Open Technology Fund in jeopardy

[Pearlple]

The OTF is being run by the US Agency for Global Media, said agency has just been incapacitated as they lost virtually all funding.

Among others the OTF provides funding for:

• OpenVPN
• Let's Encrypt
• Tor
• Quad9-DNS
• F-Droid
• Mailvelope (OpenPGP encryption for Webmail)
• Tails (portable OS with censorship/surveillance protection)

It remains to be seen for how long they can keep up support and crucially keep up security updates. Let's hope this is only temporary and someone notices that the little funding they get might be worth it. Or have some other funding source step in. Sadly the EUs FOSS isn't looking much better, having lost to the AI and crypto hype.

[DedRoll]

Fuck AI and crypto!

Why are they stop funding something useful instead they're funding something practically useless

[Crazyroostereye]

Why are they stop funding something useful instead they're funding something practically useless

The Simple Answer is Hype. The longer one is EU / US Competitiveness. It is not a secret that EU struggles with Tech. That's why these Funds like the EU Fund are so big in Europe. The only way we are Competitive is by working and Funding tech Company's and Projects. The Issue is a "New" Technology Appeared out of nowhere. Turned many things on its head. And Europe didn't even have a single business that was in any way Competitive. So with the New EU Government we set out on Funding Spree for AI, using the EU fund. Reducing in turn the Funding for FOSS Projects.

But dont dismay there are still many other Funds for Example Germany's Sovereign Tech Fund which Funds many Projects and supports them.

Addendum:
Furthermore the EU Fund is funding mostly AI related stuff, but that does not mean necessarily that they stopped funding FOSS Projects. They do Fund many Machine Learning and other vital FOSS Tools for the Development of "AI". While we love to hate "AI" there is an argument to be made for the Benefits of certain Machine Learning Systems in Healthcare and Safety.
Still sucks that the Focus shifted away from Projects that were more useful then the ones currently being Funded.