[roenxi]

Well worth reflecting that relatively little of existing free software seems to come from that sort of funding. It is mostly commercial companies following commoditise-the-complement strategies, consultancies building free tools then supporting them, or research spinoffs.

If EU funding can create and sustain a thriving free software ecosystem I suspect it would require a new funding model that we haven't seen yet. Otherwise, why would they do it and how would the institution detect if it was working?

[walterbell]

Some projects funded by NLnet, https://nlnet.nl/project/

  ActivityPub <> Discourse, WordPress
  bcachefs
  CryptPad
  F-Droid
  Jabber/XMPP
  Jitsi
  LibreOffice
  Matrix
  Mastodon
  NextCloud
  PulseAudio
  QubesOS
  SourceHut

[efnx]

My project Renderling (https://github.com/schell/renderling) is funded by NLNet and I can say the whole process has been great. It’s changed the way I think about open source and gives me motivation to continue.

[roenxi]

That list seems a bit lacking substance and slightly off target. NLNet doesn't claim to fund libreoffice for example - that was a Sun office suite, picked up by the Apache foundation and now controlled by the Document Foundation (mainly through general donations if I understood their financial reports). NLNet seems to be funding things like "encrypted collaborative editing in the browser [using libreoffice]" which is a different kettle of fish. Nice option to have, but fairly niche functionality in the LO suite as far as I know.

And how does all this funding compare to something like the Google's Chrome & Firefox? That is one company controlling the majority of web traffic through OSS that on balance respects user freedom. To me, that is a better funding model with better results.

Funding use cases may well be a good use of time, but given the serious issues the EU has establishing itself in the tech industry, the military and economic crisis they have managed to waddle in to and the general political turmoil that seems to have kicked up I opine it is not the time to be wasting political bandwidth like this note calls for. The US model of letting companies fund and build software (including free software) seems a bit stronger, more flexible and politically easier to coordinate.

We don't need all of Europe to come together and work out who they think is the best team to build web technologies. Google puts a team on it and it probably happens. There are worse ideas out there than calls for government funding but it just doesn't sound effective to me - these continent-spanning governance bodies don't have the bandwidth to pull off this sort of delicate technical work.

[walterbell]

NLnet funds tactical feature improvements in selected OSS projects, not Google-scale underwriting of employee teams.

> don't have the bandwidth to pull off this sort of delicate technical work

What's the basis for this claim? There are literally 1,000 technical work engagements listed above, scoped in detail and reviewed by a few humans (not "all of Europe") at NLnet, with a track record of successful delivery to upstream OSS projects.

[roenxi]

> What's the basis for this claim?

The title of the piece is "Open Letter to the European Commission".

The EU commission has more important things to focus on than this low impact slush fund aspect of NLnet. Given the lack of impressive successes that you can point at, maybe there is an argument that they are and that NLnet just isn't doing very well. I dunno. If they could manage to get a Google-scale company to take root in Europe it'd achieve a lot more.

[walterbell]

Are you comparing nonprofit project budgets of a few thousand euros to corporate VC/investment budgets that are orders of magnitudes larger?

> the lack of impressive success

Successful delivery of hundreds of projects doesn't count? Improvements to widely used office and communication software? Improving critical infrastructure used by journalists and other members of civil society? Mentoring the next generation of developers who can staff future EU technology companies?

What type of tech projects, budget and success do you expect the EU commission to fund? Are there previous successes that could be emulated, from the EU or other governments? Google was created by private investors, as was Skype.

[roenxi]

> What type of tech projects, budget and success do you expect the EU commission to fund? Are there previous successes that could be emulated, from the EU or other governments? Google was created by private investors, as was Skype.

I'm not sure why you think the EU should be wasting bandwidth on this given that you are (accurately) identifying that it isn't managing to marshal much capital or following a model that leads to notable successes. The focus should be on incubating more successful strategies. The way to get good OSS ecosystems is a web of companies making money off open source software. That is how we get things like Linux, Chrome or Postgres.

> Successful delivery of hundreds of projects doesn't count?

Not really, no. Especially if the projects are already being funded by a government program - give me a budget and I can fund a thousand github projects. When you tried to list successes, you put together a list with names like XMPP or WordPress on it. And don't misunderstand me, I like XMPP and Wordpress; but they are not strategically useful to a body like the EU.

> Are you comparing nonprofit project budgets of a few thousand euros to corporate VC/investment budgets that are orders of magnitudes larger?

Yep. And it is unimpressive. It doesn't look like a close race to me, efforts via NLnet are feeble compared to the US approach, where they pour in orders of magnitude more effort and get much bigger payoffs.

The EU has a problem - no companies. They should solve that problem, not make random microdonations - there is no particular evidence that is powerful, at least not that I've seen. There is evidence that corporations are powerful at producing OSS though.

[klntsky]

nlnet funding is cents in comarison to the cost of these. They give grants, but they don't cover all the costs.

[walterbell]

Yes, and now even that tiny pool of funding is going to be cut.

[rgreekguy]

Nyxt browser had also been funded by E.U. at some point, not sure if they still do.

[nsajko]

Source?