The EU Commission’s vague plans for open source

The EU Commission has been funding open source projects for years. A programme called Next Generation Internet (NGI) is central to this by distributing money quickly and without red tape to promising projects – such as the decentralised microblogging service Mastodon, the video software PeerTube or Jitsi for videoconferencing.

But the Commission has been set on ending funding NGI for some time – despite prolonged criticism. Involved organisations have said that NGI works well and efficiently. Open source also plays a key role in protecting Europe from foreign actors – particularly important in the current geopolitical environment.

The Commission responded that the end of NGI is not meant to be the end of its open source funding. That is set to continue under a new name – initially the “Open Europe Stack”, now the “Open Internet Stack”. Important distinction: In spite of the new name, the programme is only indirectly related to the “EuroStack”.

Buzzword bingo

But what exactly is that supposed to mean? Why does the EU need a new programme at all? What changes will the new name bring? How much money should the new programme have? So far, all these questions go unanswered.

The new programme’s official description refers to a “publicly available and operational stack” focusing on “internet technologies for trust, transactions, connectivity, and decentralisation” and with the aim of creating a  “library of inclusive, trustworthy, interoperable, and human-centric applications and services”.

One of the points is actually new: The programme is set to be linked to a “Connected Collaborative Computing” network, or 3C network for short. This network is an EU Commission dream of an internet relying more heavily on telecommunications providers – one of the few tech sectors in which Europe still has a foothold. This idea is currently still very vague.

Thibault Kleiner, Director at the Commission’s Directorate-General for Communications, spoke more clearly today. “We’re at the stage where we need to move on”, he said at NGI’s annual event in Brussels. The work of NGI has been a big success, but is not resulting in enough business success: “We do the work, but we don’t monetise it.” The new focus, according to him, will be on building software that people will see as a credible alternative to big tech.

Decisions on the horizon

Further details on the Open Internet Stack can be found in an internal document written by a consultant for the Commission. A short version of the document has been published for the NGI event currently taking place in Brussels – we are publishing its full and confidential version.

The most concrete points in the paper concern the future programme’s budget. This is particularly important because Brussels will soon start negotiating the European Union’s next multi-year budget. This will roughly set out what the EU wants to spend money on from 2028 to 2034 – including its support for open source developers.

And how much money would you like?

The paper presents four scenarios for this period: No money at all, as much as before, a little more or twice as much. The author warns that if the Commission stops promoting open source all together, Europe could become even more dependent on non-European software. Experts could leave the continent.

The Commission could also continue the existing NGI funding model – which, according to the author, has so far proven successful. This option would cost the Commission a total of 35 million euros per year. It could also build on what NGI has achieved so far while continuing to reach small organisations with a low-barrier funding model.

As a third option, the document considers an annual budget of 50 million euros to boost Europe’s digital industry. The additional money could be channeled into the education sector or support new companies. Separate budgets should exist for technology that is considered  “critical” for Europe – whatever that means.

The fourth option would amount to up to 70 million euros per year. According to the obviously very optimistic author, this would allow Europe to “set the rules for the digital age”. Europe could become the first region to treat open source maintainers as personnel for critical infrastructure, he says, which could make digital infrastructure more resilient.

Many questions remain open

In terms of budget, the paper is relatively concrete – but apart from that, the plans remain vague. What will the new programme’s name mean for the NLnet Foundation, which distributes open source funding to developers? This is currently causing a few headaches for the Foundation’s employees, as it could potentially mean that it will have to stop its work completely.

Developers are also still asking a lot of questions about what the Open Internet Stack will mean for them. Even the best-known open source projects that have so far benefited from EU support are so far still in the dark.

The difficult topic of procurement

The paper also lists a number of other ideas for the EU’s open source policy. One key problem that open source developers have been pointing out for years is public procurement. They often face major problems selling their products to public authorities because their processes are set up for readily available software packages.

The paper calls on the EU to better align its procurement rules with open source. The personnel responsible for buying software should also be better educated on how open source software works – with the Commission setting a good example.

The proposals might come at just the right time. Yesterday Euractiv reported that the EU Commission is actively negotiating to switch its internal cloud services from Microsoft Azure to the French open source cloud provider OVH Cloud. The EU’s rules for public procurement are also currently being reformed.

Another idea is an EU legal form for open source organisations financed through donations. This legal form should be easy, the paper argues, and therefore accessible to developers. This could contribute to fixing problems faced for example by Mastodon, which was stripped of its charitable status by the German tax authorities.