Germany’s Sovereign Tech Fund unveils a program to fund maintainers of open source projects that’s expected to be operational by year’s end.
Imagine if they could one day get the whole EU to agree on something like this…and to even use the software! 😵
EU has a similar program called Horizon Europe, which spent around €95.5 billion so far. Though it’s broader in scope, not limited to just software, but includes various open source research too.
Would love if there was open source software hard budgeted in there on an EU level…
There has been for years: NLNet. It just got suspended by right-wingers. A lot of European projects were relying on it.
This is REALLY cool. This is how public funding should be allocated.
Do you have to be European to get funded?
No.
https://www.sovereigntechfund.de/programs/applications#requirements
Take a look.
Though, if you have not heard of the program before, you’re probably not involved with a project that qualifies.
We invest in projects that benefit and strengthen the open source ecosystem. Examples include libraries for programming languages, package managers, open implementations of communication protocols, administration tools for developers, digital encryption technologies, and more
Wow, some countries are trying to make encryption tech illegal while Germany is just throwing money at tech that could bypass those laws. Amazing.
Some german politicians have also tried time and time again to establish data retention policies because “think of the kids” argument blablabla. But so far they have failed to do that as it was proclaimed unconstitutional by our federal court. Some politicians play with the idea from time to time tho.
I made my German girlfriend watch me pee while standing to show that it’s a controlled stream.
Then she pulled out her funnel and made me watch her pee while standing.
Shower thought: what if the defence budget of every country would be donated to open source software instead of killing devices?
Lots of funded projects on this list are ones with recent vulns (log4j, openssh, etc)
https://www.sovereigntechfund.de/tech
I’m surprised openssl isn’t on the list, considering heart bleed
