We need a European Sovereign Tech Fund (GitHub blog)
GitHub director of developer policy, Felix Reda, has published
a blog post about a GitHub-commissioned https://eu-stf.openforumeurope.org/
and
Institute. The study finds, not surprisingly, "a profound
mismatch between the importance of open source maintenance and the
public attention it receives"; it calls for a European sovereign
tech fund (STF) modeled after Germany's https://www.sovereign.tech/
.
The study proposes two alternative institutional setups for the
EU-STF: either the creation of a centralized EU institution (the
moonshot model), or a consortium of EU member states that provide the
initial funding and apply for additional resources from the EU budget
(the pragmatic model). In both cases, to make the fund a success, the
minimum contribution from the upcoming EU multiannual budget should be
no less than €350 million. This would not be enough to meet the open
source maintenance need, but it could form the basis for leveraging
industry and national government co-financing that would make a
lasting impact.
The European Union is currently starting negotiations for its
2028-2034 budget, the Multiannual
Financial Framework; GitHub and others hope to persuade EU legislators to
include a European STF in that framework.