During the summer the European Commission made the decision to stop funding Free Software projects within the Next Generation Internet initiative (NGI). This decision results in a loss of €27 million for software freedom. Since 2018, the European Commission has supported the Free Software ecosystem through NGI, that provided funding and technical assistance to Free Software projects. This decision unfortunately exposes a larger issue: that software freedom in the EU needs more stable, long-term financial support. The ease with which this funding was excluded underlines this need.

CC BY-SA 4.0 - SFSCON 2024

Cross-posted from the FSFE Peertube Channel

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I think we're affected, too. Since Lemmy is in part funded by NLNet, which is part of(?) NGI: https://ngi.eu/funded_solution/lemmy/

[–] solrize 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

15 minute video, I've watched about half, will finish it later, it's interesting. Basically the money was transferred from free software to the now trendier area of AI.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Yes, good video. And I think this is stupid. I mean we don't have a lack of money in the field of AI. On contrary, that gets bombarded by money. And if they want to grow some healthy and sustainable AI... That could be fostered by good regulations. And the EU kind of screws up with that, currently. All the while we have lots of different problems in the Free Software world, regarding funding. And free platforms are to the benefit of everyone. They also strengthen freedom, democracy, ... AI will just burn that money. And the EU foil everything by simultaneously not coming up with proper (and timely) regulations. (My opinion)