Foreward

Igalia would like to co-sign the joint statement below, originally published by petites singularités and translated as well as we could, to express support for European Union funding for free and open source software. The support of the EU through NLnet and the Next Generation Internet programs has enabled Igalia to build out the commons in the interest of everyone, not just when those interests coincide with those of Silicon Valley. Igalia projects with EU funding include the Servo browser engine, the Wolvic XR web browser, browser alternatives on Android, and even fundamental research into automatic memory management and layer-7 firewalls. We hope that in future the EU continues to show forward-thinking support for fundamental free and open source software engineering, as they have up to now through the NGI Zero funds.

An Open Letter to the European Commission

Since 2020, Next Generation Internet (NGI) programs, part of European Commission’s Horizon program, have funded free software in Europe using a cascade funding mechanism (see for example NGI0 Commons Fund). This year, according to the Horizon Europe working draft detailing funding programs for 2025, we notice that Next Generation Internet is no longer mentioned as part of Cluster 4 (Digital, Industry and Space).

NGI programs have shown their strength and importance in supporting European software infrastructure, and as a generic funding instrument to fund digital commons and ensure their long-term sustainability. We find this transformation incomprehensible. NGI has proven efficient and economical to support free software as a whole, from the smallest to the most established initiatives. This kind of ecosystem diversity establishes the strength of European technological innovation. Maintaining the NGI initiative in order to provide structural support to software projects which are at the heart of worldwide innovation is key to enforce the sovereignty of a European infrastructure.

Contrary to common perception, technical innovations often originate from European rather than simply North American programming communities, and are mostly initiated by small-scaled organizations.

Previously, Cluster 4 allocated 27 million euros to:

• “Human centric Internet aligned with values and principles commonly shared in Europe” ;
• “A flourishing internet, based on common building blocks created within NGI, that enables better control of our digital life” ;
• “A structured ecosystem of talented contributors driving the creation of new internet commons and the evolution of existing internet commons”.

In the name of these challenges, more than 500 projects received NGI funding in the first 5 years, backed by 18 organizations managing these European funding consortia.

NGI contributes to a vast ecosystem. Most of its budget is allocated to fund third parties by the means of open calls. These provide structure to commons that cover the whole Internet scope - from hardware to application, operating systems, digital identities or data traffic supervision. This third-party funding is not renewed in the current program, leaving many projects short on resources for research and innovation in Europe.

Moreover, NGI facilitates exchanges and collaborations across all Eurozone countries, as well as “widening countries” ¹. It is a successful initiative, similar to the Erasmus program that preceded it, which is still progressing. NGI also contributes to opening and supporting longer relationships than strict project funding does. It encourages implementing projects funded as pilots, backing collaboration, identification and reuse of common elements across projects, interoperability in identification systems and beyond, and setting up development models that mix diverse scales and types of European funding schemes.

While the USA, China or Russia deploy huge public and private resources to develop software and infrastructure that massively capture private consumer data, the EU can’t afford this renunciation.

Free and open source software, as supported by NGI since 2020 is, by design, the opposite of potential vectors for foreign interference. It lets us keep our data local and favors a community-wide economy and know-how, while allowing an international collaboration.

This is all the more essential in the current geopolitical context: The challenge of technological sovereignty is central, and free software allows us to address it while acting for peace and sovereignty in the digital world as a whole.

In this perspective, we urge you to preserve the NGI program as part of the 2025 funding program.