On November 12, 2023 5:09:26 PM UTC, Luca Boccassi <bl...@debian.org> wrote:
>On Sun, 12 Nov 2023 at 15:10, Santiago Ruano Rincón
><santiag...@riseup.net> wrote:
>>
>> Dear Debian Fellows,
>>
>> Following the email sent by Ilu to debian-project (Message-ID:
>> <4b93ed08-f148-4c7f-b172-f967f7de7...@gmx.net>), and as we have
>> discussed during the MiniDebConf UY 2023 with other Debian Members, I
>> would like to call for a vote about issuing a Debian public statement
>> regarding
>> the EU Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) and the Product Liability Directive
>> (PLD). The CRA is in the final stage in the legislative process in the
>> EU Parliament, and we think it will impact negatively the Debian
>> Project, users, developers, companies that rely on Debian, and the FLOSS
>> community as a whole. Even if the CRA will be probably adopted before
>> the time the vote ends (if it takes place), we think it is important to
>> take a public stand about it.
>>
>> ----- GENERAL RESOLUTION STARTS -----
>>
>> Debian Public Statement about the EU Cyber Resilience Act and the
>> Product Liability Directive
>>
>> The European Union is currently preparing a regulation "on horizontal
>> cybersecurity requirements for products with digital elements" known as
>> the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA). It's currently in the final "trilogue"
>> phase of the legislative process. The act includes a set of essential
>> cybersecurity and vulnerability handling requirements for manufacturers.
>> It will require products to be accompanied by information and
>> instructions to the user. Manufacturers will need to perform risk
>> assessments and produce technical documentation and for critical
>> components, have third-party audits conducted. Discoverded security
>> issues will have to be reported to European authorities within 24 hours
>> (1). The CRA will be followed up by the Product Liability Directive
>> (PLD) which will introduce compulsory liability for software. More
>> information about the proposed legislation and its consequences in (2).
>
>These all seem like good things to me. For too long private
>corporations have been allowed to put profit before accountability and
>user safety, which often results in long lasting damage for citizens,
>monetary or worse. It's about time the wild-west was reined in.
>
>> While a lot of these regulations seem reasonable, the Debian project
>> believes that there are grave problems for Free Software projects
>> attached to them. Therefore, the Debian project issues the following
>> statement:
>>
>> 1. Free Software has always been a gift, freely given to society, to
>> take and to use as seen fit, for whatever purpose. Free Software has
>> proven to be an asset in our digital age and the proposed EU Cyber
>> Resilience Act is going to be detrimental to it.
>> a. It is Debian's goal to "make the best system we can, so that
>> free works will be widely distributed and used." Imposing requirements
>> such as those proposed in the act makes it legally perilous for others
>> to redistribute our works and endangers our commitment to "provide an
>> integrated system of high-quality materials _with no legal restrictions_
>> that would prevent such uses of the system". (3)
>
>Debian does not sell products in the single market. Why would any
>requirement be imposed, how, and on whom? SPI? Debian France?
>
>> b. Knowing whether software is commercial or not isn't feasible,
>> neither in Debian nor in most free software projects - we don't track
>> people's employment status or history, nor do we check who finances
>> upstream projects.
>
>We do know whether something is commercial or not though - for
>example, we don't have to provide Debian with warranty to our users,
>because we know publishing images on debian.org is not a commercial
>activity.
>The second statement I find hard to follow, what would employment
>status have to do with this?
>
>> c. If upstream projects stop developing for fear of being in the
>> scope of CRA and its financial consequences, system security will
>> actually get worse instead of better.
>
>Why would projects stop developing? If it's a product sold on the
>single market, then it's right that it is subject to these rules. If
>it's not a product, then these rules don't affect it, just like rules
>on warranties.
>
>> d. Having to get legal advice before giving a present to society
>> will discourage many developers, especially those without a company or
>> other organisation supporting them.
>
>Same as above. If you are not selling anything, why would you need
>legal advice, any more than you already do? The EU Single Market has
>many, many rules, this is not the first and won't be the last.
>
>> 2. Debian is well known for its security track record through practices
>> of responsible disclosure and coordination with upstream developers and
>> other Free Software projects. We aim to live up to the commitment made
>> in the Social Contract: "We will not hide problems." (3)
>> a. The Free Software community has developed a fine-tuned, well
>> working system of responsible disclosure in case of security issues
>> which will be overturned by the mandatory reporting to European
>> authorities within 24 hours (Art. 11 CRA).
>
>Well, actually the CVE system has a lot of critics - see recent LWN
>articles for some examples. So a public authority taking over from
>Mitre and other private companies doesn't sound so horrible to me, in
>principle - devil's in the details of course.
>
>> b. Debian spends a lot of volunteering time on security issues,
>> provides quick security updates and works closely together with upstream
>> projects, in coordination with other vendors. To protect its users,
>> Debian regularly participates in limited embargos to coordinate fixes to
>> security issues so that all other major Linux distributions can also
>> have a complete fix when the vulnerability is disclosed.
>>
>> c. Security issue tracking and remediation is intentionally
>> decentralized and distributed. The reporting of security issues to
>> ENISA and the intended propagation to other authorities and national
>> administrations would collect all software vulnerabilities in one place,
>> greatly increasing the risk of leaking information about vulnerabilities
>> to threat actors, representing a threat for all the users around the
>> world, including European citizens.
>
>This already happens with CVEs though? By a private, unaccountable,
>for profit corporation.
>
>> d. Activists use Debian (e.g. through derivatives such as Tails),
>> among other reasons, to protect themselves from authoritarian
>> governments; handing threat actors exploits they can use for oppression
>> is against what Debian stands for.
>
>Again, I don't see how this is any different than the status quo.
>
>> e. Developers and companies will downplay security issues because
>> a "security" issue now comes with legal implications. Less clarity on
>> what is truly a security issue will hurt users by leaving them
>> vulnerable.
>
>Companies already routinely downplay or outright neglect security
>issues in their products. It seems the intent of the legislation is to
>try and fix precisely that. One might be skeptical on the ability of
>the proposed legislation to improve the situation, of course, but
>that's a different story.
>
>> 3. While proprietary software is developed behind closed doors, Free
>> Software development is done in the open, transparent for everyone. To
>> keep even with proprietary software the open development process needs
>> to be entirely exempt from CRA requirements, just as the development of
>> software in private is. A "making available on the market" can only be
>> considered after development is finished and the software is released.
>>
>> 4. Even if only "commercial activities" are in the scope of CRA, the
>> Free Software community - and as a consequence, everybody - will lose a
>> lot of small projects. CRA will force many small enterprises and most
>> probably all self employed developers out of business because they
>> simply cannot fullfill the requirements imposed by CRA. Debian and other
>> Linux distributions depend on their work. It is not understandable why
>> the EU aims to cripple not only an established community but also a
>> thriving market. CRA needs an exemption for small businesses and, at the
>> very least, solo-entrepreneurs.
>
>To be brutally honest, if some private corporations' viability depends
>on being able to ignore glaring security issues that can harm their
>users, then I for one am all for them going out of business. Just like
>if a company's existence relies on the ability to breach privacy with
>impunity and is hampered by the GDPR, and so on.
>
>To do a reductio ad absurdum to illustrate my point, if a free
>software project's existence depended exclusively on an oil&gas
>corporation being able to pollute the environment and worsen climate
>change with impunity because the author is employed there, would it be
>worth it? The answer for me is categorically no. Especially given it's
>free software! The whole point of it is that someone else can maintain
>it, or the author can find a different source of income, and the
>project can continue - it's free, it's by definition not locked in one
>corporation.
>
>All in all, given how the situation is explained here, I do not
>understand where the issue is, for us as a project or as free software
>developers. I do not see any convincing argument at all as to why this
>is detrimental to Debian or free software, and the only link that is
>made is tenuous at best: maybe some free software developer is also
>employed by a company who is negatively affected by this. There are
>many, many things that can negatively affect anyone's employer, I do
>not see why, by itself, this should warrant a project statement.
Then I would encourage you to do a bit of research on the topic. Given the
definitions being used in the proposal, Debian and most, if not all, of it's
upstreams are squarely within the realm of affected software. If this is
passed, I am seriously considering ceasing all free software work, because it's
not at all clear it's possible to avoid legal liability for things that I can't
reasonably control as a single developer.
This is true even though I don't live in the EU.
Scott K
