The reasons for this shift in budget away from funding Free Software and the NGI initiative seems to be an allocation of more funds for AI, leaving internet infrastructure by the wayside.
It's a justification, they know full well it's not some future revolution.
But it's a very good device to hijack discourse and funds.
It seems obvious that people who get to the top are smart, just not in the good way. They know the potential of various technologies. If they don't understand the subjects themselves, they have hundreds of experts willing to lecture them. Even if they pretend to not have understood a word, in fact they do gain knowledge.
As long as public money -> public code, this could potentially be a net positive for stopping predatory AI practices from Microsoft and buddies. Still, taking away funding from other projects could also be catastrophic for everything else.
If there are any French or Germans in particular reading this please share on your numerous native instances: If you are in the EU you need to contact policy makers (as outlined in the article) about this. I'm sorry I can't be with you on this one but Brexit.
The beauty of high level corruption is that local peasants can't do much about it.
Good news is that Germany for example if trying to get away from corpos and use OSS, so at least we know within german government there are people who [see] this issue properly.
Unfortunately your information seems a little outdated. It’s true that Germany did try it for a moment until Microsoft showed up with suitcases of money in the chancellor office so to speak and he announced to essentially move away from open source again.
Though on the federal level, there‘s still some hope. Maybe.
The reasons for this shift in budget away from funding Free Software and the NGI initiative seems to be an allocation of more funds for AI, leaving internet infrastructure by the wayside.
Weren't there recently EU calls for using open source software in government applications due to concerns about proprietary software like Windows in the wake of gestures generally at Windows?
Yes, there are calls to move towards OOS, but as I assume that is it. Only calls. I remember cities moving onto open source and than thanks for lobbyists moving back to proprietary software again.
I remember cities moving onto open source and than thanks for lobbyists moving back to proprietary software again.
What you remember is the news cycle covering the City of Munich switching from Windows to Linux, then another news cycle about how they're moving back to Windows.
What didn't get much coverage though, is that Microsoft did a (suspected under-table) deal with the outgoing government to switch back to Windows if Microsoft built an office in Munich.
What then happened is the new government came in, looked at the situation, and cancelled it (although MS may have built that office always). Right now Munich is still using Linux and still actively rolling it out.
Is it as vague as "funds for AI" or cloud computing capacity to keep up with China and the US? Because we could use that in the EU. But who would be operating it, Universities? MIC?