We need a European Sovereign Tech Fund (GitHub blog)

GitHub director of developer policy, Felix Reda, has published
a blog post about a GitHub-commissioned study by Open Forum Europe, Fraunhofer ISI and
the European University
Institute. The study finds, not surprisingly, 'a profound
mismatch between the importance of open source maintenance and the
public attention it receives'; it calls for a European sovereign
tech fund (STF) modeled after Germany's Sovereign Tech Agency.

The study proposes two alternative institutional setups for the
EU-STF: either the creation of a centralized EU institution (the
moonshot model), or a consortium of EU member states that provide the
initial funding and apply for additional resources from the EU budget
(the pragmatic model). In both cases, to make the fund a success, the
minimum contribution from the upcoming EU multiannual budget should be
no less than €350 million. This would not be enough to meet the open
source maintenance need, but it could form the basis for leveraging
industry and national government co-financing that would make a
lasting impact.

The European Union is currently starting negotiations for its
2028-2034 budget, the Multiannual
Financial Framework; GitHub and others hope to persuade EU legislators to
include a European STF in that framework.