Mastodawn

Matti Schneider

“We need some sort of 🇪🇺 crypto. We shouldn't depend on #NIST. That's what we're building, and we wouldn't have been able to do without #NGI funding.” — Karolin Varner from @rosenpass #NGIForum25 #OpenSource

“@decidim has an average of 56 commits a day, is translated in 55 languages, even though we're not a company and no one is paying us to implement anything.” — Ali Gonzalez
The contributions come from contributors and users because they fix their own problem and there is proper coordination. That's what #DigitalCommons look like and what I'm trying to scale with @openfisca 🙂
#NGIForum2025

“Building #DigitalCommons is not sexy. You need to clean up legacy features, update the doc, do the things no one wants to pay for” but everybody needs, and that's what NGI funding enables.
💯
We can get the features and most of the bug fixes by contributors and can find funding for reviewing and doing parts of that work. But the social and technical infrastructure work that is critical, nobody wants to pay for. That can be “overhead costs” for features but exhausting to fundraise.
#NGIForum2025

“Why don't we have a label for cloud providers that would redistribute a part of their revenue to the #OpenSource projects that they deploy, and make that label required for 🇪🇺 procurement? There are these companies that make a shitload of money off the work of others.” — @robin
#NGIForum2025

“The problem is that we don't have the institutions for industrial sovereignty, so we rely instead on project governance. So we need to think about things like levying a tax”, or in general ways to capture some of the €€ that is made at the end of the chain from #FLOSS and #DigitalCommons. — Lukasz Klejnowski
Yep, I'm tired to have to think of business models that cost a lot to establish to capture some of the value provided to society. DPI funding should be like physical infra: tax!
#NGIForum25

“We should have a very strong decrease of the administrative complexity related to funding.” — Isabelle Zablit Schmitz
#NGIForum25

“The US is collapsing into fascism, there is war in Europe, there is war and genocide in the Middle East. This is not the time for platitudes about AI. It is time to build infrastructure for democracy. We need a commissioner for #digitalsovereignty” —
Damn it, thanks @robin for saying it out loud!
#NGIForum25

“The new triangle of innovation will be between IoT, 6G and AI” 🙄 I wonder how many times I heard that already in the last 15 years (with 3G, 4G, 5G, “cloud”, “blockchain” and even “metaverse”)
We can just wait for one more year for the new buzzword and instead focus on actually giving money to people who deliver stuff that's useful to society.
#NGIForum25

“The first thing we need is protection against extra-territorial laws.” Another is collaboration across 🇪🇺, with the example of 🇫🇷🇩🇪 co-production of Docs, and the upcoming EDIC which 🇳🇱 and now 🇮🇹 have joined — Stéphanie Schaer, French @dinum
#NGIForum25

“In 🇩🇪 we have the @sovtechfund, hopefully we will have something similar at 🇪🇺 level in the future, because one entity will not be enough to meet the demand for funding.” — @senficon
#NGIForum25

“For me, #DigitalSovereignty starts with meaning that no one can tell you that you can't read your email anymore.”
“I feel that 🇪🇺 has quality —Gütlichkeit— in its DNA.”
“The Commission has provided us with this amazing NGI tool to be able to support the best developers, for example if there is a Canadian that develops a credible alternative to Instagram, we can just do that” — @michiel
(nudge nudge @dansup)
#NGIForum25

“We should start by recognising that #OpenSource is a public good and has the same form of problems as other public goods: you need to synchronise many actors.” “Most #FLOSS projects don't have a shortage of information about what should be improved, but lack resources to implement the improvements.” — @senficon
Thanks for stating the second part: I am personally a bit tired with ideas being thrown at me of crowdsourcing a roadmap or similar. It’s a lie. Do it or pay, don’t suggest.
#NGIForum25

“They might be the best developer in the world, if they get hit by a bus, the software will still stop being developed.” — @senficon making the case for #DigitalCommons over plain #OpenSource (my rephrasing) 😉
#NGIForum25

“Why do people come to NGI? Because they have this tiny piece of land where they feel welcome, where technical people can talk with them and give them the resource they need. I sometimes compare that to a refugee camp of sorts, where you get given some food and a tent and a bit of time.” — @michiel
💯 matches our @opentermsarchive experience with @nlnet: finally a funding mechanism with an assumption of trust, an understanding of operating context and flexibility on constraints 🙇
#NGIForum25

“The problem with having an operational stack is that not everything can be a product, and if we only want to fund products we are missing the infrastructure part. Not every #OpenSource project can have a viable business model.”
@senficon: “This is right, and exactly what the @sovtechfund is addressing. In the end, maybe not every #FLOSS product can have a business model and not everyone wants to become an entrepreneur, that doesn't mean they don't provide tremendous value to society and economy

“Red Hat does 70% of the commits on the Linux kernel because it makes a shitload of money from Red Hat Linux. We need to remember that free software is free as in speech, not free as in beer. We can build #OpenSource communities, but we shouldn't build open products, because that's how providers don't have anything to sell and thus no money” to maintain the software. “We need a Buy European act to ensure SMEs have a share of all 🇪🇺 public procurement.” — @waxzce from @clevercloud
#NGIForum25

How is it possible to have a male-only panel in 2025 at #NGIForum25, under the aegis of an institution whose beautiful motto is “United in diversity”, in a context where we claim to want to fight back against loss of democratic values, human rights, erosion of #DEI ?

Moderator (female, as all other staff member on stage): “what is your wish on #EuroHPC and #LLM?”
Panelist 1: “We need more compute! By the end of the year there will be 5 times more capacity, and it will still not be enough!”
Panelist 2: “I wish you guys (sic) make the most use of these resources”
Panelist 4: “Use us, use us, use us!”
#NGIForum25

“Why do these companies use NGI-funded #OpenSource solutions instead of a commercial service for software supply chain compliance and #cybersecurity options? Because the American providers are only doing best-effort. In 🇺🇸 you can buy your way out of cyber mistakes. In 🇪🇺 you’re liable for damages thanks to CRA, so the tools we provide for the #EU market are simply much better” at tracking provenance.
#NGIForum25

just small circles 🕊Jun 20

@MattiSG

And we thank these fine corporations for all the financial support they give all these FOSS enthusiasts in return. 😜

vincent Jun 19

@MattiSG @waxzce @clevercloud ce qui est un chiffre bien évidemment et bien heureusement totalement faux https://lwn.net/Articles/1013892/

Development statistics for 6.14

By the time that Linus Torvalds released the 6.14 kernel, 11,003 non-merge changesets had been [...]

LWN.net

vincent Jun 19

@MattiSG @waxzce @clevercloud mais bon ça n'arrange pas vraiment son propos puisque le plus gros contributeur c'est unknown et none additionné

hamish campbell Jun 19

@MattiSG @senficon

try the #4opens as a step on this path https://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Media-Network/4opens

4opens

The #4Opens The #dotcons can not be fixed. The #fashionistas who keep flocking to new “ethical-ish” ones are a problem, not a solution. The #4opens are a simple way to judge the value of an “alt/grassroots” tech project.

Open Media Network

@hamishcampbell @senficon thank you for the reference. You might also be interested in this decomposition of governance across components of #DigitalCommons to measure their level of openness and commonality: https://commons.mattischneider.fr/2-constituants

Components | Building Digital Commons

hamish campbell Jun 20

@MattiSG @senficon

My thought is that is well not messy enough to work in real life :)

"if you already have experience in operating commons, you or your organisation will probably have specific practices that are more appropriate to your context."

A long history and practice in the #4opens and yes gaps - but focus - it is designed to push out 95% of the #techshit the rest we have to discuss, compromise and work with

Tools are only useful if people use them, this is the current problem.

@MattiSG @sovtechfund @senficon

samvie Jun 19

There is a whole proposal about an 🇪🇺 EU Sovereign Tech Fund by @OpenForumEurope published earlier this year
"Investing in Open Source Sustainability and Security: OFE’s Proposal for an EU Sovereign Tech Fund"

Read here: https://openforumeurope.org/investing-in-open-source-sustainability-and-security-ofes-proposal-for-an-eu-sovereign-tech-fund/

#ngiforum25 #opensource #eu

Investing in Open Source Sustainability and Security: OFE’s Proposal for an EU Sovereign Tech Fund - OpenForum Europe

With the new European Commission and Parliament in place – as well as a dramatically different international outlook – the EU is increasingly focused on building independent digital alternatives, often […]

OpenForum Europe

hamish campbell Jun 19

@MattiSG @robin

This is not a bad idea... how to do this in a non-bureaucratic way so we can ovoid the usual capture by the #NGO crew to feed to the #fashionistas so we don't just feed more #techshit to compost.

Mario Restuccia Jun 19

@MattiSG @rosenpass I deeply appreciate using the term "crypto" for its original meaning of cryptography, as opposed to financial scams!