[hardcopy]

A few weeks ago a wrote in to my Senator on the complete lack of government funding for independent engineers/small projects building FOSS (USA).

NLNet in the EU is awesome. We really should have something like the NLNet in the USA.

[onthecanposting]

I'm undecided if it would be a net good or bad. If you think government should subsidize infrastructure that creates value that's hard to bill to users (like roads), then software is a pretty logical extension. However, given my personal knowledge of transportation project delivery and the astronomical amount of waste it includes, I suspect this might just make things worse.

[hardcopy]

I like NLNet model. NLNet isn't a government agency. NLNet is a nonprofit foundation that is responsible for distributing certain government grants, such as NGI Core Zero, which are themed for particular goals.

I definitely wouldn't want FOSS projects to apply directly to a government agency.

https://nlnet.nl/foundation/

[lucb1e]

OSTIF is vaguely similar and iirc from the USA

[hardcopy]

OSTIF scope is really narrow. It's mainly for patching security related bugs/vulnerabilities in existing large projects. And AFAIK it has a significantly smaller source of funding, relying on corporate donations.

It's not comparable to the projects that NLNet funds.

[paulddraper]

IDK maybe we just should let the EU pay for it

[redkoala]

We need more funding, not less.

[lolinder]

As an alternative perspective—the government currently spends ridiculous amounts of money* on proprietary software, often having chosen the vendor before the bidding process even begins, shaping the RFP to suit only the chosen vendor. The resulting software produced in these contracts remains entirely proprietary even though it was paid for by taxpayer dollars, so the company that built it is effectively guaranteed a perpetual stream of taxpayer funds since only they are legally able to maintain it.

I would love to see a world in which these gargantuan vendors are put out of business because the government is only allowed to buy software whose source code is released to the taxpayers who funded it.

* EDIT: To quantify "ridiculous":

> Each year, the U.S. government spends over $100 billion on information technology. Most of that will be used to operate and maintain existing systems, including aging—or "legacy"—systems.

https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-106821

[hardcopy]

Oh boy, where do I start.

First of all, I do donate to multiple projects monthly.

Secondly, why should I (a tech enthusiast) foot the bill for software that benefits all of society?

Thirdly, an organization like NLNet is much more equipped to determine value to the European Union of funding an open source project, than a random European tech enthusiast is.

Lastly, it's pretty amazing what NLNet does with its VERY limited funding. NGI Zero Core, for example, is $11 million euro over 3 years. With that they fund a huge number of open source projects.

https://doi.org/10.3030/101092990

[wil421]

Why would I donate to open source? The company work for and my Country’s government spend amounts of money I can barely comprehend. Yet, they use an absurd amount of open source tech.

A better question would be how can I convince the company I work for or my government to spend money on open source?

[lnxg33k1]

Government should definitely be involved in investigating collectivity money to create value for everyone, and has a spending power that, frankly, is semi idiotic to compare to what a single guy can do “you should use your money” does not make practical sense