what we tried to address with a survey. We came up with a question there.

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We is the German Bundesamt für Sicherheit in the Information Station.

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So the Asian Federal Agency for IT Security in Germany,

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we partnered on a project in order to bring more clarity towards those questions.

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And also to identify more questions, basically. So we were also trying to ask so the Stuart

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in particular, but also let's take a market on how they read and understand the CIA

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or where they have issues to not understand it. So where we need a bit more of like clarity.

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And this could be basically ending up in so called guidance.

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So this will be a document where the CIA is a bit more explained in detail.

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So what is placing on the market, right? So and how all these workflows need to look like,

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ultimately there's also standardization for these processes. They might be at the station.

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So on and so forth. And this is what we ask, basically, our community,

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what we ask other communities out there that tinker around with software and might be a

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affected by the cyber resilience act. And yeah, now we want to talk a bit about this questionnaire.

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In the last edition, we already talked a bit about the questionnaire itself and first result.

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And now we have some final results. And this is what we want to chat about today.

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Perfect. Thank you very much. I heard that you got like an amazing number of answers for the

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questionnaire. This is true. I mean, the questionnaire was basically available out there for two

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months July, August, mid July. We had the, or no, it was end of July, beginning of August.

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We also had the podcast episode on this where we also promoted the questionnaire. Again,

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we also had to talk at the German free software conference, the Frostconn, where we also presented

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the questionnaire and asked people to take part. Ultimately, we got 345 answers, which is

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really impressive. Since we also only asked for feedback from people that are more or less

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familiar with the cyber resilience act. So we didn't ask fully into the blue. We only asked people

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or, but we were addressing people and asking in particular for feedback from people that are

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familiar with the cyber resilience act that know about the legal rules, because this would then

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help us to identify basically the gaps where we need more clarity. So it doesn't make too much sense

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to ask, sort of, a random people on what do you know about the CIA and then they tell you

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nothing. So this is not really helpful. And for this, it was really impressive to get this

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amount of questions, although we had, and this is in particular important for this questionnaire,

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a lot of free fields. So where people could, yeah, basically try to explain in their own words

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what they are fearing, what they are seeing, what they are missing. And this in particular, I helped

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for us to better understand the ecosystem, to better understand fears and needs. And we had some

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gut feelings beforehand. Most of them have been also addressed by any response in the questionnaire,

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but they have been also some answers that we let's say didn't expect it to have it at least in

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that clarity. So this questionnaire definitely helped to get a better understanding of the knowledge

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around the cyber resilience act, but also around like ideas on how the market might react on

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cyber resilience act, as well as ultimately, yeah, the still open questions that many of the

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participants of this survey still have. And that we are, yeah, it's obviously that they need to be

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addressed. And this will mostly happen in guidance. And this is also something which we are going

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to look on in the next weeks and months. And based on this survey.

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Okay, before we dive into the questions and the answers we got there, just very quickly,

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very surprised by the amount of answers we got that were obviously there's some needs to be

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some knowledge about the CRA and there's some expert knowledge then there as well. Very surprised

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by the quality and the quantity or what, how, what was your feeling there? Yeah, both both,

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so it's like, as we asked for quality, basically, I didn't expect it to get that many high quality

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answers. And that's basically what we can see as at 345 answers, we had ultimately six questionnaires

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in German, as well as in English, basically three questionnaires then that have been translated,

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one for the manufacturers, one for the stewards, and one for the project to get a better understanding,

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first of all, where market participants see themselves. So if they are more or less like,

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yeah, understanding in which role they will end up with and or which role they might think of

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that they might end up with. And then as said, in particular, the three fields helped a lot

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for us to better understand the arguments, but also the reasoning of thinking of people

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why they do believe that they have a certain role or why do they believe they don't have

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Okay, then let's dive into this or I will take a first project. What was your key findings

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for the projects and what was so amazing there and what really stuck out to you?

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I mean, for the project and this is pretty much I think we can combine it with the stewards

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already together is that most of them still don't fully understand if they are in scope or not

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and if they are in scope which role precisely they will have and then what they have to do

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as in Italy. So we can see that many many answers we're going into the direction that like if

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we are covered somehow by the cyber resilience act. So if we for example, in this steward role,

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then projects want to be the stewards for their own project. So that's something which is very

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important to learn. So they do not want to have external stakeholders players around that do

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fulfill the steward roles for them. So if they are covered by the CIA in which role and in which

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doesn't matter too much then they all said more or less that they want to be the stewards for their

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own project. However, they all still struggle in order to better understand to which extent they

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are covered and also what the applications they have to fulfill. So this means many do not fully

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see the threshold of like how much money could be in a project in order to not be a manufacturer

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or in order to be for example fully out of the cyber resilience act. And this is also something

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we addressed in our sort of statements towards the commission but also to market surveillance

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authorities that we need more clarity here. The idea could be for example and this is also

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something which we have seen in the tax and European Parliament during the legislative process.

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So that amount of money that keeps the service running yeah that should be basically the

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threshold in order to say look you are not doing this for a commercial interest so to say you are

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just doing this you have to keep the service running and as soon as you or as long as you are

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not paying basically doing this to earn money with this but just to keep the service running

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then you should be out or you can decide on to be in the Stuart world. The question is like for

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example what do we do with charities. One solution could be you say like whatever the charity

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earns this this project it doesn't matter they can just like move the money then into other

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charitable work what they are doing since like for example we have to

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yeah charity status in Germany which doesn't allow you basically to earn money right so you have

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to basically invest it then in other courses you might have but then the question is again so

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is this fair or can we can we be a bit more precise here also what do we do with other countries

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that don't have such charity laws what do we do with countries that are not even European right so

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how do we evaluate this and for this I think it would be very good to have some very clear rules

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for example I'd say it's more or less clear to say like as much money as you need in order to keep

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the service running is fine but as soon as you are starting yeah to commercialize it in a way

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right so that you have surplus then it's clearly not a Stuart project anymore but you might

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be a manufacturer however what we see from the responses is that there needs to be clarity

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so people are fearing that it's basically zero euros that you that you can have in your

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in your pocket then when you have a project and this will definitely not be the case however

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the question is how much money can you have in your case so right and here we clearly see that

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we need answers and I do believe the commission is already aware of this however we will also then

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provide the commission with our feedback on this so that we need here definitely more clarity in

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order like how does the money game works out so that you can have for example support contracts

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in order to help manufacturers to be CIA compliant without the fear of becoming a manufacturer

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by yourself also I do believe that many still do not fully understand the idea of a product

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regulation so ultimately that the idea is to regulate F product that means you have F rich

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which is then getting FCE label the same manufacturer can come up with another fridge which is

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another product so this means if you have a project and yeah your your your code base is part

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of a product you're only the Stuart for this one product so you're not a Stuart for your project

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nor for a manufacturer at its whole right so you're only the Stuart for one product that means

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you can be I don't know 20 times the Stuart for 20 projects towards one manufacturer

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but you are never basically the Stuart for your project so to say right so you're always the Stuart

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for a product so let's assume you have a code that ends up in a fridge and then you are the

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Stuart for this code in this fridge right and this is also something I do believe we have

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no clarity I hope that these kinds of podcasts we are doing here is helping in this direction but

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also I said we were giving talks on this so this is also what we are trying to explain why so it's

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a product regulation and every product every single product and it's going to be regulated so

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and it's not about your project but ultimately always the singing of a product regulation so that's

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also something and what we have seen in the answers and where we need maybe that's more of a

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communication thingy but where we need more clarity but also guidance again could help here and

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ultimately what we have also seen and this is also true for the manufacturers as that they basically

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are asking for tools so we see that project Stuart's and manufacturers alike I want to have

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easy check boxes so to say and best in an automated process and for this they want tools right so

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and this is also something I think which is a key of feedback for the the whole implementation

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process that we also should think about that we are talking towards a technical community

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right so and they want all the tech solutions to fix the problem and to come up with workflows

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right so and this is also something which we should keep in mind so that we don't come up with

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paperwork too much but that we also think of tools this is a short break for our own cause thank

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you for listening to the software freedom podcast working for software freedom and producing

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podcasts costs money please consider supporting us with a donation on the fsfe.org slash donate

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and then the show notes okay I've had this very fascinating especially since there's this

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dismissing clarity but you also mentioned there's a fear of becoming manufacturers I think this

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is also related a bit to the clarity part right because there is uncertainty about what does

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all would mean exactly so people fear a lot so that as soon as there is somehow money involved

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then they they end up as a manufacturer so assuming you have a project and then the

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manufacturer drops by telling you all you have to fulfill these and these and these applications

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the project is saying nah no we don't want we don't have the resources to do so then the

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manufacturer say oh I understand I'm going to support you and for this I'm going to pay you money

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and then projects are fearing that as soon as they take this money they will end up in the

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manufacturer vote this is in particular not true however it's also addressing another problem

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that we see and that's the the lack of resources right so and that's also an answer we often got

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is that yeah project stewards fear that they will have more applications or even if it's not

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applications there's more work to do since they have to interact with the manufacturer right they

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need to prepare or provide resources basically a possibility for contact and maybe some more

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and for this they need resources and the question is there do these resources are going to be

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pulled from and the most obvious answer to this is the manufacturer should pay but the question is

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then if this is always working out in that way what we do hope for and what do we do if it's not

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going to work out and this is then basically a question so since again we also see that many

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projects are willing to contribute to IT security they are willing to help in the cyber resilience

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act but at the same time they are lacking resources we we know the funding issue of free software is

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it's a huge topic we also address this in another podcast episode but we also see it again here

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in the cyber resilience act all of these problems that we have on the one hand I'm strong manufacturers

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that maybe sometimes just pick the code don't contribute back in any way and on the other hand we

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have burned out maintainers in projects that yeah working like hell and don't get any resources

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focused and this is also something which we have seen a widely addressed in new responses to our

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questionnaire that there is a lack of resources a lack of funding and this is also something which

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we definitely need to address in order to make sure that not only free software projects survive

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but that they also get a reasonable funding and reasonable resources and here again this is

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something which nobody of you should fear if you are a project and again you get the resources in

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order to keep the service running this is definitely not the threshold of becoming a manufacturer

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however there will be more clarity on where the thresholds are but this is I'd say more or less

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for sure that this will definitely be a threshold so as soon as you get as much money in order to

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fulfill this road right which is given to you by the by the legislator and in order to keep your

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service running then you definitely won't end up in the manufacturer role however as said we need

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clarity here in order to say look it's bitten here you can be sure yeah and you have already

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mentioned that the manufacturers are also somehow involved in this whole CR-8 debate and we had

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actually see we had a questionnaire for them as well I'm doing a very very slow circle here two

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arts of manufacturers if you notice so are they what are the key findings there are they still

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considering to keep using free software or are they now more in fear of using free software and do

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they want to switch to some proprietary software but proprietary software will also be regulated by

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the CR-8 so what is their key findings yeah so maybe before we start with this since you address

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the role right so I think this is also very important to know for everyone all the applications

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in the cyber resilience and are with the manufacturer so and that's very important to learn and

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very important to know so also as a student if you should fail they're not even fines for you

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right so marked surveillance authority then will drop by and might guide you and help you out of

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this but they can't find you on the other hand manufacturers have all the applications so they

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must not need to make sure that their code is fine that it fulfills all the applications in the

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cyber resilience act and they could also be fine if it's going into a wrong direction and this

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is important to learn so since this means the manufacturer needs to have a relationship to

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the Stuart in order to say I am sure that I can fulfill the applications in the cyber resilience

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act meaning that for example you have the security incident and then you are able to bring the

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patch to the project right so and you it's it's basically impossible to do this if you don't

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have a relationship with the project or if you can't assure right so that the patch is handled

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and that it is then ultimately ending up in your product so and if you can't guarantee this

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then you might be fined by market's reigness authority and this then also means for manufacturers

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as you said there are a couple of ways in order to handle this situation so first and this would be

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I guess pretty much the best case and this is also what we are looking for the manufacturer is

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identifying the Stuart is providing the Stuart with resources in order to help the Stuart that

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the Stuart can help the manufacturer to fulfill the applications and then also there are workflows

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established that there is basically that the applications can be fulfilled there are a couple

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of them like notification patches handling blah blah blah let's don't go into the details but however

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it's all this the manufacturer so then assuming the manufacturer is not

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willing or capable to set up a relationship with Stuart so let's say you as a project you'll feel

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you don't want to work together with this specific company on this specific product for I don't

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know ethical reasons for example then what has the manufacturer for options right so and then he can

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say look I'm going to fork the project because then yeah you have basically the possibility to

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to to work on the code and fulfill the applications so you can basically also explain towards the

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market's reigness authority right so this is this I have power over the code so to say or and this

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is also what you already mentioned as an example you can scout for a proprietary alternative which

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already is a product in itself and has a CE label already and by thus you can yeah shift

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basically the applications towards the other supplier and you have a business to business relationship

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and ultimately so these are the options you will have as a manufacturer or you let the product

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by so that's all you just like remove this bit of the code and don't have this functionality for

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so these are the options as a as a manufacturer right so you have a good relationship to the

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Stuart best one I'd say you fork it second best one worst one is proprietary replacement or yeah

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you don't have the product only you pin bark at it anymore so and then and this is in particular

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interesting since we see this in the answers so most of the manufacturers do want to have a

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relationship with the Stuart and that's also I think a reasonable approach since imagine you

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are flocking at the project so this means you need to have the knowledge about the code you need

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to have the knowledge about the project and it's basically experienced people from this community

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in the best case that can work on this code right so I think it's not that easy to just say like

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so I'm just going to take I don't know Debian and now I fork it and then all is good right so I mean

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you also need to handle it and patches right so you need to improve the code you want innovation

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yari yari so it's it's not so easy to just simply fork it and then continue and take it from there

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so for this it's it's a pretty good idea to to to be connected to the project and basically work

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together with them so and this is also what most manufacturers are willing to do nearly none of them

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thinking about replacing this this proprietary alternatives so basically there are two ways for them

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the first one is and that's what they what they are trying to do is to go to the Stuart or to

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the project and by thus the potential Stuart trying to set up a relationship and also they are

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willing and to provide resources this is also interesting if you think about the fund debate but

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however and this is also learning if I can just site record here we also learned that projects that

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already do have a good relationship with manufacturers and do get resources it's still not

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sufficient so we should also be aware that if manufacturers say they are willing to support a

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project that doesn't mean that it's then fully financed it's just that they are willing to give

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something we don't know how much and we also don't know if the project will survive from

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curing market activities we see that it's rather not okay however manufacturers are up to do

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they are willing to work together with the Stuart that would be their first choice second choice

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is to fork the project and that's also I think very important to learn so we see on the one hand

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projects that want to be the Stuart for their own project and on the other side we see manufacturers

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that do not want to have a fork or that do not want to replace it but keep the project and also

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collaborate with the potential Stuart so we see that basically the two important entities

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roles in the cyber resilience act do want to collaborate so and now the question is how do we kick

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off this collaboration how do we make sure it doesn't harm the ecosystem and how do we make sure

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that those who benefit on the market also pay those who contribute so those are some of the outcomes

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and you already gave some yeah fewer hat of what is a hat what is lying ahead of us

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is there anything else you would outline now for the last question as the time is already running

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so fast again Alex yeah so what is important so I mean first of all what we are going to do is

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to take the results and put it in a report and present it towards the commission and try to make

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sure that all of these questions are going to be addressed in guidance or in the delegated

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implementing acts standardization attestation so in all of the implementing activities without

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going too much into details there are a couple of them so that all of these questions are going to

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be addressed also we have seen in the questionnaire that there are some other questions that we might

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need to work on spawn supply chain license issues so also in particular attestation might be a very

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interesting part to work on this is also something which I do believe is something we will pick up

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very soon and so there are there are some more questions next to the ones we just addressed here

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that need to be clarified maybe we come up with another survey something like this let's see how

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we and yeah how we how we channel through this however we will make sure in the implementation to

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again safeguard in particular project maintainers and I think individual developers that are

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something which we achieve but that we bring also clarity towards the projects and that everyone

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knows clearly what is going to happen and yeah if it's a good idea to become a steward or not and if so

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what do you need to do and what does mean for you and so on and so forth also we try to reflect

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the different players in the ecosystem why it's not like that there is a one fits all solutions so

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we will try to work with examples and guidance and to to yeah make this easily understandable

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yeah for you out there to channel through this so this will be our activity however it's

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even if discretion is closed we are still searching for input so if you feel that your project or

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even if you are I don't know a micro enterprise a small medium enterprise man medium enterprise

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depending on what you do but also here we do not want to harm micro enterprises right so all these

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one women armies that are out there sitting on their tiny project which then ends up in I don't

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know hundreds of products why this is also something we do care of if you see any problems there if

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you have any questions feel free to reach out to us even as the question is closed if you have feedback

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on this or if you have a specific problem which might be a gray area try to address this

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because now it's still the time to make those fixes and the more we see the more we can

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bring in the process in order to make sure we can safeguard as a specific project in specific gray

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areas this is also something which we learned during the questionnaires or I think we have seen

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already a lot but yeah during during the time we also had several meetings with project with

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foundations so on and so forth where there have been also some new niches that were unexplored for us

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so we can't see everything these come to us tell us about your specific issue might you might

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have and we will try to clarify and address this so this is also very much helping and yeah so

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this is also always a good idea so if you have anything that is like needs to be addressed

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tell us about it because then we still have the chance to address this towards markets railings

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authorities and the European Commission and make sure in the implementation process to bring in

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more clarity and this is also basically what we are now trying to do with this questionnaire

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right so like making this a bit more elaborated for the implementation process so that it can be

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addressed in the related documents all right thank you so much Alex so you will pull up there

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yes yes and we do and by that we will do so I guess that won't be the final episode of the

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server resilience aid but rather yeah as you can see more less serious so maybe we will talk about

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the server resilience act yeah and soon is again and yeah we will definitely keep you updated

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about the progress hopefully with good news then yes I do hope so as well but I am already very

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impressed by the numbers of answers we got and the quality as you have mentioned so yeah I find

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this is really fascinating and really really nice that there are so many people who care about

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free software and who want to keep free software safe guarded yeah and with this I'm saying goodbye

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thank you so much Alex for being here thank you so much for talking with us about the CRA

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yeah always a pleasure and yeah also for me thank you for everyone who not only listens but also

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then to part in the survey or share this survey so it's obvious that you helped you listeners and so

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thanks for this and yeah also thanks for listening and to all of our episodes yes thank you very

35:11.280 --> 35:17.520
much all right this was the software freedom podcast if you liked this episode please

35:17.520 --> 35:23.120
recommend it to your friends and rated it stay tuned for more inspiring conversations that

35:23.120 --> 35:29.920
explore the importance of software freedom and its impact on our digital lives this podcast is

35:29.920 --> 35:37.520
presented to you by the Free Software Foundation Europe and VR charity so we need your help please

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35:45.360 --> 35:53.120
donate and if this is financially not possible for you you can share the podcast on social media

35:53.120 --> 36:03.840
rate it or contribute to our work as a volunteer thank you so much bye bye.

36:03.840 --> 36:22.240
yeah I'm Albert I've been volunteering for the Free Software Foundation Europe for like 13 years

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now something like that I do that because I think it's it's important to have also the political

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point because I mean yes lots of people in my environment see the technical advantages of having

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free licenses and being able to reuse stuff but somebody also has to think about the the the political

36:43.040 --> 36:50.800
implications of that and I do try to help out with Free Software Foundation Europe to actually be able

36:50.800 --> 36:54.480
to do anything in that area

   
