SFP#45: The final chapter of the EU Radio Equipment Directive
Back to the episode SFP#45
WEBVTT
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Dear listeners! Thank you very much for listening to The Software Freedom Podcast.
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And without any further ado, hello and welcome to this episode of The Software Freedom Podcast.
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This podcast is brought to you by The Free Software Foundation Europe.
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We are a charity that empowers users to control technology.
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I'm Bonnie Mehring and today I'm here with my colleague, Alexander Sander,
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who I've done multiple episodes with already. Hello, Alex.
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Hello, hello.
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And my former colleague, Max Meal.
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Hi, Max. It's so nice to have you back here.
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Hi, Bonnie. Hi, Alex. Great to be here.
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Max, how are you? How has life been treating you?
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It's been treating me very well, but currently it's quite busy.
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We are in per-FOSDEM preparation, a lot of talks and Devroom organization is going on.
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So yeah, but I'm happy to be here.
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Which Devroom will you be organizing at FOSDEM?
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I will be co-organizing the Railways and Open Transport Devroom since I've been working
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or still working for Deutsche Bahn. And it's great because we collect their international
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collection of companies, of railway companies, but also standardization bodies.
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People from the transportation community working on create a free software tools.
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And yeah, we are bringing them all together there for the fourth time in the row.
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Wow. Is there something that you are very much looking forward to at the Devroom?
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Is there a talk that you would highlight?
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I think all of them are great, depending on what you're interested in.
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What I especially like is a talk or multiple presentation about the open source railway designer
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always RD. That's the flagship project of the Open Rail Association, which we've co-founded
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as Deutsche Bahn. And yeah, that's really nice to see what they're all bringing together there,
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and the many people that are involved there. And how this is really
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accelerating the momentum of bringing free software development to the railway sector.
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Oh wow, okay. I'm very much looking forward. Last year I tried to get into the
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Devroom, but I didn't manage because the queue was so long.
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What am I supposed to do? It's like... Go there earlier. Go there earlier.
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Legal Devroom. Yeah, yeah, that's true. I can reserve you a place if you want to.
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Or VIPs in the first row.
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All right, I will come back to this later.
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Alex, you are probably also really busy with the preparation of the policy in legal Devroom,
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or? Yeah, that's true. So at the moment we are collecting slides from our speakers and try to have
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everything on one laptop so that we have good presentations and short times for headovers.
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Okay. Well, I'm very much looking forward to both Devrooms and very curious to see how
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Fostam will be this next weekend. They're upcoming. But today we will not be talking about Fostam,
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but we will be talking about the radio equipment directive.
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Max and Alex, can you briefly give me a background? How are you connected to the radio equipment
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directive? And yeah, how did you come in contact with RED?
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I was active in this radio freedom activity and that was very different because there
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the opposite position was clear. I mean, there were internet service providers that didn't want to
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give us the full control over the routers or that we cannot choose the routers ourselves and put
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free software on it if we wanted to. So there the conflict lines were quite clear. The radio
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equipment directive, as I said before, is not really clear because I would say for us as the
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free software community, 99% of what's in it is, yeah, it's not relevant to us. And we never
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really knew from the, at least from the start, was actually the intention of the one article
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that we found was a problem and a huge danger to free software in general. So to be honest,
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when I first looked and read through the radio equipment directive, and I remember that very well
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because back then I was working as a working student for 10 hours a week for the FSFE. So my time
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was limited and I printed this huge directive, I don't know, 70, 80 pages on the university printer
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had to pay for that, of course. And I read through it and I had my marker like a good student
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is doing it. And I remember that I only marked this one article and I was like, is that really it?
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Like, am I hunting a ghost here? Or is it just too small and just the detail that will never
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hit reality? And yeah, as it turned out, it was always a more like an abstract danger,
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but it could become within, yeah, blink of an eye or basically a delegated act to real threat
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of free software. So from then on, when I really understood that and when I was sure that this
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what we are afraid of can become reality and that this is not a really abstract that can be
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very concrete, then it was also motivating. But on the other hand, of course, also demotivating because
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explaining that to many people, to the many organizations and individuals that we worked with,
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that was not easy. That was not an easy task. But definitely something from which I learned a lot.
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All right, thank you very much for taking us back to this moment. I now see you in my mind.
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Alex, when did you start to work on the radio equipment directive?
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Yeah, basically, I was hoping that I never worked on this. But since Max left,
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I got the file and Max prepared a very good handover. We had a longer call on this as well.
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And when I looked at this, I was again, hoping that I don't really have to work on this. But
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unfortunately, yeah, every half or every year, the radio equipment directive popped up,
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and then normally I had to call Max and ask him again for some background questions.
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Since this is so overwhelming, and there's so much going on, and there are so many details.
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So I often was struggling again and had to ask him, is it really like this?
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I said, I couldn't imagine. And I saw that I missed some things. So that's why I called him again
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and again, and this regard. Thanks a lot, Max, for all the hours you spent with me on the radio
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equipment directive, just to explain me what's going on there. Yeah, you know, Alex, that's a lot
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of fun digging into the history of all of this. So this equipment directive has been staying with us
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now for over 10 years, basically, right? Yeah, more than 10 years now. Wow. When you read the radio
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equipment directive, what was in it? And can you take us through this step by step? And yeah,
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it started in 2014, right? At least then the directive was like formerly approved.
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So the directive, the radio equipment directive, with a beautiful name 2014 slash 53 slash EU,
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was more or less just a successor to an earlier directive. And that's, Alex will know better than I do,
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that that's quite normal in the European policy area, that you have older directives and you
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you modernize them, you harmonize more standards within. And so this wasn't replacing this directive
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from 1999. And many contents were more or less the same or yeah, modernized to the to the
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current technologies at the time. But this directive, like this new edition or this new version,
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this update contained also some articles and some regulations more on security, on safety,
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and also abuse prevention. And yeah, when I read through it, there was only one article really
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striking out, like reading that through the classes of the free software. And that is article 33i.
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And if you want to, I can, I can just cite it because it's not really long and but there is the
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whole gist of it. And that is the basis of 10 years of activity for the FSFE. And the article 33i is
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radio equipment, chance support, certain features in order to ensure that software can only be loaded
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into the radio equipment, rather compliance of the combination of the radio equipment and software
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has been demonstrated. And that's it. That was more or less the gist of it. The basic idea more or
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less is that we can only or users can only put software on their radio devices. And that is
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everything, right? That is everything that transmits and receives radio signals. So routers,
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smartphones, laptops, smart kitchen devices. You name it. Toys with Wi-Fi, signal always Bluetooth
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and so on. So that on all of these devices, we can only put software for which there is a proven
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yeah validation. With this in mind, we can no longer let's take a router as an example. We can
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no longer buy a router in the shelf in the supermarket or whatever from your favorite online shop.
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And just put software on it, which the manufacturer and the render did not explicitly allow
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because they proved that this combination of software and hardware is compliant with all this
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regulation. All right. So this is also why I think notice this, right? Yeah, that's mostly
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that's mostly their business model, right? They buy routers and they have create software on it
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that is customized to their needs and the needs of their users. And they put their software on it,
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they can run updates and so on. And they don't have to ask, I don't know, TP link or whatever
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router manufacturer, if they can, if this manufacturer can allow their software or this update and so on.
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And this has a lot of a lot of threats to free software in general. I mean, the run is for
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Fryfunk and these other community services. But also, of course, for all people who value
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free and open source software, like they want to install in firmware that for which they know
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what's in it, basically, and they can control this technology with it. And again, we are not only
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talking about routers. We are talking about all kinds of devices of modern devices. And also for
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security, right? That there's another reason that people can install software which they trust more
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and for which they, for instance, know that there are still current updates to it because many of
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the firmware and installations that you get from a manufacturer, they get out of date and of life
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and they render basically render the whole device useless. Like with phones. And apparently,
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this now also happens in other areas. So it also has a bit of a sustainability effect, right?
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Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, you just have to read normal tech news or even just normal news,
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especially with smart home devices, how many are rendered useless because the manufacturers said
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that they don't support it anymore or they switch off the update servers or even the connectivity,
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the cloud services connected to it. And what can you do with it? And with free software and with
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this access and the allowance to install own software on it, these devices can be used for a much
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longer time. Absolutely, absolutely. This is a very good point. But why did the commission actually
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want to do this? Like, what was the idea behind this article? Three, three eye?
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To my knowledge, the main reason was as stupid as it sounds was radars. So radars, for instance,
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at airports and these radars work are sometimes interfered by the five gigahertz Wi-Fi network.
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So five gigahertz is a usual frequency band in which both these radars work and some Wi-Fi devices.
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So for instance, with a router, this router needs to support a certain technology. It's called
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DFS for dynamic frequency selection. So when the router detects that this band or this
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area of the frequency band is used by something more important, for instance, a weather radar,
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then it will immediately switch to another frequency in order to not disturb the weather radar.
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And the regulators and some agencies, national agencies, they noticed that there were still
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disturbances. So that not all of these routers supported this technology.
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Previously, this situation was that device owners of these devices were responsible if they,
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for instance, shut down this technology. And that could happen, for instance, that if I have,
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as a user, the option in the software to make my router look like it wasn't in the EU,
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where this regulation was or where this setting, this technology had to be activated.
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So they could, for instance, and that was the thinking of the regulators and of the lawmakers.
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These users can basically turn their device, like if it was in the US or in Vietnam or where else.
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And by this also increased the signal strength of the Wi-Fi. And to turn off some technologies that
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they thought were hindering a really good Wi-Fi connectivity. And now the lawmaker thought,
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the current situation is that the users are responsible for it. But it seemingly doesn't really
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have an effect. Or there still are cases where there is disturbance with this weather radar, for instance.
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So what if we turn around the responsibilities and say that not the users are responsible for it,
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but that the manufacturers of these devices and of all devices, not only of routers with
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these five gigahertz capabilities, but that all radio device manufacturers basically have to
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lock down their devices that they sell in order that only software can be loaded onto them,
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that is forced or that cannot be overwritten in order to turn off these technologies or to
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otherwise harm the radio spectrum in some other way. And that was the basic idea. So we make it
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impossible from the start that something bad can happen with these devices. And also I think it's
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important to note that there are also other solutions out there, other than this regulation,
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right? So you also have market surveillance authorities who could step in and control the market.
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So and that was or that could also be a solution, but it was never discussed as a solution,
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but rather this regulation was discussed as a solution. And that's definitely not proportionate.
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So we have already covered the timeline a bit and we have already figured out that it's over 10
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years now when the radio equipment directive started to float around. Max and Alex both
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of you, can you take us through those 10 years very briefly and very quickly so that
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I and the listeners have an idea of what actually happened? Yeah, I try to
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remind myself, remember that from going through my email archives, which wasn't an easy task,
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one thing that stood out was that for a long time we've been quite unclear about the origins
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of this radio equipment directive. And what's actually actually happening? Perhaps an interesting
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detail is that at the same time in the US, there was also some concern about regulations by the FCC,
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which is responsible there. So there some time went into actually understanding what cost,
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what like is the European RED, our reaction to what happened in the US or was it the other way around
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turned out that the European Union started with this regulation and then the FCC just followed.
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But there was a lot of first ordering what's actually going on. And again, as I said, we then
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realized that this will be a concrete danger if it was activated because perhaps important to know
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is that this article isn't or wasn't activated in 2014 or 2015, like automatically, but in order to
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to make this happen and to define which devices are actually targeted by this article and by the
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by this regulation and the the imposement of this check of compliance between software and hardware,
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there needs to be a delegated act. So like an act by the European Commission to more or less work
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out which devices in which form are basically tackled by this article. And then we noticed
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new, basically what needs to be done, namely to influence the delegated act that the European
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Commission. And so what we did or what I did back then together with other people from the FSFE
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to build another new coalition on this to find out what are the stakeholders that we need and
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which are also harmed by the radio equipment directive. So we looked into of course three software
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communities like the open WRT people, the fryphone people and so on, which were very helpful.
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We looked into finding experts for telecommunication. For instance, Harad Veltar was a really good
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stakeholder and a really good help to all our activities because he was very knowledgeable with
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this. Also in the policy area and the policy area we reached out. So it was created already a few
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months later that Felix Reda was a member of the parliament back then, was also blogging about it.
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And he and his team, they were very helpful for us to also reach out to the commission.
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And what we then formed is to create a funders or like the single point of entry for
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all information around the radio equipment directive from the free software perspective.
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So we set up a public page about this, summarizing everything, explaining it and at the same time
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we opened a joint statement. So more or less like a public letter where we collected the
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organizations, also companies, yeah, civil society actors and so on. If they weren't really happy
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with what's going on and that this delegated act needs to be drafted in a way that doesn't harm
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free software and the different interests that were collected there. So that was very important
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to get this public awareness work starting and to have a good foundation for lobbying. What is?
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This is a short break for our own cause. Thank you for listening to the software
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freedom podcast. Working for software freedom and producing podcasts costs money.
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Please consider supporting us with a donation on the fsfe.org/donate at the show notes.
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All right. This is now 2016, right? Yeah, roughly. That was a lot of public awareness back then,
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yeah. And I found out that you also gave a talk at the cows communication congress.
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Yeah, exactly. How was that then and how was this received?
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Yeah, that was quite interesting. That was my first time being at the cows communication
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congress and I handed in this talk and it got accepted and I thought I will be in a small room
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with 10 people sitting at it. And 10 minutes before the talk, I searched my room where I was supposed
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to give the talk and I found out that it was the main stage or one of the main stages.
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And I'm happy that I only noticed that 10 minutes earlier another day because I would have never
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slept. But that was cool. The room was quite full and it was a talk not only on the radio
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equipment directive, but also on the router freedom activities and more coming from how we do
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policy work at the FSFE and what we've learned. But the result was quite interesting because
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many people after the talk came to me and said, well, let's talk about this. We need to know more
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about it because I'm concerned and I'm affected and my organization, my local community services
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affected. So we found a room and this room was packed, I don't know, with 30, 40 people sitting
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in the circle and we were discussing how we get active. And at the time, we knew that there will
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be an expert group with a European commission that was working on drafting this delegated act,
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which was everything about. So we talked about it, we collected our positions, we again talked about
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what the effects might be and how we can influence it and what a good solution may look like,
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but also how we get at least one seat in the expert group by the European commission. So there
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was a major part of it and also a long story actually, how we finally, as a community or as this
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coalition that formed, how we actually got into this expert group. But yeah, that was really great.
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That was a big moment in this movement and since we also set up a mailing list, so collected
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the community and collected the people who were working on it, that kicked off at cows communication
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conquest because a lot of people were joining afterwards. I can only imagine, especially since this
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is the first congress for you, how overwhelming this must have been. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I gave many
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talks before. That was definitely the largest one so far. And afterwards, you already mentioned
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there was an expert group. What was this expert group doing? And yeah, as FSFE, we obviously,
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we also applied to participate in this group as well because we wanted to be part of it and also
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have access to the documents and to the discussions. So usually these expert groups are pre-filled with
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people from national agencies and like the big business associations and so on. So we applied
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there and also a few people from our network. But we got rejected. I think it was a few months
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later because I think the official reason was we are not in European umbrella organization. So
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the problem was that the FSFE didn't have any sub-members. So we had individual members but not
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like sub-organizations like companies joining us as an umbrella organization. So unfortunately,
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they couldn't accept us there. But yeah, fortunately, we got two people or three people and organizations
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part of the expert group that met this criteria. That was the Humboldt Institute for Internet
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Society, I think. And also the international amateur radio union who got to see there and also
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an individual member that was more or less on our position. And so we knew what was going on
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within this expert group. And as usual, there was a lot of administrative stuff and like more on
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the meta level discussing about it and how we do this. And there wasn't really like a progress
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to be seen. So for us, it was quite boring, a lot of documents, but yeah, never really on the
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point of how do we actually define the different classes that are affected. Are we actually
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going to do this? And I wasn't invited to use later, I think, 2019 as an ad hoc expert to
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process because also the people from all this, our lines that we need to invite more people and
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also different opinions on this. There, I could also present the results of a legal study
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that the FSFE has been commissioning. And that was a legal study conducted by Till Jäger,
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who some of you may know, a really renowned expert on free software licensing. Because we looked at
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are these regulations from the radio equipment? Are these actually compatible with, how would you
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say that? What I would have to do as a manufacturer in order to comply with free software licenses,
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especially with a copy left free software licenses. And that was really good because there we could
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also raise again a few more eyebrows and bring the topic of license compliance in combination
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with the radio equipment on the park head. And that was good. Although the result of this,
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I think it was the eighth meeting of the expert group was also not interesting. Like there was no
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progress to be seen and just the decision that we did, they do another consultation and another
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impact assessment and so on. So it was very slow. All right, so there like we are now five years later
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and there has been an expert group founded in 2017. And hardly anything happened in this regard,
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correct? Not from the outside, right. So it was just clear that this is a complex topic and
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that the lawmakers or what the radio equipment directive has been thought is, is an easy task
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could just put that here and define the different devices that there is a lot of collateral damage
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that can be done. And I think this became apparent over the course of the years.
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All right. Let's move on to 2020. In 2020, there was a consultation, correct?
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Yes, the European Commission started the consultation, like that was more formalized with a
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survey form that you had to fill out a few strange questions in it. And we also made another
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call to participate in there. But interestingly, we've never seen the results. So the idea was
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that this consultation is also input for the impact assessment that is to be done. And more
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or less, that was the last sign that we've received from the European Commission, at least in the
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public. So there was this consultation. No follow up. I've queried the responsibly people at the
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European Commission. Yeah, I guess for one or two years asked, where are the results of the
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consultation? Are they as negative towards activating the delegated act or coming up with the
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delegated act as the feedback beforehand? And where's the impact assessment that you promised?
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And there was that silence more or like, yeah, we are working on it. And I have to say there
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that there was the last sign that I've received or the non sign that I've received until I actually
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left the FSFE in 2022. And as Alex said, the topic only popped up once a year or so since then.
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Thank you very much, Max, for taking us through this full timeline and it is rather packed with
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events happening there. But what happened afterwards? Then you handed over to Alex and Alex has already
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pointed out this has only happened like this topic only popped up once a year again. But in 2025,
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there was then finally the final impact assessment that was published. Alex, can you take us through this
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and what happened there? So it was never that nothing happened. So the expert group met and people
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were discussing the radio equipment directive. Often we got questions. So what's the status since we
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also still had the website or still have it where we talk about it. And people were asking, people
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were asking not only us, but also to commission. And what I figured out is that, for example,
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the expert group met on this article to discuss it. And the problem is these expert groups is that
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if you are not part of the expert groups, you only get the minutes and the agenda. So basically,
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first I got the agenda, then I called Max said, hey, they are discussing the article. Can we discuss
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again what they might discuss? And then we have seen the minutes. We are going through the minutes.
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And to be honest, it was still super unclear what they are doing. And it always felt like they are
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ventilating the question. And there is absolutely no room for progress other than just killing
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the whole thing. So my gut feeling is that the commission didn't want it to kill their own file.
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So they came up with this article. It was their idea. And they shied away from just saying,
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we don't come up with the delegated act. And we believe this article as it is. But nothing
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will be enforced. Nothing will be changed. There's just an empty article, so to say. And that's
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the thing they didn't want it. They were desperately seeking for a way out. Obviously, they didn't
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found one. And what they then again did is to run another consultation. They were also inviting
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other experts. And we are kind of like outsourcing the question. So they went to Kapgemini,
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which is basically a consultation company, and asking them if they can help them to find a way out.
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And to also come up with this impact assessment so that the commission don't have to write it,
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but someone else. And together with this other consultations, other expert group meetings,
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we finally then got from Kapgemini, the impact assessment. And also in between,
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there had been a study or like a paper or something like this where they discussed options on
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basically how to how to get out or how to regulate this article. And all of these solutions
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always went down to, actually, you can't really decide on which devices you want to regulate.
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So you will over regulate at any means. And the best idea is to just leave it as it is and
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don't not come up with this delegated act. And that's also then again, what basically
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the impact assessment set. And now if you go back to the consultation page, so they were running
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like from April to May last year in 2025, they were running another feedback call for evidence
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for the impact assessment where they discussed some of these options. And now the feedback was closed.
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And one year later, basically a few days ago on the 20th of January this year, 2026,
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if you go to this page, you can see the initiative has been abandoned. So they stopped it. So this
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pretty much looks like they will not come up as a delegated act, which is great news. And also
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victory of our 10 years activity here that Max started back in the days together with all of the
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other stakeholders he just mentioned. And just like recently a few days ago. And so even when we
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started to discuss this podcast episode, it was not clear to us that this will be the result. So
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we just also figured out a few days ago. And so yeah, it looks like that there will never be a
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delegated act. The article remains so to say empty. So the article is in place. It says, right,
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so the devices are not allowed. But at the same time, they don't tell us which devices. So and by
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that one could say the article remains empty. Nothing happens. Everything can continue as it is.
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From what the commission website says, they also won't come up with a delegated act.
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So however, we will continue to monitor this. You never know. But like the from the website,
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the official processing of the commission is now that this is basically stopped. And in the
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impact assessment that Kapgeemini wrote, they presented this. Basically what they wanted to come
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up with in the impact assessment, that was also what they presented to the expert group.
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And I think there was a few months ago. And we got the slides from this presentation. And I also
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discussed this with Max again, how to read the slides. And from there was also clear that if they
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write it in the impact assessment that they will suggest to not come up as the delegated act,
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that was then ultimately also in the impact assessment where also the study by Tilliega was
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quoted. So the FSFA and Tilliega is also quoted in the impact assessment as a reason for not
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yeah, over regulating this or not regulating this in this discussed ways. And so one could say that
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yeah, our activities, but also the study helped to come up with the impact assessment that told
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the commission, please stop this. This is the best outcome you could have had or?
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Yeah, I mean eight years earlier would have been also fine I think. So that would have saved
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us a lot of resources, a lot of discussions, a lot of papers, a lot of studies. And so I do believe it
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was clear to some extent very, very early that there is not really a solution to it and that the
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delegated act should please not come up. But however, yeah, it now took 10 years. So I wouldn't
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consider this as the very best outcome, but it's it's a good outcome for now. And it's also good
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that we are not going to discuss this for another 10 years. Let's put it like this.
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Are you both happy now that you don't have to touch this as regular as you have done in the past 10
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years? So to be honest, in a set, I would still money to this. So since I'm not trusting the website
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of the European Commission here, no, really. So I really do believe we made a major step and I really
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do think there won't be any delegated act. However, we will still have a look at this. I do not expect
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to see more studies, more consultations, more impact assessment and whatnot. So whatever happens,
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I hope I won't have to read that much anymore. And also I do believe that there is now a stop
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to everything towards this. But however, since the law still says the Commission can kind up
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with a delegated act as long as the law remains in place, I think it's a good idea to monitor this,
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even if chances are very, very low that the Commission will do another U-turn and come up as
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a delegated act. So everything looks very promising at the moment. Sorry, let me please add to that.
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I think the delegated act and like the article 3.3.1, that's from the desk, I would
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recreated that. It's very unrealistic. But I think the general idea of turning around this
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responsibility of compliance with radio regulations, that might persist. Because it's intriguing
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for also for national regulators or for national agencies like the Buenos Aires-Arcanturian
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Germany, for instance, that they don't have to monitor or they are not faced with non-compliant
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devices and having to circle around in cities to find these interferences. So instead, just
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regulate the manufacturers to basically shut off everything that might interfere with the
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radio. So I think the idea will persist in a way and so it's very important that Alex and
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the other policy colleagues and also the whole community keeps an eye on what's going on and
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whether these ideas will pop up again in some other form and some other regulations and some other
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acts, for instance. I'm pretty sure that will happen again. And also to add to this, it was back
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in the days, it was a DG roll, right? So and the commission is huge. So it might absolutely be
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possible that there's another DG that never heard of the radio equipment directive nor took part
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in the discussions around it and comes up basically with this idea. And for this, I completely agree
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with Max so that we have to still continue to explain to decision makers how all of this works
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and what harm could happen if you over-regulate or if you do not look specifically for,
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like for example, free software development in this case.
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Is there a good solution that you to think that could happen to actually really target the
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problem that has been raised by the radio direct equipment directive?
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I mean, to be honest, if you run the airport, there should be some sort of airport security
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around it, right? So we put so many efforts in to check every person who is going into the
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airport and out of the airport. And I think the same should be true for like devices that
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interfere with a normal traffic of an airport that's maybe comparable to these laser attacks we see
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at the moment at the airport. So there need to be solutions to this to guarantee the safety and
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security of these environments. And this could not be to regulate the device, but maybe you should
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think about that about airport security and airport safety, not only by coming up with scanners,
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but also with other devices that make sure that the airport can run smoothly,
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or even like making sure that, for example, some sort of surveillance authorities are around there
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and make sure to check that the regular signals are not interfered.
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And I would also say that the protection of the European market ought to actually assess the
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imports that we are doing of technological products. I think that's also a very challenge for
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the European market and the EU in general. And I think a lot of things could be done there to
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improve the handling of goods of products that are not complying with the different regulations
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and the different policies that we're having on the European market. So I'm thinking about,
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yeah, especially the imports from the Far East there for just a little money that is not even
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carrying a CEO symbol, for instance. I think that is one task. And another thing would be also to
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have more infrastructure resilience. We are talking about this a lot right now in the current
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policy area. But I mean, yeah, if rather radars of an airport can just be disturbed by a five-kicker
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hurts the router, something is wrong, right? Like if this is really tackling or endangering the
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the very fundamentals of airport security, then we have to think about like at least of backups
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or backup solutions here. And yeah, not everything can be just done with an regulation if you have
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people who are willingly wanting to harm the safety of an airport. Yeah, there will not be hindered
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by a radio equipment directive, I guess. But in general, I think there's also no perfect solution
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to it. We will have situations where technology or tools can be misused or abused. If you think of
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just a kitchen knife, you can obviously make bad things and harmful things with a kitchen knife.
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And nobody would come up with an idea that a kitchen knife ward in the supermarket needs to have
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technological features that prevent me from harming people. I mean, it's in the end, it's perhaps
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we also have to accept that things can go wrong and we need to have some certain decree of resilience
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in our societies and also our technologies. I think it's a good way to come to a close,
41:25.360 --> 41:31.840
is there something you would like to add in a final sentence that is very outstanding to you now
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or that you can think about when you talk about radio equipment directive. Alex, you want to go first?
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I mean, this is also something which I'm continuously repeating. All of these activities we follow
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are mid to very long term and 10 years is a really long time. And we have seen that a couple of
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people in the office of E had worked on this. And I think it shows that we are capable to do this.
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And this is thanks to our donors who allow us to do these kind of long term activities to follow up.
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If you have new team members and that we have good handovers that we even are still in contact
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even after people left. And I think that's for me a very nice learning. So that this happens,
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that we can win even after 10 years. And also again, it shows the importance of having this
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independence, the efforts that we have where we can pick our topics by ourselves and make sure
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that we can work on those kind of topics even for 10 years and that we have the resources to do so.
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In this regard, I really want to thank our donors who make this possible.
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Thank you very much.
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Yeah, I can only agree and I would have to say also thank you to the FSFE in general and for the
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strategy that we have because this file really wasn't really, I would say sexy or very attractive
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as a public awareness or as a fundraising thing from the start on, right? We noticed that it's not
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really really concrete for many people not easy to explain, but that I and also today Alex and
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all the others had the opportunity to continue the work on this because we thought and we were
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convinced that this is an important thing. And bad things can happen if we don't do anything about
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it. So that's great that the FSFE actually also following up on activities that are not the
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catchiest one on the first side. All right, thank you very much you too. That's really kind
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closing words. I have nothing more to add than to say thank you to the two of you and of course
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say thank you to our donors and listeners. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much
43:51.760 --> 43:57.760
for walking us through this radio equipment directive giving us some context here and yeah,
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doing this episode with me. Thank you very much. Yeah, thank you, Bonnie. Thank you for having me.
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Yeah, thank you, Bonnie and also again, thank you, Max, for helping me so much during the last
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years to be able to continue this. You're welcome, much appreciated.
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Thank you. This was the Software Freedom Podcast. If you liked this episode, please
44:26.480 --> 44:31.920
recommend it to your friends and rate it. Stay tuned for more inspiring conversations that
44:31.920 --> 44:36.160
explore the importance of software freedom and its impact on our digital lives.
44:36.480 --> 44:43.200
This podcast is presented to you by the free Software Foundation Europe. We are a charity
44:43.200 --> 44:49.680
that works on promoting software freedom. If you like our work, please consider supporting us
44:49.680 --> 44:56.880
with our donation. You find more information under fsfe.org/donate. Thank you so much. Thank
44:56.880 --> 45:02.640
you so much for listening and bearing with us through this radio equipment directive. Bye bye.
Back to the episode SFP#44