The European Union must keep funding free software • Hacker News Board

Re: The European Union must keep funding free software

#11

Post by dhosek » Sat, Jul 20, 2024, 1:27 AM UTC

I was thinking earlier today that self-driving automobiles would be a good use-case for a public-private venture for open source software development. My half-baked idea would be that car and computing companies could contribute their existing software to a open source consortium that would be government-sponsored, but privately run. Some fair valuation would be set for their contributions and the OSS license would require anyone using the software to contribute back their changes. Part of the funding mechanism would be that any self-driving vehicle would have a fairly high “tax” per vehicle (maybe $10K, 20K?) but that this could be prepaid by the manufacturer through software contributions. Yes, I know there are bottomless logistical issues to be worked out, but the idea being that perhaps, if everyone can see exactly what everyone else is doing we can maybe get out of the current pit of semi-working solutions that prevent true autonomous vehicles from being viable.

Or, it might end up that self-driving vehicles are an infrastructure problem and that they need dedicated roadways without incursion by non-self-driven cars. Perhaps we could set them up to run on dedicated schedules on electrified metal causeways with shared ridership.

Re: The European Union must keep funding free software

#12

Post by tomcam » Sat, Jul 20, 2024, 1:29 AM UTC

mananaysiempre wrote: post #8

tomcam wrote: post #3

It would be interesting to see what they got out of the first €27 million they put into it.

PyPy received an EU grant sometime in the late 2000s or early 2010s, although it had to be a different one. If I understood TFA correctly, NLnet is partially funded by this money? NLnet itself distributes money to very cool software things[1]—some moonshots such as Spectrum[2], some very down-to-earth and usable ones such as Nitrokey[3]. A discussion[4] linked in a neighbouring comment also mentions Sourcehut and Bca…

Thank you. I was looking for something like a table with a project, maybe a summary, amount funded, KPIs, and ideally an assessment of the results.

Re: The European Union must keep funding free software

#13

Post by fijiaarone » Sat, Jul 20, 2024, 1:38 AM UTC

newsclues wrote: post #5

andsoitis wrote: post #2

I wonder why the list of signatories at the bottom do not seem to include a single government (local or national).

Governments need to band together and collaborate to develop software. But instead they tend to buy closed systems that are developed by the same companies churning out crud.

No one ever took a government out to a fancy dinner and drinks to convince them to use open source.

Re: The European Union must keep funding free software

#14

Post by newsclues » Sat, Jul 20, 2024, 1:44 AM UTC

bell-cot wrote: post #6

newsclues wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Governments need to band together and collaborate to develop software. But instead they tend to buy closed systems that are developed by the same companies churning out crud.

Ideally, governments are competent. Realistically...competent governments are the exception. And competent-at-long-term-technology-policy governments are virtually non-existent.

I understand the current state but also think it’s possible to change.

Re: The European Union must keep funding free software

#15

Post by newsclues » Sat, Jul 20, 2024, 1:48 AM UTC

fijiaarone wrote: post #13

newsclues wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Governments need to band together and collaborate to develop software. But instead they tend to buy closed systems that are developed by the same companies churning out crud.

No one ever took a government out to a fancy dinner and drinks to convince them to use open source.

Even if it would save governments money and help ensure civil servants get paid on time (phoenix payroll scandal)?

Never had a meal from a sales rep that swayed my mind

Re: The European Union must keep funding free software

#16

Post by Qwertious » Sat, Jul 20, 2024, 1:52 AM UTC

FjordWarden wrote: post #10

Money is a limited resource and I don't think NGI has proven to be a good investment. They made the same sort of embarrassing mistakes your average VC fund would make like BS blockchain ideas. A lot of uninspiring "research" where some of the deliverables is some open source software that no one ever uses and for which development stops after funding runs out. There seems to be something rotten about the open source…

>I never going to forget the scene of NLnet members distributing free t-shirts with their logo on it to random attendees of the CCC congres in Berlin and then taking a big group photo for some social proof they can put on their website.

You can pretend that grant money doesn't fund the writing of grant applications, but that won't make it true. If you make your criteria stricter and less reliable, then every project has to spend more overhead on crossing the Ts and dotting the Is to ensure their entire budget doesn't fall out from under them.

Re: The European Union must keep funding free software

#17

Post by Kenji » Sat, Jul 20, 2024, 1:53 AM UTC

[dead]

Re: The European Union must keep funding free software

#18

Post by gallagos » Sat, Jul 20, 2024, 1:56 AM UTC

newsclues wrote: post #14

bell-cot wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideally, governments are competent. Realistically...competent governments are the exception. And competent-at-long-term-technology-policy governments are virtually non-existent.

I understand the current state but also think it’s possible to change.

We just gotta wine and dine some suits. Sounds easy.

Re: The European Union must keep funding free software

#19

Post by sva_ » Sat, Jul 20, 2024, 1:56 AM UTC

dhosek wrote: post #11

I was thinking earlier today that self-driving automobiles would be a good use-case for a public-private venture for open source software development. My half-baked idea would be that car and computing companies could contribute their existing software to a open source consortium that would be government-sponsored, but privately run. Some fair valuation would be set for their contributions and the OSS license would r…

Not sure if you're implying that the government is supposed to oversee/manage the development of such a project, but I think they're extraordinarily bad at such things. It isn't the role of the gov either.

> car and computing companies could contribute their existing software to a open source consortium that would be government-sponsored, but privately run.

So basically it would just be a normal company, but the government pays them? In what way should the gov decide which company to fund, and why? If it is a commercial/private company, their existence should be justified by their profits. I don't really get it.

Re: The European Union must keep funding free software

#20

Post by roenxi » Sat, Jul 20, 2024, 1:57 AM UTC

Well worth reflecting that relatively little of existing free software seems to come from that sort of funding. It is mostly commercial companies following commoditise-the-complement strategies, consultancies building free tools then supporting them, or research spinoffs.

If EU funding can create and sustain a thriving free software ecosystem I suspect it would require a new funding model that we haven't seen yet. Otherwise, why would they do it and how would the institution detect if it was working?