SFP#50: Policy and EU: How NGI wants to save the Internet and what's next?
Back to the episode SFP#50
WEBVTT
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I think the average user can kind of tell that there is a problem with the internet as it exists today.
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Even if you might not be able to articulate it, you kind of know that it's there.
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It's like what Morpheus says in the Matrix. It's there like a splinter in your mind.
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Hello and welcome to the Software Freedom Podcast.
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Thank you so much for listening to this podcast and without you and your support,
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this podcast will not be possible. Thank you, dear listener.
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This podcast is brought to you by the Free Software Foundation, Europe.
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We are a charity that empowers users to control technology.
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I'm Bonnie Mehring and today I'm here with my colleague, Gabriel Ku Wei Bin.
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This is the first time that Gabriel has been here on his own in this podcast
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because he has been here in a session with Tobias and Matthias, once for Christmas.
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How are you?
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I'm good. Thank you for inviting me to speak on the podcast.
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I'm very happy to be here.
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All right. Did you have a nice Easter?
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Yeah, I did. It was restful. It's always nice to have a long weekend.
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Oh yeah. Especially if you can really relax and enjoy some sun finally.
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Well, there was one day of sun. I think the rest of the days were kind of gloomy and stormy.
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Oh no.
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Okay, maybe we should switch Panther.
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Because here in Bavaria, we now have like 18 degrees today.
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It's really warm. It feels like spring and starting of summer.
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Oh, that's nice. We will have some zero frost on Friday, I think.
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Okay.
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But then after that, it'll be proper spring.
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So we just need to get through the hump on Friday.
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Oh right.
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But today we are not talking about spring and Easter,
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but we will be talking about the NGI case.
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So this is a follow-up to one of our previous episodes.
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As in 2024, the European Commission has decided to cut the funding for Free Software
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in the next generation, Internet Initiative.
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And as FSFE, we started a call for action
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and an amazing number of people came together in 2024
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and stepped up for our call to save software freedom.
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Gabriel, in your daily work for the FSFE,
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you deal a lot with the next generation Internet program.
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Yes, that's correct.
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Can you very quickly give us a recap of what we do for NGI and what NGI is?
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Yes. So NGI, like as you've already mentioned,
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it stands for Next Generation Internet.
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And it's basically a European Commission Initiative.
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And the aims of this initiative is to shape the development of the Internet
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into what they refer to as an Internet of Trust.
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And when they say Internet of Trust, this means things like security, inclusion, trust, of course,
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that basically the Internet should have all these features,
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while also reflecting the values and legal norms that European citizens and residents enjoy.
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I do think that that is kind of a vague definition.
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And I can already see you asking me,
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what does it actually mean to shape the development of an Internet of Trust?
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Yes.
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Maybe it's useful for me to give kind of historical background
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or more context around the NGI initiative.
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So it's funded by the EU under Horizon Europe,
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which is a research initiative to help develop sustainable and livable society in Europe.
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And this NGI initiative is further broken into many sub-initiatives.
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And each of these sub-initiatives, they focus on specific themes or specific topics,
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relevant to the Internet or relevant to how people use the Internet.
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And so these can be things such as security and privacy on the Internet.
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They can be topics related to search functionality on the Internet
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or even things like hardware infrastructure.
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So each sub-initiative of the NGI initiatives,
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it identifies specific developing technologies or specific software
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that have the potential to evolve the Internet in this direction of the Internet of Trust.
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It provides two things for these developing technologies that it identifies.
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And the first thing that it provides is, of course, money or funding support.
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And the second thing that it provides is technical support on a variety of topics.
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And so this is where the FSFE comes in, and this is where our kind of daily work
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with the NGI initiative comes in.
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The FSFE is a member of a consortium that's called the NGI Zero Consortium.
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This consortium basically provides technical support to these developing technologies
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in order to help them develop to their full potential
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and to help them be able to evolve and affect the Internet in a positive direction.
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So the consortium that we are part of is made up of a number of NGOs
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with their own speciality.
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So for example, one of our consortium partners is radically open security in the Netherlands
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and they provide security support for these supported Free Software.
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And so for us at the FSFE, we help specifically with providing guidance
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for legal and licensing issues that these participating technologies may encounter.
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So for us, this means things like helping them choose a Free Software license
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or helping them to comply with their licensing and copyright notice obligations
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with the help of our reuse specification.
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And we sometimes also help with questions about copyright, about trademarks,
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and basically questions that they have about other legal topics
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or legal issues that arise in the course of their development of the projects.
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So yeah, that's basically, I hope I've managed to simply explain
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the very complicated structure of NGI and how we operate under it.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, you did a good job. Don't worry. Don't worry.
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Yeah, because I think like the premise of the entire NGI initiative is cascade funding
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for all these developing technologies and that sometimes can lead to very complicated structuring
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of how the funding is distributed and how the assistance is being distributed.
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And so, yeah, there are all these different layers of organization
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before, you know, FSFE gets to step in and help.
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So it can get quite complicated, but the general gist of it is that FSFE
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through the NGI initiative supports developing Free Software
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with legal and licensing assistance.
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Do all of those projects seek to help or do they just like say,
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oh, I need help and I don't need help.
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So how does this work?
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So we do have a number of projects that actually do say that they don't need help,
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which is good for us in the sense that, you know,
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there are so many projects that we can't help all of them really in the way that we want to,
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because, you know, we only have so much time in a day.
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But at the FSFE, what we try to do is that we extend our help and our assistance
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to everybody who wants to be able to take it.
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And one of the requirements of being able to get funding from this initiative
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is that your software has to be released as Free Software.
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So there are certain checks that go through for every single project
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before they can graduate, so to speak, from being a part of this funding initiative.
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And that means that, you know, they are checked for whether they have properly chosen a Free Software license,
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whether they have properly complied with certain obligations,
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such as displaying their copyright and licensing information properly in their software repository.
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And, yeah, if they don't fulfill these requirements, then they are referred to us as well.
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So it is a case where sometimes people are quite comfortable with fulfilling their legal and licensing obligations
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and so they don't ask us for help.
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Can you give us some example of the projects that have benefited from our work or benefited from the EU funding?
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So there's quite a lot of them, and I think a lot of people will be surprised at how many projects they have been.
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We've been working with NGI since 2018, so it's coming up on almost eight years now that we've been involved.
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So there have been hundreds of projects that have passed through NGI funding.
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And FSFE is only involved in a small number of these sub-initiatives.
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So we do not help all the NGI projects.
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We only help the NGI projects that are involved in the sub-initiatives in which we are involved in.
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So there are a lot of Free Software projects out there that a lot of people will be familiar with but not know or not be aware that they have been supported under this NGI initiative.
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And peer tube, I think, is a good example.
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One that people might be familiar with, I mean, we use peer tube ourselves to publish FSFE videos, for example.
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And they have received support under the NGI initiative.
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I have forgotten precisely under which sub-initiative, but yeah, they have benefited from funding support and technical support.
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Another kind of software that FSFE uses quite regularly that has also been funded by the NGI initiative is Pretalx, which is kind of a conference organization tool
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that we use for our events and conferences.
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And I think everybody else uses Pretalx as well.
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I didn't know that it was funded by NGI, to be honest.
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I knew that peer tube was funded by NGI, but I didn't know that Pretalx was also one of the projects that came out of the NGI umbrella.
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Yeah, that's what I meant.
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I think even yourself, for example, you seem quite surprised by the scope of how many projects or how broad this NGI funding reaches.
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Yeah, no, it's amazing.
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And it's really great that it's out there.
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Since we are already discovering that there are quite a lot of projects, so why is this funding needed in the first place?
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What's the reason how you came up with this funding through the next generation internet initiative?
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I think this is quite a complicated question to ask, because there are so many reasons why we need an internet of trust or a next generation internet.
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I don't know if you can say that the EU has a singular reason for doing this.
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There are so many interest groups, and there are so many political ideologies that come together.
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The most obvious kind of reasoning that the EU has been giving, that I agree with, is that since this program was initiated in 2018,
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even back then, I think many people could identify that there have been a lot of problems with the internet.
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Even things like for a regular internet user, when they go on the internet, it used to be that you have all these different websites,
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there are all these different services or blogs or webpages or places where you can get information where you can participate in forums and stuff like that.
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In the 2010s, everything consolidated itself, and the average internet user started just going into using these same five or six websites,
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social media, YouTube, in the early 2010s, it was Facebook, now I guess TikTok, other social media websites.
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You go to check your email using one of the email providers like Gmail or stuff like that.
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The internet has so much promise, but it just kind of consolidated itself into tiny monopolies, if that makes sense.
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I think that was identified as one of the problems, and the other problem, of course, is with improved surveillance technologies, improved spyware on the internet and how we are exploited for our attention,
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how we are exploited for our time and our money on the internet with advertising and algorithms, etc.
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All of these were kind of basic problems that were identified as things that we do need to solve.
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These are issues on the internet that affect our daily lives and how we are able to live within our rights together with digital technology.
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I think that's the underlying problem where the NGI initiative kind of identifies that these are issues that make the internet a lesser experience for the average user, and these are issues that need to be solved.
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We need more privacy, we need more trust, we need more security, we need to not be exploited so much for our time, attention and money on the internet.
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We need to have a lot more choice in what we are able to do, where we are able to go, where we can get our information, and we need quality of information on the internet.
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I mentioned social media as one of the reasons why people go on the internet and misinformation and disinformation is rife on social media.
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All these issues come together to just this one singular idea that we need an ex-generation internet, we need something, we need alternatives.
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I mean, going back to what I said, this is a complicated question that you asked because there are so many problems, there are so many proposed solutions.
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So it's difficult to just pin it down to one, but I think the overarching answer to your question is that I think the average user can kind of tell that there is a problem with the internet as it exists today.
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Even if you might not be able to articulate it, you kind of know that it's there.
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It's like what Morpheus says in the matrix, it's there like a splinter in your mind, and that's the problem to solve, right?
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And with the next generation internet, there is no singular solution as well, which is why I think they've kind of defaulted to the idea that if we support the four freedoms in Free Software, and we fund technologies that support the four freedoms, and that provide alternatives that are free and open,
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that helps on a foundational level on which other solutions can be built upon to improve the internet.
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So it's meant like as the groundwork, as the foundation you have used this work to like steadily improve the user experience.
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Yes, I think you just explained in like 10 seconds what it took me five minutes to say.
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So yeah, yeah, I think that's correct. What you just said, foundational work.
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In this context, do you think that the importance of the entire program has changed since we are also experiencing experiencing a new dynamic in the regard to digital to serenity?
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So this has become more of a hot topic, even so there are various definitions of digital serenity floating around the political sphere.
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I won't go into that too much, but yeah, do you think it has become more relevant that the NGI program and all the projects that are funded there are more of a dire need for everybody?
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Another complicated question.
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Yeah, I know what you're getting at. I think there's definitely a shift.
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And I'm not just talking about free and open source software, and I'm just talking generally about how Europe views itself and its allies geopolitically since like let's say a couple of years.
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I mean, the big elephant in the room is now that since the 2024 US elections, there's been like differences, let's say, in how certain international relationships have been playing out.
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And I think the goals of NGI have remained more or less the same.
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It's just that the urgency of this has shifted a lot for people in the last two years.
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So in the sense that, you know, the goals have remained the same, but the perspective on why these goals are so important, I think has shifted.
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And for me, in the correct direction, it's unfortunate. It took such, you know, a drastic and scary shift in geopolitics to accomplish this.
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But, you know, I think, I think trying to achieve these goals that the NGI initiative set out to do is is always has always been important.
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Why do you think that?
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Can you elaborate, why do I think which specific area of what I said was important?
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Like, why do you think that it's important that we get this infrastructure up and running and that it's like, obviously don't get me wrong.
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I truly believe in Free Software and I wish that all of this would have been there for ages and that there are no proprietary services out there.
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Why do you think it's so important that all of those initiatives are growing from the ground up again and that we are starting to be more digital independently from those big services.
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And why do you think it's so important that all of this is Free Software and why do you think that the EU sees this as also very important since 2018 that this is Free Software.
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I don't want to relate this too much to the concepts of like Free Software or just digital technology.
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But I think it's more to do with the drawbacks, the negative effects of monopolization, right?
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Because like, one of my favorite books, or maybe not favorite, but like that there hasn't formed my world view quite a bit is the net delusion by you have getting more as of.
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I don't agree with everything that he says in there, but I do like a point that he makes in the book about how the lack of regulatory oversight or the way that the internet was kind of a wild west in the beginning of its kind of broad adoption had only one real outcome.
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And that is that it would have, it was inevitable for it to be captured by the actors that have the most resources and that would namely be state governments and large multinational corporations.
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And if it gets captured by this, then they consolidate, they monopolize their services, and then you suffer the drawbacks of this monopolization.
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You end up having to accept whatever is shoveled your way as a user by these companies or by the state.
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Yeah, and I think that's why it's important to resist this kind of monopolization on the internet as well.
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You know, it's important to provide alternatives.
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It's important to be able to have your own homegrown technologies that you can work with.
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Because without like the internet is always described as a place without kind of borders, right?
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You can try and regulate it with state law, but because of how it connects people across jurisdictions, you know, it is kind of kind of like an international space.
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So you were basically referring about net delusion and that it's so important that we speak up against monopolization and have a groundwork that we can rely on and that we can like build up on to have a free internet to have a free society.
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Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, thank you for helping me again with my thoughts.
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My brain sometimes goes off into tangents that I can't get back.
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So thank you for me.
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All right.
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So since we're already late time of the groundwork by V as FSFE obviously, but also personally believe that this is such an important step.
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What has happened when the cut of the funding for this next generation internet initiative was announced in 2024?
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And yeah, what has happened since then and how was the FSFE's work affected by this?
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Well, so in the short term, it wasn't affected too much because like the the funding cut was not an overnight thing. It wasn't announced as an overnight thing, right?
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It's when the when it was announced, we were involved in, I think, four sub-initiative projects at the same time that had various ending dates.
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So the funding for each of these projects were sort of guaranteed all the way until about mid-2027.
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So for us, it wasn't like, oh my god, overnight, you know, we had all this money pulled in the short term.
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In the long term, however, you know, we have been doing this kind of foundational work for the next generation internet since 2018.
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And we were expecting to be able to continue to lay this foundational work to support all these technologies in Europe for quite a long time.
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And so it was surprising in the sense it meant that okay, we kind of have two or three years to find alternatives for funding for all these projects and to find an alternative way to support all these European Free Software projects.
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That was the immediate kind of concern that we had.
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The other kind of what I'm about to say is all speculative because this is kind of what we or what I personally read between the lines when the funding was cut that concerned me.
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And that was that it seemed as though the budget was being restructured in order to support different types of technology.
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And one of them was basically LLM and generative AI technologies that it seemed to me that you wanted to support at the time.
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And that was why they were moving budgets around.
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And that was why maybe they felt that, you know, having a big budget or having this this this budget supporting, so to speak, non sexy work like just basic Free Software support.
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And they wanted to move this in favor of the more up and coming the sexier kind of technologies like LLMs and generative AI.
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And it felt to me as though it was more of like jumping on trends rather than, you know, doing important foundational work that needed to be done.
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And so that was disappointing for me. I again, I said that was that that speculative it could be that I'm misreading the reasoning for these budgetary cuts or these these budgetary shifts.
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But it certainly felt that way from the conversations that I've had within my circle that that was why the EU kind of pivoted away from that.
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However, of course that that was still before the 24 US elections before all the shift in geopolitics.
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So it it there was then another swing back of like, oh, yeah, we need to support digital sovereignty after that, which I also found frustrating to see this swing in perspectives over the course of 12 months.
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What is the current status of the program and what has changed?
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Status in terms of like funding or yeah, like where is it heading after 2027.
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So is there anything any like perspective that will continue or will just stop?
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So there is a separate kind of funding framework.
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NGI was funded under Horizon Europe.
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And we have found another funding framework within the European Commission called the Open Internet Stack.
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And the good news is that since the announcement of the funding cut to NGI, we have managed to seek and secure a different funding initiative under the Open Internet Stack that was approved just this February in 2026.
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And so FSFE, we will continue the kind of cascade funding work and support work that we have been involved with NGI with this new project, which is called ReStack that is funded under this new funding framework called Open Internet Stack.
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So yeah, while the the next generation Internet program, you know, unfortunately will not continue, the essential work that it's being done is we've managed to with our consultant partners, we've managed to be able to replicate the kind of work that we are being that that we have been doing in another project called ReStack under the Open Internet Stack.
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So that's the good news to arise out of 2026 for us. We have found an alternative funding framework where we can continue the work under a different name.
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The unfortunate part of that is that the overall funding under this ReStack project and under the Open Internet Stack is reduced is less than what was on offer under the next generation Internet.
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So it is a smaller project, it is smaller funding and yeah.
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So there will be less projects that receive funding or the funding for the projects will be like even less than it currently.
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So we haven't actually we haven't actually started work on this. So a lot of the agreements and a lot of the structural documentation is still currently being drafted.
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Like I said, it was only approved in February this year, so it will take some time before it gets off the ground.
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So I don't have concrete answers to those questions regarding numbers, but my feeling is that at the moment that yes, it will be smaller.
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There will be less projects helped and yeah.
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But in general, it sounds like it's a better fit than the horizon program because horizon is more about research and university.
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And this sounds more like fundamental work, like a foundation for all of our experience out there.
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I mean, sure, yes, but I also like to think of it in terms of practical effects.
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And like I think it's inescapable like that funding that you know monetary resources are essential, you know, to have the kind of practical reach and practical effects in supporting pre software technologies.
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And with the reduced funding, I think practically, you know, we could I feel like we could have achieved more with sustained with a sustained amount of funding under NGI.
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If it would have, you know, been able to get the sustain to the 2030s, for example.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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Since we're talking about NGI and the outline, it will be ending.
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It's still possible for Free Software developers to apply for NGI funding.
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Yes, absolutely.
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I will give you some links.
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I don't know where whether you can include them somewhere.
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I will include them in the show notes.
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Okay, excellent.
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Our consortium partner who coordinates our consortium, our consortium leader, you could call them.
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It's the NLNet foundation.
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They're based in the Netherlands.
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And they have kind of running call for participations every two months.
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So if you go to their website, you will be able to see the links for which you can submit your project for approval or, yeah, submit an application for funding.
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And, yeah, what they do is they take a look at your project.
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And they approve you for a fixed amount of funding and for a fixed time frame under which you receive your technical assistance.
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If your application is successful.
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Perfect.
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Thank you very much, Gabriel.
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Do you have anything to add to or talk about NGI?
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Yeah, I guess like, yeah, the world is a disappointing place quite often.
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But there's a very popular quote by Mr. Rogers that goes around a lot of internet spaces.
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And as used by the chronicly online that I always think of that I find very useful.
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And Mr. Rogers always says like when there's a disaster, you know, look for the people who are helping.
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And I find that a very comforting kind of perspective to have because like, I mean, we're talking specifically in this podcast about the like the digital sphere, right?
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And being a part of the Free Software movement, you know, you're constantly surrounded by helpers in the digital space.
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Like, I feel like people involved in Free Software and involved in activism in this area.
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You know, they're helpers. They want to do better for everybody.
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They want to leave the world a better place than they found it, even if it's just, you know, in the digital world.
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And that's, that in itself is pretty powerful, I think.
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You know, it's to want to help, to want to support other people who have some kind of social,
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feeling of social responsibility to others, I think is always a good thing.
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And that's why I find the Free Software movement.
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That's why I find the next generation internet initiative.
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That's why I find, you know, all the work that we and the Free Software community is doing so powerful and such a such a good thing.
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I like the idea of stepping up together and of just that others are there.
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If you need help and ask around, look around and there will be others who help.
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Yeah, exactly.
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Very nice view on society, by the way.
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Thank you.
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All right, Gabriel.
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It's from Mr. Rogers. Mr. Rogers is one of the best people to have ever walked the planet, so.
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Okay. I have a link.
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I have a link to Wikipedia from Fred Rogers.
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And yeah, so that all of you, our dear listeners, can also discover this awesome person.
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And yeah, Gabriel, I will let you go. Thank you so much for being here.
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Thank you so much for talking with me.
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Thank you for having me.
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Yes. Bye bye.
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Thank you.
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This was the software freedom podcast.
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Stay tuned for more inspiring conversations that explore the importance of software freedom and its impact on our digital lives.
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Thank you. Bye bye.
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