Re: Sovereign Tech Fund Applications Open

The Open Technology Fund (OTF) is an American nonprofit corporation. It is
not an agency of, or creation of, the government -- although it has
received funding from US government funded programs. (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Technology_Fund)

It seems to me that AS/AP, as infrastructural protocols, would qualify for
the German program since they are not "user-facing applications." However,
a SocialWeb client would not qualify.

bob wyman


On Thu, Mar 23, 2023 at 12:43 PM <mail@sebastianlasse.de> wrote:

> Thanks for the feedback. The USA had such a programm.
> Then a crazy fool became their president and completely freezed it.
>
> I had talked about the US OpenTechFund with Karen Kornbluh.
>
> She was the Former US Ambassador to OECD during the Obama
> adminstration and responsible for the Fund once.
> She promised to reopen it, I proposed to make it an alliance with
> sovereigntech … Seems it didn't happen.
>
> Please note that applications are open to anyone.
>
> It is also possible to include different milestones or work in one application.
>
> In the beginning my gov. asked wikimedia foundation and me for ActivityPub
> how much it needs
> to secure critical infrastructure. So given the initial promises of “60
> Mio.” I am not fully convinved yet :)
>
> Please note that last round was just a closed start for Open Wounds which bleeded heavily.
> It was a so called “Nachtragshaushalt” [a budget which is small cause it
> was negotiated too late] …
>
> About “not looking”, I can't go in details just be assured that their
> interest in ActivityPub is high!
>
> Sebastian
>
>
> March 23, 2023 at 4:01 PM, "Bob Wyman" <bob@wyman.us
> <bob@wyman.us?to=%22Bob%20Wyman%22%20%3Cbob%40wyman.us%3E>> wrote:
>
> It is great to see that the German government has taken the lead
> in supporting our critical open source infrastructure. But, I continue to
> be disappointed that the US government doesn't appear to have a similar
> program. Some time ago, I contributed to an unsuccessful Schmidt Futures
> proposal
> <https://www.plaintextgroup.com/reports/securing-open-source-software-at-the-source>
> to modify the NDAA to include such a process. I remain hopeful that the US
> will, in time, recognize that our open source infrastructure is just as
> important as our road, port, and utility infrastructure. My guess is that
> supporting Open Source Infrastructure produces a benefit-cost ratio
> (benefit/cost) exceeding that of virtually any other government investment.
> (Note: The English version of the Sovereign Tech Fund announcement is here:
> https://sovereigntechfund.de/en/applications/ )
>
> I'm intrigued by the *minimum funding level of €150,000* and that they
> have a budget of €10 million/year. I'm assuming that the minimum is set at
> something like a single-year's salary for an experienced developer.
>
> They say they are "*not* looking for user-facing applications, such as
> messaging apps or file storage services," which makes sense. They are
> properly focused on infrastructure, not applications that use that
> infrastructure. The projects they started funding last October give some
> sense of their scope and focus. Those were: Bundler/RubyGems, curl, Fortran
> Package Manager, OpenBGPd, OpenMLS, OpenPGP.js/GopenPGP, OpenSSH, Sequoia
> PGP, and WireGuard. Their feasibility study provides additional insight
> into their motivations and process. (
> https://sovereigntechfund.de/files/SovereignTechFund_Machbarkeitsstudie_en.pdf
> )
>
> bob wyman
>
>
>