Current digital infrastructure is to a large degree built on layers and layers of open source. Open source is to a large degree built and maintained by enthusiasts or other financially and resource restrained teams. It should be in our mutual interest to make sure that well-used open source projects not only survive, but also perform well.
Critical open source infrastructure needs to be maintained. Maintenance is not easy nor can we expect that to be done by volunteers on their spare time. Lots of open source projects are maintained by tiny teams or single individuals with small or no financial support at all.
In Germany, the Sovereign Tech Agency was created a few years back to help with this situation. By sponsoring infrastructure projects they help enforce the ecosystem and strengthen the fabric we all rely on. They had the courage and good sense to sponsor projects anywhere, not just within Germany’s borders.
As this infrastructure challenge goes way above and beyond Germany and concerns us all, it only makes sense that this style of helping out is attempted elsewhere as well. To me, it makes perfect sense to provide this service at EU-level instead of having individual member states doing it. Or perhaps in addition to.
There is now a proposal to create such a fund. The proposal calls it the EU-STF. The European Union Sovereign Tech Fund. Following the Sovereign Tech Agency's lead, taken up a notch. More money for more projects, which ideally will help us fortify our infrastructure even better.
The European Open Source Academy welcomes the proposal for an EU-STF as a way to follow-up to Germany’s initiative. Building on the Sovereign Tech Agency’s success, with greater scale and resources, the EU-STF could make a true difference.
The sustainability and security of critical open source infrastructure is central to EOSA's mission. We want to advance excellence in open source development and governance across Europe. The EU-STF would be a big show of support for the European open source ecosystem.
Importantly, it supports Europe, but also the entire open source ecosystem across our world.
It will help us move beyond ad-hoc support and towards a strategic approach to open source sustainability. And it would improve the lives of hundreds of maintainers like myself, who do the important work that a lot of our digital infrastructure depends on.
At EOSA, we stand ready to contribute its expertise, network, and research to ensure that this proposal delivers on its promise. Again, this Is not just for Europe’s digital own fortunes, but for the health of the global open source ecosystem. We strongly encourage the EU to support this effort through budget set aside as part of its upcoming MFF negotiations.
This article is adapted from a post I wrote over on my personal blog. As a disclaimer, I've previously received money from the Sovereign Tech Agency and stand to benefit. The EU-STF proposal is written by OpenForum Europe (OFE). EOSA has been launched in cooperation with OFE, one of the consortium projects for the OSAwards.eu project that set it up.
