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Awesome fund. Sad that it is limited to German residents and not to all Europeans!
There is the EIF, of which many of these local funds are recipients. Which country are you in?
Wish they would fund projects that already exist and that have years of unpaid effort already delivered. Instead they fund a bunch of prototypes that will probably go nowhere.
That’s the entire point of the prototype fund - there’s another technology fund that funds basic open source and infrastructure.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is the EIF, of which many of these local funds are recipients. Which country are you in?
Correct but I believe EIF rarely invests in startups/projects directly. I may be wrong but I think they rather invest in VC funds which then invest the money.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most of these kinds of funds aren't enough to be a salary at all, intended as social validation tokens for people who don't even need money.
This works out to just shy of 8000 EUR per month, enough to fund two people on an acceptable salary for that time. Folks with a sufficiently high profile could earn more on the open market, but you can live of that in most regions of germany.
So that's probably the rationale behind this number.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s the entire point of the prototype fund - there’s another technology fund that funds basic open source and infrastructure.
The issue is not one of linguistic subtleties, but whether the government should fund boondoggles at all. While probably, at least judging by the pictures of the funded projects, engaging in age discrimination.
Most early tech and prototypes are considered “boondoggles” at first. Some of them are. Some of them not. Some of them may seem so to you, but I can tell that I have used at least a handful of the projects on the list and have personally supported at least one (without knowing that they’re prototype fund funded, or maybe they were not yet, doesn’t matter). And whether the government should have a hand in funding public good software projects - who else should?
> While probably, at least judging by the pictures of the funded projects, engaging in age discrimination.
The age selection could also be just a natural consequence of how the fund is set up. The funding is capped at less than 50 000 EUR, which is a sum that’s less interesting to older people since they’re more likely to have something close to that in the bank. Applying isn’t free - it costs effort, so if you can fund without, it’s attractive to do so. Just alleging age discrimination without a shred of proof isn’t really reflecting good on your arguments.
Wish they would fund projects that already exist and that have years of unpaid effort already delivered. Instead they fund a bunch of prototypes that will probably go nowhere.
We need more of those too.
Wish they would fund projects that already exist and that have years of unpaid effort already delivered. Instead they fund a bunch of prototypes that will probably go nowhere.
That's factually incorrect. Mastodon was funded by Prototype Fund this year to develop new features. Mastodon was released in 2016 and has more than 26k GitHub stars, so is quite clearly way beyond being a prototype.
However it seems like many of the projects funded are stuck in the dilemma that either they get a new grant from somewhere or they stagnate/die. There seems to be a lack of sustainable development and a community, which I find sad. A lot of these projects are super cool, but not very well known or widely used.
Perhaps that's the goal. It is a "prototype" fund, after all.