Posts Tagged ‘Cyber resilience act’
Securing the Future of Open Source: Launching the Open Regulatory Compliance Working Group
Today marks an important milestone for the open source community. As open source software continues to drive innovation across industries, ensuring its relevance and compliance with emerging regulations has never been more critical.
To address these challenges, the Eclipse Foundation is proud to announce the formal launch of the Open Regulatory Compliance (ORC) Working Group. This initiative is designed to ensure that open source remains a powerful force for innovation while meeting the increasingly complex regulatory requirements that commercial organisations face globally.
As previously announced, this initiative has garnered the support of the world’s open source foundations, including Apache Software Foundation, Blender Foundation, FreeBSD Foundation, Matrix.org Foundation, NLnet Labs, OpenInfra Foundation, OWASP, PHP Foundation, Python Software Foundation, Ruby Central, and Rust Foundation. We also have the support of numerous civil society organisations, industry organisations, and SMEs including CodeDay, iJUG, Obeo, Open Elements, OpenForum Europe, Open Source Initiative, Payara Services, Scanoss, and Software Heritage. Today we are also announcing that we have the support of European industry heavyweights Bosch, Mercedes-Benz, Nokia, and Siemens.
This diverse collaboration highlights the industry’s shared commitment to navigating regulatory changes together and ensuring that open source continues to thrive as a pillar of modern technology.
Securing the Future of Open Source Innovation
In an era where businesses rely on open source for mission-critical applications, the ORC Working Group is essential to maintaining the competitive advantage that comes from using and contributing to open source software. As regulations evolve, commercial organisations need a clear path to stay compliant while continuing to innovate. The ORC Working Group addresses this need by helping to formalise industry-aligned best practices, helping companies leverage the full potential of open source without the risk of falling behind on new regulations.
Immediate Focus: The European Cyber Resilience Act
Open source is a cornerstone of global digital innovation, and Europe’s regulatory landscape is playing a pivotal role in shaping its future. The ORC Working Group is committed to ensuring that open source remains a vital part of the world economy, and complying with the EU’s Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) is a critical part of this. Through collaboration with European institutions, the working group is working to facilitate compliance with the CRA and similar regulations, helping businesses and developers alike stay ahead of the curve.
Keeping Innovation Compliant and Secure
With the Cyber Resilience Act as a primary focus, the ORC Working Group is looking to make progress in developing cybersecurity process specifications and best practices to support compliance. Liaison status with the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) and the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC) further strengthens the working group.
Get Involved: Shaping the Future of Open Source Compliance
As the open source ecosystem faces unprecedented regulatory challenges, now is the time for all stakeholders — developers, companies, foundations, and regulatory bodies — to come together and ensure that open source innovation remains sustainable and compliant. The Open Regulatory Compliance (ORC) Working Group offers a unique opportunity to actively shape the future of open source by helping define the standards and best practices that will keep it relevant and competitive in the face of evolving global regulations.
We invite anyone involved in the open source community — whether you’re a developer, legal expert, corporate leader, or part of a standards organisation — to join this critical effort. Your participation will not only help safeguard the future of open source, but also ensure that your organisation stays ahead of the regulatory curve.Join the ORC Working Group and the ORC mailing list today to help define the future of open source compliance.
Strengthening Open Source: Latest Updates from the Open Regulatory Compliance Working Group
Earlier this year, a significant group of open source foundations including Apache Software Foundation, Blender Foundation, PHP Foundation, Python Software Foundation, Rust Foundation, and the Eclipse Foundation – joined forces to launch an exciting new initiative. This initiative aims to help all open source participants navigate and comply with governmental regulations, ensuring the continued use and advancement of open source through the software supply chain.
This initiative is now taking shape through what is now called the Open Regulatory Compliance Working Group, hosted at the Eclipse Foundation. Since our announcement in April, we’ve been tirelessly bootstrapping this group with incredible support from the community. We’ve also welcomed additional backing from both industry and the open source community, including organisations such as CodeDay, FreeBSD Foundation, iJUG, Matrix.org Foundation, NLnet Labs, Obeo, Open Elements, OpenForum Europe, OpenInfra Foundation, OWASP, Payara Services, and Scanoss.
The Open Regulatory Compliance Working Group is bridging a critical gap between regulatory authorities and the open source ecosystem. By collaborating with relevant authorities and standards organisations, the working group aims to formalise industry best practices so they can be properly referenced in legislation and support the authorities in understanding the peculiarities of the open source ecosystem. This ensures that all open source participants can meet regulatory requirements across jurisdictions and improve software quality and security.
While the Open Regulatory Compliance Working Group is chartered to address compliance with open source-impacting requirements in general, our immediate focus is the European Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), which is on the fast track to implementation. The CRA will come into force soon, followed by a three-year transition period for ironing out implementation details. The agenda for the standardisation process in particular is very tight, as the goal of the European Commission is to have the harmonised standards, for which it issued a draft request on April 17, be available a year in advance to give the industry time for implementation. This leaves us with a very limited time to ensure the unique needs of the open source ecosystem are well understood and properly addressed.
We’re addressing this challenge through a series of parallel work streams:
- Educating the Community: We’re hosting a series of webinars with the European Commission to bring the open source community up to speed on the EU’s legislative process.These sessions are recorded and available online. The first session, “How to read the CRA: Identifying the key parts of the CRA for effective compliance” led by Enzo Ribagnac, Associate Director of European Policy at Eclipse Foundation, is already available. Slides from our second session with Benjamin Bögel, Head of Sector for Product Security and Certification Policy at the European Commission, are also available online, with the full recording coming soon. Our third session on CRA Standards with guest speaker Filipe Jones Mourão, Policy Officer at the European Commission, took place on July 29. A fourth session titled “CRA OSS implementation: Guidelines, attestations and other key documents.” is planned for September 2.
- Building an Information Hub: We are creating a centralised hub to consolidate all relevant CRA information in one easily accessible location. This hub will contain educational information, such as recordings of the webinars we have organised, a glossary of terms, key references, and the very useful flow-chart that Maarten Artsen from NLnet Labs has kindly contributed.
- Collaborating with the European Commission: We’re closely working with the European Commission services to foster understanding of the legislative and standardisation timeline so we can create and deliver the right artefacts at the right time. Following what should be the timeline defined in the Commission’s standardisation request, our immediate focus is on the horizontal standard whose content is defined in Annex I, Part I of the CRA, along with the product-specific, vertical standards outlined in Annexes III and IV.
- Pursuing Formal Liaison Status: We are seeking formal liaison status with European and National Standards Organizations to strengthen our collaboration and impact.
- Formalising Governance: We are structuring the working group so as to allow for the development of specifications through a process recognized by the European Union, as well as gather feedback from relevant authorities on the results working group community work. Stay tuned for a formal announcement in September.
- Regular Updates: We will continue to keep the community informed through regular public calls, with the next one scheduled for Tuesday, August 20 at 2pm CEST.
Join us on this transformative journey as we navigate and shape the future of open source regulatory compliance. For more details and to stay updated, join our mailing list or visit our website.
Life at Eclipse 