This is the opportunity to write a wish list

Posted Jan 9, 2026 9:43 UTC (Fri) by joib (subscriber, #8541)
In reply to: This is the opportunity to write a wish list by alx.manpages
Parent article: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

> I'll quote exactly what $SOMEFAANG said to me when they offered funding for the Linux man-pages project a couple of years ago (after <https://lwn.net/Articles/989215/>):

> "I just saw your announcement on LWN. How much would you need to continue the work you've been doing?"

> Just as simple as it looks.

> This is *exactly* what I think should be done. If you (in this case EU) depend on a project, go to its maintainers, and ask them what they need to continue doing what they do.

I mean, ideally yes, and I'm happy it worked out this way for you. But that's not generally how the public sector, or the EU in particular, works. If you boycott their way of giving out money, they will just give the money to somebody that plays by their rules. Which might, or then might not, be particularly helpful to the FOSS cause.

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This is the opportunity to write a wish list

Posted Jan 9, 2026 11:07 UTC (Fri) by alx.manpages (subscriber, #145117) [Link]

> I mean, ideally yes, and I'm happy it worked out this way for you.

Thanks! :-)

> But that's not generally how the public sector, or the EU in particular, works.

> If you boycott their way of giving out money,

I'm not saying I'll boycott their way of giving out money. I'll indeed write to them and provide my point of view. Hopefully, they'll take it into account. I believe they can learn. I was stating that I don't like how NLNET is acting, but the EU might be better; we don't know yet.

> they will just give the money to somebody that plays by their rules.

However, if they ignore me, I certainly won't play by their rules. At that point, it's up to them to evaluate if what they do will benefit them or not. After all, they're the interested client looking for a provider.

> Which might, or then might not, be particularly helpful to the FOSS cause.

I believe FOSS is in a strong position. Just imagine if a non-negligible amount of maintainers decided to stop doing volunteer work for a year. The world would certainly notice.