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Formally, it seems to me that the political effectiveness of an open letter depends primarily on two factors: 1. the level of public responsibility, particularly media-related, of the concerned decision-makers, and 2. the exceptional nature of the situation, meaning its severity combined with a lack of other types of possible political actions. In this case, I feel that, on one hand, the decision-makers are mainly technical experts who are not well known to the general public and receive little media attention; and on the other hand, there was a period of public consultation open to all two months ago, which seems adequate as a means of political action.
Therefore, it seems to me that this letter reopens a debate that has already been addressed, expressing widespread dissatisfaction with a provisional decision that has not yet been formalized. This could potentially weaken the impact of open letters in general.
Regarding substance, our society appears to be moving towards increased centralization of policies, regulations, and funding. This centralization requires more accountability and transparency. Perhaps NGI faces difficulties justifying these funds while supporting independent individuals. In particular, the EU expects investments to produce impacts at a European scale with real and significant adoption. It might be interesting to have a dashboard of key performance indicators (KPI) to demonstrate growth and usage of NGI projects.
On the other hand, it must be noted that adoption remains low within the community. The graph on funding is explicit: two-thirds of projects are again funded by NGI. This may indicate a lack of community buy-in. However, the goal of this European funding is to demonstrate an ability not to rely exclusively on this funding and to generate profitable activity. This confirms my impression that the tech community continues to focus on developing new solutions independently while perhaps forgetting that this community funding should generate real and useful usage. Shouldn't we prioritize usage in our objectives? The report clearly states that new technologies must compete with existing usages. We need to find other solutions—perhaps non-technological ones.
In conclusion, I suggest that the most constructive response to this potential reduction in funding would be to acknowledge that NGI faces competition from other initiatives for similar funding sources. It would then be wise to evaluate our approaches and propose new measures in order to meet expectations. An open letter protesting sends a contrary message against a willingness for adaptation and collaboration. What should we learn from this situation?
In the draft budget for 2025 (source of the open letter), it is not specified who will be funded (neither NGI nor anyone else) nor what amount will be allocated. Only global envelopes and project-specific amounts are mentioned. NGI can submit an application for funding as presented in this document; the criteria seem perfectly aligned.
These funds are generally quite versatile: they are not solely intended for financing open source projects. Each project can be eligible if it partially meets certain criteria; open source being one such criterion but not the only one. Therefore, competition is open for any project aiming at "steering internet evolution towards an open and interoperable system".
I do not quite understand what elements from project 2025 form the basis for this open letter; however, if we assume there is indeed a decrease in NGI funding (although it is not specified), then by examining other documents we can question potential reasons behind its weakening compared to competing projects.
I am unfamiliar with other competing projects but it seems that the EU wishes to favor investments in businesses or consortia with well-defined scaling prospects.
On the NGI website, it states:
The EC announced renewed EU funding for NGI under Horizon Europe.
I interpret this as meaning that NGI must now submit applications for Horizon Europe’s funding programs in competition with other projects.
In the draft document, NGI is not mentioned at all nor any other initiative or project either; only objectives and funding criteria are presented there. Why would NGI be singled out as specifically mentioned among research initiatives (RIA)? Moreover, NGI does appear prominently in the 2025-2027 strategy.
Regarding open source, this term appears six times throughout four different research initiatives within this document; while it's always possible to question distribution methods here too rejecting everything outright simply because "it's not enough" seems whimsical given concrete elements available.
There exists an AI fantasy but one can easily understand why political representatives cannot ignore global hype surrounding it; from their perspective following hype might seem preferable even at risk things could flop eventually—but considering recent advancements one might still expect noteworthy innovations ahead.
We clearly live in a world favoring transactional commodification across everything—going against current trends inevitably poses challenges; it's ultimately personal choice—and complaining about such choices amounts essentially refusing accountability over them altogether! I also think we should perhaps reflect deeper upon our understanding surrounding open-source models—for instance claiming openly sourced materials represent common goods often misleads since many cases lack collective governance structures leaving no beneficiaries aside from creators themselves involved therein! It could prove beneficial leveraging rise cooperative enterprises (SCICs) emerging France establishing frameworks fostering common goods through collegial governance participatory financing larger-scale grants possibly linking economic models consumption services!
We can propose projects meeting their criteria better than theirs provided we're able generate actual usage!