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+Title: The European Union must keep funding free software
+Date: 2024-07-20
+Category:
+Tags:
+Lang: en
+Summary: I sign the petition urging European Union to continue funding free
+    software.
+
+No need to say that during the last 2 years part of my efforts trying to give
+people a better world, using my engineering skills, have been funded by the
+European Union with the NGI programme, which I was granted by NLNet. Every talk
+I give about [what we achieved](https://ekaitz.elenq.tech/bootstrapGcc15.html)
+I thank them because without this money I would never be able to use my time in
+a long-term project like this.
+
+In [a recent
+interview](https://www.ngi.eu/ngi-interviews/ekaitz-zarraga-risc-v-bootstrapping-effort/)
+I mentioned many funding programmes out there focus the attention in the
+private sector. I am very aware of this because I actually worked as a research
+and development engineer for the private sector. Our R&D department was totally
+funded by public programmes, to the point we even had profits, but everything
+we did was just for the company we were part of. Nothing was released as free
+software.
+
+Maybe you didn't know this, but I left that company because I believed (and I
+continue to believe) the projects we started to do were not ethical. Our
+company, trying to become profitable (task they failed at, years later I left),
+started to make projects that used public funding to track users wherever they
+went, and harass them with aggressive advertisement. As R&D engineers, our job
+was to start to prototype this, which I didn't want to do.
+
+There were many reasons behind my decision, of course, but this was one of
+them. I couldn't do that. **That was bad**. And it was done with **your
+money**.
+
+I don't know if that model of throwing money to private companies hoping they
+become stronger in the current globalised market makes any sense, that's not
+for me to know. I'm *just* an engineer. I just hoped that if our money was
+given to someone it was to be used for our benefit or at least not to be used
+against us.
+
+My personal experience, which I admit is anecdotal but it is shared by many
+colleagues, is the programmes that focus on the private sector don't make sure
+this happens. They don't even require the projects developed with the money to
+be shared with the public, letting the society benefit from the resulting
+technical innovation they pledge to be promoting.
+
+I would prefer if the money was spent on things that would be shared, with open
+licenses, with everyone. But I'm *just* an engineer, and I don't know about
+*economic impact*, and the measurements the people who decide things use for
+taking their decisions.
+
+What I do know is the people that really work for others, that make things
+because their heart tells them to, are those that would never do something like
+what the company I worked for did. They wouldn't think sharing their work as
+free software is a project requirement, imposed by the programme they are
+funded from. They would do it because they believe it is correct to do it. They
+would do it because it is an atrocity not to do so.
+
+Surprisingly, a programme that shared those values existed: NGI; and I had the
+honor to be supported by it for the last two years. This has let me focus in
+making that my heart believes is correct and my brain has the skill to do. I'm
+giving back what I was given by the public university where I studied, by all
+the free software I use everyday and by all the open knowledge I have the
+privilege to be able to acquire from The (open) Internet.
+
+The NGI programme is important. It changes the world in the proper direction.
+
+It seems the European Union is more interested in putting money in other things
+(like AI) instead, maybe not being aware that the world's software
+infrastructure has to be maintained, and companies are not going to do it for
+us.
+
+Because all that I said, I sign the open letter by Petites Singularités you can
+read below.
+
+> Initially published by [petites
+> singularités](https://ps.zoethical.org/pub/lettre-publique-aux-ncp-au-sujet-de-ngi/).
+> English translation provided by
+> [OW2](https://www.ow2.org/view/Events/The_European_Union_must_keep_funding_free_software_open_letter).
+
+### Open Letter to the European Commission
+
+Since 2020, Next Generation Internet ([NGI](https://www.ngi.eu)) programmes,
+part of European Commission's Horizon programme, fund free software in Europe
+using a cascade funding mechanism (see for example NLnet's
+[calls](https://www.nlnet.nl/commonsfund)). This year, according to the Horizon
+Europe working draft detailing funding programmes for 2025, we notice that Next
+Generation Internet is not mentioned any more as part of Cluster 4.
+
+NGI programmes have shown their strength and importance to supporting the
+European software infrastructure, as a generic funding instrument to fund
+digital commons and ensure their long-term sustainability. We find this
+transformation incomprehensible, moreover when NGI has proven efficient and
+economical to support free software as a whole, from the smallest to the most
+established initiatives. This ecosystem diversity backs the strength of
+European technological innovation, and maintaining the NGI initiative to
+provide structural support to software projects at the heart of worldwide
+innovation is key to enforce the sovereignty of a European infrastructure.
+Contrary to common perception, technical innovations often originate from
+European rather than North American programming communities, and are mostly
+initiated by small-scaled organizations.
+
+Previous Cluster 4 allocated 27 million euros to:
+
+- "Human centric Internet aligned with values and principles commonly shared in
+  Europe" ;
+- "A flourishing internet, based on common building blocks created within NGI,
+  that enables better control of our digital life" ;
+- "A structured ecosystem of talented contributors driving the creation of new
+  internet commons and the evolution of existing internet commons".
+
+In the name of these challenges, more than 500 projects received NGI funding in
+the first 5 years, backed by 18 organisations managing these European funding
+consortia.
+
+NGI contributes to a vast ecosystem, as most of its budget is allocated to fund
+third parties by the means of open calls, to structure commons that cover the
+whole Internet scope - from hardware to application, operating systems, digital
+identities or data traffic supervision. This third-party funding is not renewed
+in the current program, leaving many projects short on resources for research
+and innovation in Europe.
+
+Moreover, NGI allows exchanges and collaborations across all the Euro zone
+countries as well as "widening countries" [^1], currently both a success and an
+ongoing progress, likewise the Erasmus programme before us. NGI also
+contributes to opening and supporting longer relationships than strict project
+funding does. It encourages implementing projects funded as pilots, backing
+collaboration, identification and reuse of common elements across projects,
+interoperability in identification systems and beyond, and setting up
+development models that mix diverse scales and types of European funding
+schemes.
+
+While the USA, China or Russia deploy huge public and private resources to
+develop software and infrastructure that massively capture private consumer
+data, the EU can't afford this renunciation. Free and open source software, as
+supported by NGI since 2020, is by design the opposite of potential vectors for
+foreign interference. It lets us keep our data local and favors a
+community-wide economy and know-how, while allowing an international
+collaboration.
+
+This is all the more essential in the current geopolitical context: the
+challenge of technological sovereignty is central, and free software allows to
+address it while acting for peace and sovereignty in the digital world as a
+whole.
+
+[^1]: As defined by Horizon Europe, widening Member States are Bulgaria,
+    Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia,
+    Lituania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Widening
+    associated countries (under condition of an association agreement) include
+    Albania, Armenia, Bosnia, Feroe Islands, Georgia, Kosovo, Moldavia,
+    Montenegro, Morocco, North Macedonia, Serbia, Tunisia, Turkey and Ukraine.
+    Widening overseas regions are : Guadeloupe, French Guyana, Martinique,
+    Reunion Island, Mayotte, Saint-Martin, The Azores, Madeira, the Canary
+    Islands.