Mastodawn

European Commission

Open source technology is at the very heart of our digital strategy.

We've chosen the EUROPA consortium to develop a highly advanced, open language model that spans all 24 official EU languages.

We are proud to support transparent digital tools that remain freely available to researchers, creators, and public institutions in all EU countries.

Open technology benefits everyone.

More 👉 https://link.europa.eu/CygbN7

Tatu Leppämäki 1d ago

@EUCommission
Didn't you already fund this? https://openeurollm.eu/

OpenEuroLLM

A series of foundation models for transparent AI in Europe

@tadusko @EUCommission more is better?

Tatu Leppämäki 1d ago

@opny721 @EUCommission
Suppose so, the "EuroLLM" space is just getting rather crowded. There's also this https://eurollm.io/

eurollm.io

@tadusko @EUCommission I think all those efforts comes from different funding schemes and different readiness level expectations (more research oriented or more market facing)

Stewart X Addison 1d ago

@EUCommission How does that open source strategy fit in with your recent active promotion of W social?

Jordan Maris 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 #NAFO 1d ago

@sxa @EUCommission The EU is present across a number of social media sites, and are expanding their presence on the Fediverse. Do you seriously believe criticising their presence elsewhere is doing anything positive for the cause?

Stewart X Addison 1d ago

@jmaris in my view
when they are inexplicably putting efforts to expanding into a service with a tiny number of users (~1000 so far from what I understand) and *actively promoting their presence there* on the open-source services which seems to serve only to attempt to push publicity and adoption of that other service - while simultaneously extolling the virtues of open source - I would say "yes, criticising it helps the #openSource cause".
Mixed messaging on their channels dilute that message.

Jordan Maris 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 #NAFO 1d ago

@sxa No public institution has done more for the fediverse than the EU. They have literally funded almost every major fediverse project.

They have been expanding their presence here and plan to expand further in the coming months.

It is unrealistic not to expect an institution like the EU to have a social media presence on multiple platforms, including non-open ones. That doesn't change their committment to Open Source or the Fediverse.

Jordan Maris 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 #NAFO 1d ago

@sxa I'd encourage you to take a moment, and read the comments under the Commission's post from the perspective of the Commission.

They make us look like dogmatic lunatics who will never be satisfied with what they do.

Now ask yourself: is it worth it for them to try to satisfy a group who will never be happy with what they do even when it is good?

Stewart X Addison 1d ago

@jmaris I don't think I agree with the "never be satisfied". Nowhere in politics can you please everybody however in a democratic society we should be able to be openly critical of actions from such organisations who are working for the people they represent [*], which isn't the same as a "pile-on" to an individual IMHO.

It's the active promotion of a less open alternative on THIS network while pushing open source that irks me, less so their presence on #wsocial

[*] -Sadly I'm in the UK though

Jordan Maris 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 #NAFO 1d ago

@sxa You should absolutely be able to criticise the actions of the Commission, i'm not contesting that. I'm contesting the content of your criticism. It's unrealistic and dogmatic, and will get us nowhere.

I'll add that the Commission promoted their fediverse account on other social media sites too. It's standard practice.

This behavior isn't doing us any favours.

Sisyphe Heureux 1d ago

@sxa @EUCommission
I'm with @jmaris on this one. The EU moves in the right direction by promoting open source. But that doesn't mean everything will be open source from now on.
Mastodon appeals to a certain kind of user. We're more principled than the average X user and feel at home here.
But others quickly turned away from Mastodon. Giving them a European alternative like W Social, fills the gap between Mastodon and American Social Media, because it'll be more privacy focused than the latter.

Stewart X Addison 1d ago

@sisypheheureux Agreed (mostly [*]) - which is another reason why I personally feel Mastodon probably isn't the right audience to be actively pushing their #wsocial presence to ;-) It dilutes the good messages that many of the people on here are likely to want to hear from them.

[*] - The ID requirement still makes me nervous though from a privacy perspective though and is why I'd personally struggle to recommend it.

Cyaniris 1d ago

At the same time (french):
<< Digital sovereignty: Europe renounces imposing open source software and chooses… “encouragement” >>

https://www.lesnumeriques.com/societe-numerique/souverainete-numerique-l-europe-renonce-a-imposer-le-logiciel-libre-et-choisit-l-encouragement-n257733.html

Souveraineté numérique : l'Europe renonce à imposer le logiciel libre et choisit… “l'encouragement”

Le logiciel libre vient d'obtenir de Bruxelles la reconnaissance institutionnelle la plus ambitieuse de son histoire. Et pourtant, le compte n'y est pas. La Commission a reculé au dernier moment sur le seul point qui compte : l'obligation de l'adopter dans le secteur public. Exactement comme Paris en 2016.

Jordan Maris 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 #NAFO 1d ago

@Cyani @EUCommission je t'encourages vivement de lire la stratégie de la commission qui contient de nombreuses très bonnes propositions. Elle n'est pas parfaite, mais s'attaquer a la commission puisqu'à ton avis elle n'a pas fait un assez grand pas dans la bonne direction n'avance en rien la cause de l'Open Source.

Cyaniris 1d ago

@jmaris @EUCommission

Je ne comprends pas comment laisser davantage de place que prévu aux multinationales qui proposent du propriétaire ferait avancer la cause du Logiciel Libre 🤔

Jordan Maris 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 #NAFO 1d ago

@Cyani @EUCommission Perso, je suis défavourable à une preference pour le Logiciel Libre. Le logiciel libre est un moyen et non un fin dans les marchés publiques. On doit avoir une préference pour les solutions dont on a accès au code source, qu'on peut forker, qui nous permettent de déplacer nos donnés et les heberger n'importe ou. (en gros, les avantages du logiciel libre).

Cela donnerait une avantage concrete aux Logiciels libres sans imposer une préference.

@EUCommission And yet, in the same week as you publish and advertise this, the EU Commission acts as a massive shill for a closed-source US dependent brand new AI / tracking / social media company (W Social and W Identity).

They might be great at corporate lobbying but as of now their GDPR officer (same person for both super independent companies) doesn't even bother replying to their email. Maybe stop shilling and just start the investigation now?

@EUCommission yes. and #wsocial is NOT!

Jordan Maris 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 #NAFO 1d ago

@stereo @EUCommission as far as I know this post is about LLMs not social networks.

@jmaris @EUCommission imho its possible they did not understand free software in both cases.

@EUCommission then why not rather supporting #mastodon and the #fediverse rather than that weird W closed, proprietary, for profit thing?

Sanji, aka Jean-Daniel 1d ago

@EUCommission You're right, "Open technology benefits everyone".
That's why you should choose #Mastodon, and not #wSocial

#BlindAltBot 1d ago

@EUCommission You willingly adopt and promote a closed source social platform, "W Social".

R.I.Pienaar 1d ago

@EUCommission so why not support open source for W social? This is just lip service.

Jordan Maris 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 #NAFO 1d ago

@ripienaar @EUCommission the commission are in the Fediverse and growing their presence here too.

How does criticising them for this advance the cause of Open Source or the Fediverse?

R.I.Pienaar 1d ago

@jmaris @EUCommission They are supporting a closed commercial social media as the future of the EU social efforts.

Jordan Maris 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 #NAFO 1d ago

@ripienaar @EUCommission Their recent sovereignty package explicitly references expanding their presence on Mastodon and they are already following through on that. It isn't lip service.

What do you think your criticism of the Commission being present anywhere else does to their perception of the fediverse?

Nelfaneor 🇪🇺 🇧🇪 🫏✒️♏〽️🟤1d ago

@jmaris
The question remains unanswered : why have they chosen a PDS as suspicious as WSocial instead of @eurosky.social ?

@ripienaar @EUCommission

Jordan Maris 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 #NAFO 22h ago

@nelfan @eurosky.social @ripienaar @EUCommission that's an excellent question, which you could ask them under the relevent post they made about it.

I'm not sure that spamming the commission's every post with comments that essentially amount to "how dare you!" Is constructive or useful!

Nelfaneor 🇪🇺 🇧🇪 🫏✒️♏〽️🟤17h ago

@jmaris

Just to give an illuminating example, https://new-european-bauhaus.europa.eu/about/about-initiative_en, has never opened an account on the Fediverse since its launch in 2020. If that isn't a lip service, it is, at the very least, an incredibly restricted service.

@ripienaar @EUCommission

About the initiative

Key information about the New European Bauhaus (what, when, who, etc.).

New European Bauhaus

Jordan Maris 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 #NAFO 17h ago

@nelfan @ripienaar @EUCommission so let me get this straight... You are angry that an architectural movement started by the commission doesn't have a Fediverse account ?

Nelfaneor 🇪🇺 🇧🇪 🫏✒️♏〽️🟤16h ago

@jmaris

Yes, of course! This initiative is aimed at driving a considerable symbolic impact at several levels and the original spirit of the Fediverse is undoubtedly linked to the same kind as the Bauhaus's original spirit.

But they debase it by communicating on the most putrid social media without even thinking of building this coherency between an inspirational liberating architectural movement and this liberating social network.

That uncovers the way they consider both : it's just a good meaningless showcase.

@ripienaar @EUCommission

Jordan Maris 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 #NAFO 12h ago

@nelfan @ripienaar please never do advocacy work with politicians.

Nelfaneor 🇪🇺 🇧🇪 🫏✒️♏〽️🟤10h ago

@jmaris

Thanks for the advice but it's useless. I'm too old for any other carreer than the one of a bad temper activist. I had already understood when I was in my twenties I would never reach any consistent results in advocacy on a long term. I keep talking with some politicians but I always need a long meditation session before.

@ripienaar

@EUCommission where is the new #W source code repository? It's not a bad thing to take it off GitHub, I did the same with my repos. It would however be helpful if the new location were made public when the migration is completed. Best 🍻

Jordan Maris 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 #NAFO 1d ago

@lkn @EUCommission I'm pretty sure the commission are talking about an LLM here, and not a social network.

The commission is present across a multitude of social networks and protocols. Including a growing presence in the Fediverse.

How does criticising them for being elsewhere advance our cause ?

@jmaris The surrounding commentary is quite critical, so I can see why you would think that, but that's not my intent. I'm assuming honesty from @EUCommission . Open source / free software does not necessitate that the source code must be public (though that's the de facto standard and IMO a best practice especially for a public interest institution), only that it must be available on request. I requested it. A forum like this isn't the best place, and no response doesn't mean "AH HA! I knew they were liars!" but maybe it gets heard. Maybe it clears up uncertainty on the matter. Maybe I'm just being an idiot. 🤷‍♂️

@jmaris as for LLMs and so on, I think it's good that the EU is at least trying to make it work for the public good. "Open source" is much harder to define for this, so I assumed they were referring to it in the ordinary sense.

Jordan Maris 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 #NAFO 1d ago

@lkn The OSI already has a (in my opinion) quite good definition of Open Source AI. The G7 recently endorsed a definition along the same lines.

PaulaToThePeople 😷1d ago

ℹ️Community Comment:
The post above contains shameless misinformation.

Jordan Maris 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 #NAFO 1d ago

@PaulaToThePeople @EUCommission it really doesn't.

Luca Alloatti 1d ago

@jmaris @PaulaToThePeople @EUCommission

(1 of 2)

Hello Jordan, the call text says:

"where applicable, the release of open weights, .. OR .. technical documentation" [1],

so the output is open-weights at most.

This clearly would not even satisfy OSAID 1.0.

So isn't calling the model "open-source" objectively inaccurate (to say the least)?

[1] https://aiboost-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/AI-BOOST-_Guidelines-for-Applicants_FRONTIER-AI-CHALLENGE.pdf

Jordan Maris 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 #NAFO 1d ago

@luca @PaulaToThePeople @EUCommission fair point. I hadn't read the call itself.

Luca Alloatti 1d ago

@jmaris @PaulaToThePeople @EUCommission

(2 of 2)

As a side note, the call had an opening of two months: do you personally think it is sufficient to guarantee fair competition?

Also, only the project lead (Domyn, Italy) is announced [2], but the rest of the consortium is unknown (is Mistral in, or is this making their life even harder?) -how transparent is that?

[2] https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/commission-selects-europa-consortium-winner-frontier-ai-grande-challenge-project-build-european

Commission selects EUROPA consortium as the winner of the Frontier AI Grande Challenge, a project to build European open-source frontier AI model in all 24 EU languages

The European Commission has selected EUROPA, a European consortium led by the Italian company Domyn, as the winner of its Frontier AI Grand Challenge.

Shaping Europe’s digital future

Jordan Maris 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 #NAFO 1d ago

@luca @PaulaToThePeople @EUCommission I agree that it is inaccurate. I'll take it up with the commission

@EUCommission Quick! Let's publish something cute and aspirational after the huge failure with W-Social.

\>ᏒⴹᎢꓰＣ𐋏 1d ago

@EUCommission Is wsocial opensource?

donamasta 1d ago

@R_3_T_3_C_H @EUCommission
NO

Javensbukan 1d ago

@EUCommission Also the EU: Hey everyone let's use W!

🙄

Todos Locos 1d ago

@EUCommission If you were really serious about this, you'd have to immediately stop all support for and collaboration with #WSocial!
#TheFutureIsFederated

@EUCommission Except for W?

It's positioned to be another fascist enshittification trap like Twitter before it.

SkyBlitz 1d ago

@EUCommission and during this time you also put your voice behind a closed for profit social network while ignoring eurosky and mastodon.

HYPOCRIT

@EUCommission you're sending us mixed vibes... get your game straight

Even Rouault 1d ago

@EUCommission I hope their training process will browse the Internet in a responsible way and not cause denial of services to the few remains of the open Internet that is suffering from this modern plague.

@EUCommission 24 official languages, to be exact. Catalan, Occitan, Sámi, Frisian, Frankish, Gaelic, Sinti, Rom, just to name a few, are missing...

Carlos Solís 1d ago

How open are we talking about? Is the training data also under an open license?

Sisyphe Heureux 1d ago

@EUCommission If you were convinced that EVERYTHING in Europe would be open source from now on, you were deluding yourself. The EU is heading in the right direction!!
About W Social: it might have escaped your notice, but Mastodon isn't that well known. Some who tried it, quickly turned away from it, while others finally felt at home.
The network effect Social Media banks on, will only be broken if there are enough alternatives around.
I'm staying on Mastodon. If you like W Social, fine by me.

operator 1d ago

@EUCommission Kick out Google, Meta, Microsoft, Apple 💪