During the summer the European Commission made the decision to stop funding Free Software projects within the Next Generation Internet initiative (NGI). This decision results in a loss of €27 million for software freedom. Since 2018, the European Commission has supported the Free Software ecosystem through NGI, that provided funding and technical assistance to Free Software projects. This decision unfortunately exposes a larger issue: that software freedom in the EU needs more stable, long-term financial support. The ease with which this funding was excluded underlines this need.

This talk shows the urgent need for sustainable, long-term financial support for Free Software to ensure Europe’s technological independence.

CC BY-SA 4.0 - SFSCON 2024