The European Union must keep funding free software
+ + +by Ty Myrddin
+ + +Published on July 22, 2024
+ +![consistency](/static/img/consistency2.png)
Original: https://pad.public.cat/lettre-NCP-NGI, +initially published by petites singularites, + English translation provided by OW2.
+ +If you want to sign the letter, please publish the letter on your website and complete the table below on this page.
+ +Open Letter to the European Commission
+ +Since 2020, Next Generation Internet (NGI) programmes, part of European Commission's Horizon programme, +fund free software in Europe using a cascade funding mechanism (see for example NLnet’s calls). 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 organisations.
+ +Previous Cluster 4 allocated 27 million euros to:
+ +-
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- “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.
+ +In this perspective, we urge you to claim for preserving the NGI programme as part of the 2025 funding programme.
+ ++
+ Raw magic crackled from their spines, earthing itself harmlessly in the copper rails nailed to every shelf for + that very purpose. Faint traceries of blue fire crawled across the bookcases and there was a sound, a + papery whispering, such as might come from a colony of roosting starlings. In the silence of the night the + books talked to one another. A student
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