Happy 2025 everyone! On this first day of the fresh new year we are happy to announce 50 Free and Open Source projects were selected to receive NGI Zero grants.
We'd like to congratulate all the teams and individuals and thank them for working on a better internet for us all.
If you are working on Free and Open Source technologies that improve the digital landscape for everyone, know that NGI0 offers financial & practical support.
We offer grants between €5k - €50k, open to everyone.
Calls currently open:
NGI0 Commons Fund: Reclaim the public internet
NGI TALER: Privacy-preserving digital payments
NGI MobiFree: More ethical mobile software
NGI Fediversity: Creating the hosting stack of the future
Deadline February 1, 2025 https://nlnet.nl/news/2024/20241201-call.html #FOSS#NGI#NGI0
If you are working on Free and Open Source technologies that improve the digital landscape for everyone, know that NGI0 offers financial & practical support.
We offer grants between €5k - €50k, open to everyone.
Calls currently open:
NGI0 Commons Fund: Reclaim the public internet
NGI TALER: Privacy-preserving...
Also another question I've got. Can people based in Iran but with access to a bank account outside Iran have hopes of receiving money from NLnet? Please answer in the public so I can boost.
@NGIZero What if you're working on open resource technology that worsens the digital landscape, but only in an objective sense, not an actual capitalistic / abuse the public sense.
Look, I just want to put emojis in source code... >_>
@NGIZero Too bad my project(s) don't (and have never) qualify for funding. I'd love to be able to work full-time on a completely FOSS/FOSH home/personal computer with system software stack that sits on top.
What if someone could help you with your documentation? Or offer advice on user retention. A person to talk to about testing or how to get things translated. How about untangling gnarly issues with the help of an all-round troubleshooter?
These people exist!
They are @JennyList Marjolein Kassenaar, Julian Harty, Dwayne Bailey & @eric_herman
We just had a #webinar where they introduced themselves and their services. And the recording is now live: https://nlnet.nl/events/20241128/index.html
What if someone could help you with your documentation? Or offer advice on user retention. A person to talk to about testing or how to get things translated. How about untangling gnarly issues with the help of an all-round troubleshooter?
These people exist!
They are @JennyList Marjolein Kassenaar, Julian Harty, Dwayne Bailey & @eric_herman
We just had a #webinar where they introduced themselves and their services. And the recording is now live: https://nlnet.nl/events/20241128/index.html
Let's get rid of all the binary blobs. In S01E02 of the NGI0 podcast we talk to @janneke, founder of GNU Mes. The project helped to significantly reduce the number & size of binary seeds used in the bootstrap of GNU Guix 1.0.
He talks about working on GNU Mes, its community, NGI0 funding & calls for a 5th freedom: freedom 4. The freedom to build a program from source. "If you can't build a binary from source, how would you exercise freedom 0?"
Let's get rid of all the binary blobs. In S01E02 of the NGI0 podcast we talk to @janneke, founder of GNU Mes. The project helped to significantly reduce the number & size of binary seeds used in the bootstrap of GNU Guix 1.0.
He talks about working on GNU Mes, its community, NGI0 funding & calls for a 5th freedom: freedom 4. The freedom to build a program from source. "If you can't build a binary from source, how would you exercise freedom 0?"
@NGIZero I would be more concerned with exercising freedom 1: to study and modify the program. But to me this itself implies the new freedom 4, hence 4 is not needed.
Reclaiming the public nature of the internet, that's the aim of the NGI Zero Commons Fund.
The 1st round has now concluded and
32 free and open source projects will receive financial and practical support to do just that.
They are projects from all across the technology stack, from open hardware to open data and from electronics design automation to end user applications.
Come and have a look at the projects working on the internet commons.
Reclaiming the public nature of the internet, that's the aim of the NGI Zero Commons Fund.
The 1st round has now concluded and
32 free and open source projects will receive financial and practical support to do just that.
They are projects from all across the technology stack, from open hardware to open data and from electronics design automation to end user applications.
Happy to announce the (official) launch of Mobifree. The @mobifree NGI Pilot Project focuses on the development of ethical mobile software, prioritizing the digital rights of users, including privacy and freedom of speech. https://mobifree.org/
Part of the project's budget is reserved for funding third-party contributions. The current open call for proposals between 5 & 50k is open till June 1. (More open calls will follow this year.)
www.nlnet.nl/mobifree/
Happy to announce the (official) launch of Mobifree. The @mobifree NGI Pilot Project focuses on the development of ethical mobile software, prioritizing the digital rights of users, including privacy and freedom of speech. https://mobifree.org/
Part of the project's budget is reserved for funding third-party contributions. The current open call for proposals between 5 & 50k is open till June 1. (More open calls will follow this year.)
www.nlnet.nl/mobifree/
Radically Open Security, the nonprofit computer security company donates 90% of its profits to NLnet. Today @ros turned 10 years old *and* crossed the magical number of 1 million euro in donations to NLnet.
Happy birthday ROS! And thanks a million :-).
We interviewed ROS co-founder and CEO Melanie Rieback to learn why she decided to give the company such an unusual business model.
Adblockers are legal, German courts ruled. Their argument: users not only have the right to receive information but also to refuse it.
That sounds about right. It'd be positively dystopian if companies can claim the right to force-feed information. A win for internet user freedom :).
One of the downsides of the ruling is that a company can exclude users with an activated adblocker from accessing its website. @fsfe wrote an interesting article about the case https://fsfe.org/news/2023/news-20231220-01.en.html
Adblockers are legal, German courts ruled. Their argument: users not only have the right to receive information but also to refuse it.
That sounds about right. It'd be positively dystopian if companies can claim the right to force-feed information. A win for internet user freedom :).
One of the downsides of the ruling is that a company can exclude users with an activated adblocker from accessing its website.
I don't see why a site shouldn't be able to block their content from users who try to bypass their monitization strategy. I don't think it's smart for them to do so however... people who want to block ads are less likely to click on those ads anyway, and blocking them isn't always going to be enough incentive to disable the blocker.
If ads were less annoying, we might not be in an environment where blockers are so prevalent also. Treat users as more than just clicks.
NLnet Foundation is looking for a Rust developer/software engineer for our office in Amsterdam.
You will be responsible for the development and operation of the (Rust based) backend through which we administer our open source grant programmes, and which integrates with our website.
NLnet financially supports organisations and people who work on free and open source projects from around the world on all layers of internet technology.
NLnet Foundation is looking for a Rust developer/software engineer for our office in Amsterdam.
You will be responsible for the development and operation of the (Rust based) backend through which we administer our open source grant programmes, and which integrates with our website.
NLnet financially supports organisations and people who work on free and open source projects from around the world on all layers of internet technology.
@NGIZero@EC_NGI
I wonder what is the gender balance of this selection but I know that important women led research infrastructure projects developed by women programmers have been rejected.
NGI0 turned 5 today! Since 2018 we've been on a mission to make a better internet for everyone. This has always been a collective effort with many many many people pitching in. To celebrate this collaboration we invite everyone to our Call for Participation. Send us your cartoon, meme, sound bite, ascii art, essay, one-liner, text-based game, picture, 8-bit video, gif, drawing, recipe, ..., to share your vision of a better internet for everyone.
Prizes for everyone :) https://nlnet.nl/news/2023/20231101-FiveYearsNGI0.html
NGI0 turned 5 today! Since 2018 we've been on a mission to make a better internet for everyone. This has always been a collective effort with many many many people pitching in. To celebrate this collaboration we invite everyone to our Call for Participation. Send us your cartoon, meme, sound bite, ascii art, essay, one-liner, text-based game, picture, 8-bit video, gif, drawing, recipe, ..., to share your vision of a better internet for everyone.
Join us for our webinar How To Make Your Digital Product Accessible For All. Charlotte Swart will discuss accessibility and share the most common issues.
Charlotte is a user experience researcher at NGI0 partner HAN University. She leads the #accessibility auditing team for NGI0 projects. In the webinar she'll demonstrate how an audit works.
Join us for our webinar How To Make Your Digital Product Accessible For All. Charlotte Swart will discuss accessibility and share the most common issues.
Charlotte is a user experience researcher at NGI0 partner HAN University. She leads the #accessibility auditing team for NGI0 projects. In the webinar she'll demonstrate how an audit works.
What do we mean when we say Fediverse? In The Multiple Meanings of the Fediverse, @fediversereport explores three different interpretations of the word. Each based on a different founding principle: Community, ActivityPub, or Interoperability.
Keeping in mind that people may have different interpretations can be useful when having conversations about the #fediverse. https://fediversereport.com/the-multiple-meanings-of-fediverse/
The @sovtechfund is offering grants to people who contribute to a sustainable open source ecosystem. Grants go up to €300,000 per application and cover three main topics:
With this program the Sovereign Tech Fund seeks to stimulate an open digital infrastructure: fundamental technologies that enable the creation of other software.
The @sovtechfund is offering grants to people who contribute to a sustainable open source ecosystem. Grants go up to €300,000 per application and cover three main topics:
With this program the Sovereign Tech Fund seeks to stimulate an open digital infrastructure: fundamental technologies that enable the creation of other software.
We are pouring public funding down the drain agen, this criteria is feeding the #geekproblem not actually trying to take the "problem" out of our geek paths. The people who PUSH this agenda are the problem - please POINT at them and talk about this mess, thanks.
Do you have an interesting ActivityPub-related project? The next deadline to submit proposals is December 1st - that is next week. And the best thing is: you can submit today!
@NGIZero Ugh! But why, every time we talk about fedeverso and activitypub, does everyone always forget to mention #Friendica? Basically the only real alternative to Facebook...
(PS: Anyway, thank you for mentioning @XWiki and @bonfire because they are two of the most interesting projects in the fediverse)
BTW: in case folks reading this have a cool FOSS project that needs funding, please be aware that we have a deadline for submitting these tomorrow (August 1st) noon.
Don't feel intimidated - it is really light-weight to submit something (you can do it in less than an hour if need be).