[Xelbair]

We'll see how it goes this time.

If they once again go for creating their own forks, instead of financing development of existing software then I'll know the initiative failed.

Also imho their 'questions' mentioned in the comment kinda feel like they have answer baked in - like it's foregone conclusion.

Still - I hope EU will just have a decent program financing or contributing in any shape or form to development of OSS.

[embedding-shape]

> Still - I hope EU will just have a decent program financing or contributing in any shape or form to development of OSS.

I think at this point we're beyond that, we already have these programs and they seem to be expanding. EU-STF is one such example, then there are other organizations supported by the EU in various ways, that also helps fund OSS, like NLnet Foundation.

[menaerus]

Do you honestly believe that all of these funding programs are beyond the point of "decency"? If we leave aside all of the bureaucratic bs, political connections and corruption when it comes to obtaining these funds (for the most cases), how do you attract experts in the field with 50k EUR grants?

[pas]

50K EUR is OK to start. There's no point in trying to outspend the top private firms.

Like many other people said there are already thousands of unpaid volunteers doing quality work.

If the EU wants "domestic" stuff they need to mandate/incentivize it. It's not like if shit hits the fan the local employees cannot run the local stuff of non-EU companies. (Therefore the important thing is to have full control locally, no outside-EU kill switches allowed - eg. what Uber had and used.)

[menaerus]

50k EUR is a salary that only someone coming fresh out of the University will accept and only someone who has no other choice, e.g. someone not quite competitive on the market. If you want to make a difference then this is not the pool of people you're looking for.

[embedding-shape]

> Do you honestly believe that all of these funding programs are beyond the point of "decency"?

Yes, they currently fund people working full-time on contributing to FOSOS. If that's no "beyond decency", I don't know what is. Are you expecting these people to end up flush with cash, or what's the issue?

> how do you attract experts in the field with 50k EUR grants?

Because most of us experts actually care about what we work with, not how much we get paid. Once you reach a certain level of income so you're financially safe, increasing that generally doesn't increase your happiness that much, so most of us focus on being fulfilled in other ways, mainly about caring about the work we do.

As someone who used to work full-time in FOSS, it is a great feeling to contribute to something not just because it pays, but because it actually improves something in real life. I can't speak for everyone, but this is still mostly why I do FOSS.

I think fundamentally there seems to be a difference between "European FOSS" and "American FOSS" where the latter focuses more on basically CV-driven FOSS projects, with the hope of the FOSS leading to you somehow getting paid more in some for-profit company. While European FOSS seems to mainly be concerned about making things sustainable, grow a healthy community, and remaining FOSS long-term.

[menaerus]

> Are you expecting these people to end up flush with cash, or what's the issue?

No, you cannot build a serious product to compete with globally established products only by using the 50k EUR grant since serious products of larger scale (impact) necessitates more than a single expert.

How do you build an alternative cloud or alternative database or alternative AI model with a 50k grant? Or how do you attract 10, 15 maybe 20 people to work on it? How much money do you consider would be enough for these people to be "financially safe".

> Because most of us experts actually care about what we work with, not how much we get paid.

Most? I believe not. Most experts in the field are working for a beyond average salary and not for the FOSS projects. You need a leverage to attract those people to leave their jobs to contribute to something bigger (in terms of society) and yet this leverage is, as you say, "experts care about what we work with, not how much we get paid". This is laughable and at the same time worrying because you're genuinely convinced that this is an attitude everyone should follow. Such an ignorant view, sorry.

[embedding-shape]

> No, you cannot build a serious product to compete with globally established products only by using the 50k EUR grant

Who said you have to? Software is not a "winner takes all", you can solve a niche problem, get paid OK for it, and have a better standard of living than the average person in your country. This is widespread in Europe already, not sure why it's so foreign to so many.

I'm sorry, but that you and your peers seem to select professions and work positions solely based on monetary profits is what it is, but don't try to give the impression it's like that all over the world, because it isn't. It's probably more common than you think, but your environment might lead you to believe it isn't. For that, I feel pity for you.

[u8080]

Lol, imagine relying on underpaid volunteers in mission-critical software infrastructure. How about actually giving good encouraged people pay they deserve?

[menaerus]

Did you miss the topic that is being discussed, as in:

> The EU faces a significant problem of dependence on non-EU countries in the digital sphere. This reduces users' choice, hampers EU companies' competitiveness and can raise supply chain security issues as it makes it difficult to control our digital infrastructure (both physical and software components), potentially creating vulnerabilities including in critical sectors.

> you and your peers seem to select professions and work positions solely based on monetary profits is what it is

No, I have never done that and I couldn't have done it because of a very simple reason - there was no market at the time I was starting with my profession and what I am still doing today is a direct consequence of what I found appealing most at that time and during my Uni days - bleeding edge computer science and computer engineering coupled with the bleeding edge hardware.

> but don't try to give the impression it's like that all over the world, because it isn't. It's probably more common than you think, but your environment might lead you to believe it isn't. For that, I feel pity for you.

You live in a fantasy world. And the only issue I have with that is that you spread your claims as something that is (EU) universally true, which is not. Please leave your utopistic comments elsewhere and not on this topic where it's relevant to stay objective.

[PeterStuer]

I get your pain point, but the stated objective is "Sovereignty" so having a fully localized OSS ecosystem that is anchored (can't be bought or moved) and operates independent of outsider (US, China, Russia, ...) upstream is in that case non negotiable.

Whether the EU will ever produce the necessary public investment to achieve this remains an open question.

[sofixa]

> they once again go for creating their own forks, instead of financing development of existing software then I'll know the initiative failed.

Once again? When did they do that? They have been funding various open source projects (like VLC, Libre Office) for quite a while:

[plastic-enjoyer]

I think Bavaria developed their own Linux distro instead of using an established one. It failed horrendously.

[sofixa]

> I think Bavaria developed their own Linux distro instead of using an established one

Yes, with all their configs, packages and certifications that were needed. Not really a problem.

> It failed horrendously

Because Microsoft came in, promised to relocate their HQ to Munich, and surprise, it was decided to come back to Windows. This was after reports found that although it took longer than expected, adoption was widespread (only a small minority of desktops remained on Windows for the few Windows specific apps they had), things were working well, user happyness was good, stability was good, and tons of taxpayer money had been saved.

[luke5441]

Things like LiMux, I guess

[sofixa]

Was that really a fork, or just a distribution with all the configs and packages that Munich wanted and needed?

[luke5441]

I don't know details, but my guess is was more the latter.

The problem is that instead of having people assigned to working with Debian to make Debian useful in a government setting, they just did their own fork/distribution. Yes, the former involves a lot of Debian politics and isn't as fast because other Debian members might insist on proper/more generic solutions.