I think a lot of discussion is missing the point of open source...

That's just not how FOSS works. That's how corporations work. Some FOSS projects will undoubtedly gain extra funding this way, sure, but the majority of FOSS contributors and maintainers don't want to make their hobby projects their full time jobs, and they often aren't qualified to do so either because they're not trained to create secure, maintainable code, and/or they're not trained how to manage the burden of dealing with the requirements of public or private external funding. Or if they are, they're happy with their day job and its benefits and don't want to lose them.

If the EC wants to nurture an open collaborative environment, then they need to understand it's not just about money. They have to actually create an *open* as in freedom of research and collaborative environment rather than trying to control the spread and use of technologies like encryption and DRM-busting tools, research into existing software security and operations, oppressive copyright and patent maximalism, and other barriers to collaboration that merely favor corporate monopolies. They need laws that protect reverse engineering, the sharing of discoveries in security research, protect the rights of individuals and companies that publish PoCs, bypass harmful bad faith software locks even if they're from European corporations (like that train situation couple years back), or security scanners designed to facilitate improving security (like Metasploit), take measures guard the human rights of individuals traveling to freely express their findings and hosting more conferences in the EC zone like 3C. Policy is even more important than money in this case. Protecting the powerless from the powerful goes a long way in facilitating a true grass roots FOSS community, not just astroturfing from primarily corporate controlled theoretical open source.

In some ways, the EC zone needs to become the opposite of what the US is currently becoming and fully champion the human right to collaborate, learn, and share their learnings (and materials) whether or not it challenges the political agendas of its member country's politicians.

It pains me to say that as a US citizen, but *someone* has to stand up for truth in a global environment where the light of reason and recognition of fact appears to be growing dim because it sure isn't the US right now, if it ever was (I've never believed in any kind of exceptionalism, American or European).