Author: Sebastian Crane
Source
Next Generation Internet (NGI) funding has
enabled substantial development of F-Droid – with the support of NGI grants
via NLnet, F-Droid is now better at protecting users’
privacy, is leading the way on
security-enhancing ‘reproducible
builds’ for mobile
applications and gives users more choice on where they download them
from.
The positive impact of NGI extends to numerous free and open source software
(FOSS) mobile apps that you can download on F-Droid: Organic
Maps,
Funkwhale and
DAVx⁵ are just a few
personal favourites of mine among dozens that have benefited from NGI’s
support.
However, NGI’s future is no longer certain. The initiative may soon be
subject to cuts to its own funding, which would have repercussions for the
vibrant FOSS ecosystem that it supports. It is against this backdrop that I
sign the following open letter, started by Les Petites
Singularités, on behalf of F-Droid.
I encourage you share the letter further so that, as a united FOSS
community, we can make a compelling appeal for NGI’s future.
The European Union must keep funding free software
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 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.
