path: root/posts/2025_03_future_of_ngi_funding.md

authors: GNUtoo
tags: Replicant news, GNUtoo
date: 2025-05-02T00:05:11+00:00
title: Future of NGI funding.
licenses: LAL-1.3 AND (LAL-1.3 OR CC-BY-3.0 OR CC-BY-4.0)
---

Why we applied for NLnet funding
================================

As you probably know already, since several years already, [none of
the smartphones currently supported by
LineageOS](https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/) could easily be
supported in future versions of Replicant without ruinous compromises.

This is because to officially support a device in Replicant, we need it to:

- Have a removable battery if it's a smartphone (users should be able
  to swap batteries while walking), or a replaceable battery if it's a
  Tablet (the tablet might be harder to open than the phone, but the
  battery should still be replaceable at home).

- Have an isolated modem.

- Not require any additional nonfree software either to install
  Replicant or to make Replicant work on the phone.

And while nowadays there are some devices supported by the latest
version of LineageOS, that also support 5G networks, and that have
removable batteries (like the Fairphones or the SHIFT6mq), making sure
that the modem is isolated probably require too much work.

This looks doable in theory as there is some special hardware that is
called IOMMU that can isolate the modem on modern smartphones. However
this IOMMU needs to be configured properly and be active when the
modem is powered on.

Since the configuration is not always easy to do or check, we would
also need to rely on a community with expertise in this area, that is
able to fix issues without relying on the hardware vendors, like the
Linux kernel community. This would mean that the kernel we use would
need to be based on upstream Linux, and as of today, this still
requires more work than we did so far.

In addition, the smartphones currently supported by LineageOS all have
long a list of nonfree software required to work, so the risk that we
end up not finding a way to replace or avoid one of the nonfree
firmware is higher than it was in the past.

So we came up with alternative plans. The first one was to add support
for the Galaxy SIII in upstream Linux since a lot of the work was
already done, people already had it, and that power management could
work since it worked in Replicant 6.0 already.

Retrospectively a lot of work also remained and we didn't manage to
finish it all, and we also failed to predict that the removal of 2G
and 3G networks was going to happen so soon in Europe.

So we subsequently came up with a second plan: add support for the
PinePhone (which supports 4G networks) instead, by reusing GloDroid,
adding modem isolation, fixing usability issues, etc. How this plan
turned out will be addressed in a subsequent blog post.

All these plans required a lot of work, and so funding was the natural
way to be able to do it.

While the Replicant project has some money and in theory can use it to
pay for development, we went to use the NLnet grants instead.

This is because to use Replicant's money we need to structure a bit
better the project and the Replicant steering committee needs to
decide how to spend the money: how do we verify that the work is done,
what kind of work do we fund, etc. All that requires time and
discussions.

What we know about NGI / NLnet
==============================

External funding often have conditions attached, and people or
organizations who fund work typically have their own goals as well.

Since the NLnet conditions were really aligned with the Replicant
project goals (release the work under free license, one time work with
long term effects, upstream / reusability focus, etc) we applied twice
for funding.

This also allowed us to spend Replicant's money on things NLnet would
not be able to pay for (like hiring a manager to help structure the
Replicant project and do things the developers can't do because they
are too busy).

We had first hand experience with how funding from NLnet worked and to
our knowledge the way it worked was really suited to free software,
and we also discussed with people working at NLnet during various
events so we could grasp a bit how it worked from within.

The way the funds were handled also enabled people with very diverse
background to apply and get funded. For instance you didn't need to
setup a company, or even to have a stable home to live in for
applying.

You could also apply for a small project that you do on the side and
still have a regular job, or another occupation, etc. Some people also
managed to get funding from NLnet and with the help of some non-profit
still get a regular salary out of it.

It also didn't discriminate people or projects with different
political opinions and/or projects following these opinions as it
funded sometimes people or projects with conflicting political
opinions as long as the work is strategic for free software.

Once the work is done, NLnet verifies it and you get paid.

So while it didn't work for all cases (that would be difficult to
achieve) the way it worked enabled people that can't use other
existing funds to apply and in practice it managed to fund [a lot of
work](https://nlnet.nl/project/index.html).

This is also because the NLnet grant system was also designed to be
extremely efficient: there was very few administrative overhead (for
everybody involved). This was also made possible by relying on well
established community practices and norms for accountability (the code
is public, people do software releases, etc) and by getting help from
people within the community that had very advanced knowledge on more
specific areas of free software.

Being efficient is also important as this way we can fund more free
software projects.

Origin of some of the funding NLnet manages
===========================================

If you look at the [list of projects being
funded](https://nlnet.nl/project/index.html) mentioned before the
vast majority of them have "NGI" as the fund origin.

This is money that comes from the European Union as part of their
(Framework Programmes for Research and Technological
Development)[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framework_Programmes_for_Research_and_Technological_Development]
program.

Our hypothesis is that funding free software makes sense for the
European Union as in practice it makes alternatives to technological
domination from foreign companies producing nonfree software more
viable. This also develop technological and free software competence
in the European Union which in turn also helps the local economy.

Given the current political context in the United States and the
relationship of its executive government with some of the Tech Giants
that produce nonfree software and/or software as a service substitute,
free software can also be seen as a way to potentially resist pressure
by such alliance by both states and people.

The effect of this funding is also that in practice it increase
people's freedom and autonomy, which also makes it easier to resist
oppressive states.

Since free software does increase transparency, this can be
beneficial to both states and people as it makes states more
accountable and also prevent misinformation on what states actually
do.

We have for instance an example with (COVID Tracing
Applications)[https://fosdem.org/2025/schedule/event/fosdem-2025-4411-lessons-learned-open-sourcing-the-uk-s-covid-tracing-app/]
where people can actually understand what such applications really do,
which in turn helps having an informed debate on what should be or
have been done, and also provide information actionable information
(should I install that application?).

While such funding, if kept, will probably not enable us to remove or
replace all laws that are problematic for software freedom with ones
that guarantee freedom (for instance banning DRMs, also known as
Digital Restrictions Management, would be good, but this is probably
outside of the scope of funding NLnet and people to work on free
software), the fact that states fund socially useful work without too
much strings attached and/or without being counter-productive is
important as it can potentially help generalize this approach which is
beneficial for everybody.

In contrast, going in the opposite direction will probably remove hope
and in practice make the future look really bleak and violent as
states that don't serve their people bring dissent and repression, and
if the repression is too violent, it ends up hurting everybody,
including the very people that are involved in such repression (this
has for instance been shown in the (Truth Commission Special
Report)[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_and_Reconciliation_Commission_(South_Africa)#Media_coverage]).

Replicant signing the Open Letter to the European Commission.
=============================================================

The open letter Replicant has signed was initially published in French
by the [Petites Singularités
association](https://ps.zoethical.org/pub/lettre-publique-aux-ncp-au-sujet-de-ngi/),
which is involved in the organization of the OFFDEM, a free software
event around the FOSDEM.

The letter is under the [Free Art License
1.3](http://artlibre.org/licence/lal/en/) and the rest of the this
blog post is under either (at your choosing), the Free Art License
1.3, the Creative Commons BY 3.0 or the Creative Commons BY 4.0.

If you also want to sign this letter, you need to publish it on your
website in your preferred language, then add yourself to [this
table](https://pad.public.cat/lettre-NCP-NGI).

This is why we also included the letter below.

We found the English translation of the letter on [the blog of the
postmarketOS
project](https://postmarketos.org/blog/2024/07/17/news-on-grant-applications/#the-european-union-must-keep-funding-free-software),
who we also collaborated with as part of our first NLnet grand for our
work on the Galaxy SIII (GT-I9300).

The "The European Union must keep funding free software." letter
================================================================
Open Letter to the European Commission.

Since 2020, Next Generation Internet ([NGI](https://www.ngi.eu/))
programmes, part of European Commission's Horizon programme, fund free
software in Europe using a cascade funding mechanism (see for example
NLnet's [calls](https://www.nlnet.nl/commonsfund)). This year,
according to the Horizon Europe working draft detailing funding
programmes for 2025, we notice that Next Generation Internet is not
mentioned any more as part of Cluster 4.

NGI programmes have shown their strength and importance to supporting
the European software infrastructure, as a generic funding instrument
to fund digital commons and ensure their long-term sustainability. We
find this transformation incomprehensible, moreover when NGI has
proven efficient and economical to support free software as a whole,
from the smallest to the most established initiatives. This ecosystem
diversity backs the strength of European technological innovation, and
maintaining the NGI initiative to provide structural support to
software projects 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 North American programming communities, and are mostly
initiated by small-scaled organizations.

Previous 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 organisations managing
these European funding consortia.

NGI contributes to a vast ecosystem, as most of its budget is
allocated to fund third parties by the means of open calls, to
structure 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 allows exchanges and collaborations across all the Euro
zone countries as well as "widening countries" 1, currently both a
success and an ongoing progress, likewise the Erasmus programme before
us. 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 addressing it while acting for peace
and sovereignty in the digital world as a whole.

[1]As defined by Horizon Europe, widening Member States are Bulgaria,
   Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia,
   Lituania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, and
   Slovenia. Widening associated countries (under condition of an
   association agreement) include Albania, Armenia, Bosnia, Feroe
   Islands, Georgia, Kosovo, Moldavia, Montenegro, Morocco, North
   Macedonia, Serbia, Tunisia, Turkeye, and Ukraine. Widening
   overseas regions are Guadeloupe, French Guyana, Martinique,
   Reunion Island, Mayotte, Saint-Martin, The Azores, Madeira, the
   Canary Islands.