If only we had a government of pragmatists instead of fearful populists.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/18/uk-could-keep-special-pre-brexit-terms-if-it-rejoined-eu-michel-barnier-says

The first of the proposed EU #standards for #CRA compliance for product categories has been published for public (= NSO) review. It covers "Cybersecurity requirements for boot managers" and can be found at https://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_en/304600_304699/304623/00.01.03_20/en_304623v000103ev.pdf

No paywall. #OpenSource people helped write it. Feedback only to your national standards body please, not to me or to ETSI. There will be a bunch of these.

Rumours of the @EUCommission ending funding for #OpenSource projects were false: https://nlnet.nl/news/2026/20260616-67-new-projects.html

Facebook, Google, Microsoft and the rest of the surveillance economy have been trying to get everyone to provide all their private ID info for much of the past decade. Now the UK's Labour party are going to force us all to give it to them for free.

And they are hiding the lede behind a story about a Quixotic child protection measure, hoping we won't realise.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/social-media-to-be-banned-for-under-16s-in-landmark-government-move-to-givekids-their-childhood-back

Disgusted by the Russian attack on the Lavra in Kiev. They don't even respect their shared heritage.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/15/kyiv-pechersk-lavra-monastery-on-fire-russian-attacks-ukraine

Get #FediHired and work for @tdforg who have a vacancy for a super-admin system administrator on all #OpenSource infrastructure.

https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/06/08/join-the-libreoffice-team-as-a-paid-system-administrator-working-on-tdfs-infrastructure-full-time-remote-m-f-d/

"Voters across parties believe UK net migration is rising despite sharp drop"

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/21/voters-across-parties-believe-uk-net-migration-is-rising-despite-sharp-drop

#UKPol #Immigration #Fascism

Horrified to hear that NHS England is ignorantly closing their #OpenSource repositories "for security reasons".

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/05/nhs-goes-to-war-against-open-source/

#UKPol

Want a job shaping the future of #OpenSource in EU tech? European tech standards body ETSI has a new paid position available for an open source expert.

The advert doesn't say it quite like that because they have members who dislike open source, but "SDG" is the term for what was originally "Open Source Group" and this person will be managing collaborative open source projects on open source tools in a unique, challenging but hugely influential setting.

https://www.etsi.org/about/open-position-technical-expert/

#Jobs

The unconference and lightning talk boards are filling up at #OggCamp today

The top appeals court of the European Union has once again found that standards referenced from safety law must be made "freely accessible under a system of access which is general, effective, without charge and non-discriminatory."

I assume CEN/CENELEC and the national standards bodies it works with are urgently seeking a new business model.

https://curia.europa.eu/site/upload/docs/application/pdf/2026-04/cp260060en.pdf

https://infocuria.curia.europa.eu/tabs/jurisprudence?sort=DOC_DATE-DESC&searchTerm=%22C-155%2F24%22&publishedId=C-155%2F24

#Standards #Copyright

The FSF comes out against OnlyOffice abuse of the AGPL

https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/agpl-is-not-a-tool-for-taking-freedom-away

#OpenSource #Licensing

Strong new report from @openrightsgroup

> The UK is currently facing a crisis of digital dependency. The country is overly reliant on a small number of tech giants for its critical digital infrastructure, which poses significant economic, security, legal, and policy risks, including to democracy and public debate.

https://www.openrightsgroup.org/publications/tech-giants-and-giant-slayers-the-case-for-digital-sovereignty-and-the-digital-commons/

#ukpol #sovereignty #CyberSecurity #OpenSource

Here's a petition I broadly support, with caveats. It calls for a referendum on bringing the UK water industry into public ownership.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/762640

Caveats:
* Not a fan of plebiscites. Parliament should Just Do It. But needs must.
* "Public ownership" needs nuance. Natural monopolies should be run by non-profits (TfL is an examplar; CICs are great) under public oversight. Infrastructure should be leased to them by the state, not owned.

#UKPol #Water #Petition

Very sad this is not an April Fools post.

https://www.collaboraonline.com/blog/tdf-ejects-its-core-developers/

This is a really good explanation of how modern #OpenSource #software #development is in fact #distributed, not centralised (despite the best efforts of some to create control points).

https://www.collaboraonline.com/blog/distributed-by-design-how-modern-open-source-works/

Thanks to the huge effort we all have put in to help the @EUCommission understand the value of open source and the role it plays in cyber security they are taking care to include it in all their thinking around the #CRA. For example, this page explains why they created a new legal category of #stewards in the CRA: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/cra-open-source

Are you going to @oggcamp this year? April 25-26 in Manchester (the original one in the UK).

https://www.oggcamp.org/

#Events #OpenSource #FreeCulture

"Obligations of non-commercial #OpenSource software developers under the #CRA are ZERO. Anybody telling you something else can please go away and read the law."- Carl-Daniel Hailfinger, from the German market regulator BSI, at #FOSDEM

https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event/EERURR-implementing_the_cyber_resilience_act_-_engaging_with_open_source/

It's still before 10:00 on the Sunday after party night at #FOSDEM and the #EUPolicy room is on its second talk and very busy.