Does providing technical support for a fee put you in scope of the CRA?

Providing technical support for a fee may or may not put you in scope of the CRA, depending on your relationship to the open source project.

If you are the publisher of the project: Charging for technical support services that are closely associated with the supply of the software can constitute monetisation, which would make the software a product placed on the market. However, this only applies where the price charged "does not serve only the recuperation of actual costs" (Recital 15). If you're a natural person and the fees only cover costs related to design, development, and maintenance—including reasonable living expenses—this alone would not make you a manufacturer. If you're a legal person that meets the definition of open-source software steward, you would be subject to steward obligations rather than manufacturer obligations for the non-monetised version of the software.

If you are a not-for-profit organisation: There is additional flexibility. If your organisation is set up to ensure that all earnings after costs are reinvested in not-for-profit objectives, your activities are not considered commercial even if you charge for support services (Recital 18).

If you are not the publisher: You are simply a service provider, and services are not products with digital elements under the CRA. For example, if you help a customer install open source software on their server but don't distribute the software yourself, you are not placing any product on the market and are therefore not in scope.

See also: Can a natural person's living expenses count as 'costs' or is that profit? and Does getting paid for open source software development make you a manufacturer?.