Thoughts from an EU FOSS user on the recent access restriction decision

General
1

Hello Gnoppix team,

thank you for the transparency and for taking the time to explain your decision in detail. I fully understand that volunteer-run FOSS projects are increasingly exposed to legal uncertainty, and that the lack of resources for compliance and legal defense is a very real problem.

That said, I would like to respectfully raise a few points for discussion, not as an attack, but as constructive feedback from an EU-based user who values privacy, FOSS, and projects like yours.

First, regarding the DSA: I agree this is currently the most burdensome and realistically problematic regulation for small projects. The lack of proportionality between Big Tech and volunteer-driven services is a serious flaw in the legislation, and your concern here seems entirely justified.

However, some of the other points mentioned appear more ambiguous:

  • The PLD / Software Liability framework explicitly attempts to exclude non-commercial FOSS, even though the definition is indeed legally fuzzy. This is a risk, but not yet a settled one.

  • The CSAM / “Chat Control” regulation is still a proposal and highly contested, and currently does not impose direct obligations on projects like a Linux distribution.

  • The AI Act includes explicit FOSS exemptions and is unlikely to apply meaningfully to a general-purpose OS distribution.

Because of this, a full IP-level block of all EU users feels like a very strong and irreversible measure, especially given that many EU users actively support privacy-focused, non-commercial FOSS projects and oppose these same regulations politically.

My concern is that this approach unintentionally punishes the very community that shares your values, while doing little to address the structural regulatory problems themselves. If more projects take this route, the EU risks losing exactly the independent, non-corporate open-source ecosystem it should be protecting.

I fully respect your right to prioritize volunteer safety and legal risk mitigation. At the same time, I hope you might reconsider whether less drastic measures (clear non-commercial disclaimers, reduced service scope, mirrors, or partial access restrictions) could offer protection without a complete exclusion.

Thank you for your work and for keeping this discussion open. I genuinely hope Gnoppix continues to thrive — ideally with, not without, its EU community.

Kind regards

2

@lacesz Thank you for your thoughtful and detailed feedback. We appreciate the opportunity to explain why the “less drastic measures” you suggested are not applicable to our current situation.

1. The Reality of Scale

While you point out exceptions for small FOSS projects, Gnoppix has outgrown this definition. Gnoppix Linux is now one component of a larger ecosystem of services. To provide context:

  • In December alone, we processed approximately 2.8 trillion open-source LLM tokens (excluding commercial AI traffic) The traffic is more than downloading Gnoppix images!
  • We develop and maintain proprietary AI models.
  • We operate a global infrastructure supporting nearly 1,000 VPN users and highly-secure, encrypted communication tools.
  • Our services are designed in such a way that surveillance is impossible (or would require a very, very large effort).
  • In the past, my financial backer used to threaten me if I didn’t want to do something :slight_smile: Today I am completely independent.

Because we provide paid services and process high volumes of data, we are legally classified as a commercial service provider. Under EU regulatory frameworks, we do not qualify as a “non-commercial hobby project,” meaning the legal protections for our small-scale Gnoppix Linux FOSS projects do not apply.

2. The Shift in the Contributor Model

The traditional FOSS model relying exclusively on volunteer maintenance has proven unsustainable for our current scale. Currently, volunteer contributions are insufficient to maintain the project. Without revenue from Gnoppix services, we would be unable to cover basic infrastructure costs. Direct donations or support to Gnoppix are rare.

By professionalizing the project, we can engage freelancers and external companies to ensure stability and security. Reverting the Linux distribution to a purely volunteer-based model would halt development, as the current volunteer base is not contributing at a sustainable rate. (For context: In 2025, no bug reports were submitted from the European region.)

The majority of our supporters are based in Asia and the Americas. Feature requests are typically implemented within 1-2 days. As noted in previous interviews, the EU community’s role in our development has diminished. Conversely, there is rising demand for open source in China and broader Asia.

3. Institutional Stability

We are not “punishing” the EU community; we are ensuring the continuity of Gnoppix. We cannot jeopardize the project’s existence to accommodate the increasing legal requirements within the EU. We have established a financially stable system that provides security and functional stability, even though it requires operating outside of EU jurisdictions. For example, uncensored AI, without guardrails, that can be used to create pornography, build Trojans, viruses, exploits, etc., doesn’t sit well with many people. However, since we didn’t want to submit to this censorship, we had to choose this path. And if that’s no longer possible in America, I’ll emigrate to Panama, and if necessary, to Mars.

Sincerely,

amu

3

Hi @amu,

thank you for the detailed and candid response. I genuinely appreciate the additional context — especially regarding scale, infrastructure, and the commercial realities behind Gnoppix today. That clarification makes it clear that this is no longer “just” a Linux distribution, but part of a broader, professionalized ecosystem.

Given that scope, I understand why you consider the project to fall outside the non-commercial FOSS exemptions, and why DSA, PLD, and upcoming AI-related obligations represent existential risk rather than abstract concerns. From a legal risk-management perspective, your decision is internally consistent.

That said, I think this exchange also reveals a deeper issue worth acknowledging openly:

What is being discussed here is no longer primarily a FOSS-vs-regulation conflict, but a commercial, privacy-maximalist service provider choosing to exit a regulatory jurisdiction it fundamentally disagrees with. That is a legitimate choice — but it is qualitatively different from the situation of small or medium-sized community-driven FOSS projects that many readers may still associate with the Gnoppix name.

In that sense, the EU block is not about abandoning volunteers, but about aligning jurisdiction with a specific philosophy: uncensored AI, zero-surveillance infrastructure, and strong resistance to regulatory oversight. I respect that position, even if I personally believe the long-term fragmentation of the internet and open-source ecosystem is an unfortunate consequence.

I would also caution against interpreting the decline of EU contributions purely as lack of interest or support. Regulatory pressure, legal uncertainty, and risk aversion have a chilling effect on participation — especially in privacy- or security-adjacent projects. This creates a feedback loop: fewer contributors → less visibility → justification for exit.

Ultimately, I don’t see this as a moral failure on either side, but as a structural incompatibility between certain regulatory trajectories and certain technical/philosophical goals. Your decision prioritizes survival and independence, which is understandable.

I appreciate you taking the time to explain this openly. Even where we disagree, transparency like this is valuable — and increasingly rare.

Wishing you stability and success going forward,

@lacesz

4

Thank you, I enjoy discussing these important topics. I appreciate the professional tone of our exchange. However, I must clarify a fundamental misunderstanding regarding our identity and our motivations.

Gnoppix is not a company. We remain, at our core, a community-driven open-source project. Our evolution isn’t a transition toward a “commercial service provider” model, but rather a necessary professionalization of our defenses to protect our contributors and our mission.

1. The Human Right to Privacy vs. “Intermediary Liability”

Our advocacy for privacy and anonymity is a commitment to fundamental human rights, not a business USP. We believe that on a technical level, a developer should not be held liable for how a tool is used. Just as a knife manufacturer is not responsible for the misuse of their product, a software author should not be treated as a “co-conspirator” simply for providing zero-knowledge infrastructure where only the user holds the keys.

The current regulatory trajectory highlighted by cases like Samourai Wallet threatens to destroy this principle. For a community project, this isn’t just a business risk; it is a personal legal risk for every individual involved.

2. The Reality of the “Small Project” Label

You mentioned that we might be overestimating the risk, but the numbers tell a different story. In October 2025 alone, Zorin OS reported 780,000 downloads from Windows users migrating away from Windows 10. When a community-driven project reaches this scale, it enters a “legal danger zone”:

  • No longer “Small”: Under the 2026 Software Liability rules, the definition of a “small project” is notoriously vague. With nearly a million users, no lawyer would advise us that we are “too small” to be noticed.
  • The Corporate Safety Net: Larger entities like Red Hat or SUSE have massive legal departments and corporate insurance to absorb these shocks. A community-driven project like ours has no such shield. At the end they need to do similar steps, they are just quiet for now.
  • The 2026 Cliff: As the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) reporting obligations kick in by September 2026, every “product with digital elements” will be forced into a regime of mandatory vulnerability reporting and strict liability (incl. 3rd. party components!)

For commercial giants, this is a cost of doing business. For a community project, it is a liability trap. If we stay in the current trajectory, we risk being held personally liable for “defective” software simply because we refuse to compromise on our zero-knowledge architecture.
You characterized our exit as a commercial choice, but the 2026 Software Liability obligations change the definition of what a “project” is. When Linux Distributions sees 10,000 downloads in a single month (Gnoppix had historically over 1.2 million), we lose the “small project” protection in the eyes of the law.

We are caught in a “gray zone”:

  • If we provide an open-source framework, we risk being held responsible for how others use those modules.
  • If we refuse to integrate “chat control” or censorship backdoors, we face legal obsolescence.
  • For a community project without a corporate treasury, these liabilities are existential.

3. Community-Led, Not Profit-Led

The revitalization of Gnoppix during the pandemic was a grassroots response to a lack of privacy-respecting tools for schools and families. That community spirit is still what drives us. However, we face a paradox: the demand is massive, but the legal burden of meeting that demand in certain jurisdictions has become too high for a community to bear.

Our decision to shift our jurisdictional focus is a preemptive safeguard designed by our legal team to ensure that Gnoppix survives as a free, uncensored project. We are not “abandoning” the community; we are protecting the software from being forced to become a tool of surveillance.

4. The 2026 Turning Point

We believe Gnoppix is simply the “canary in the coal mine.” By 2026, many other FOSS projects will realize that they cannot operate under the new liability regimes without compromising their integrity. We are choosing transparency now rather than waiting for a forced shutdown later.

Ultimately, we choose to stop before we are forced to do anything that violates our core principles. We appreciate your understanding of this distinction.

–
amu

5

Hi amu,

thank you for taking the time to articulate this so clearly. I don’t think we are actually far apart in values — the difference lies mainly in where we draw the line between legal realism and philosophical necessity.

Your clarification helps, especially on one key point: this is not about profit or growth, but about personal liability and existential risk for contributors. Framed that way, your decision makes much more sense. When individual developers can realistically be exposed to legal consequences simply for refusing surveillance-by-design, the discussion stops being abstract very quickly.

I also agree with you on a fundamental principle: tool creators should not be held liable for downstream misuse, particularly when the architecture is explicitly zero-knowledge and denies the provider any access by design. Treating developers as implied intermediaries or co-conspirators undermines both privacy and engineering reality.

Where I think this conversation ultimately lands is not on whether your decision is legitimate — it clearly is — but on what it signals.

If a long-standing, privacy-focused, community-driven project with real-world adoption concludes that the only way to remain ethically consistent is to exit certain jurisdictions entirely, then that is a warning sign. Not just for Gnoppix users, but for the future of independent open-source development as a whole.

You’re likely right about 2026 being a turning point. The combination of PLD, CRA, and expanding intermediary liability does not merely raise compliance costs; it redefines what it means to be a “maintainer”. In that environment, only projects with corporate shields or jurisdictional flexibility can survive uncompromised.

I regret that this trajectory leads to fragmentation and exclusion, but I can’t dismiss the logic behind choosing principle over forced conformity. Transparency about this process — as you’ve shown here — is valuable, even when the outcome is uncomfortable.

I appreciate the respectful exchange and wish Gnoppix resilience and continuity, whatever jurisdictional path proves necessary.

@lacesz