A new Trump term makes European funding of free alternatives even more important
Free software allows users to run, study, modify and distribute a program as they wish. Today's internet is dominated by a handful of giant companies whose platforms operate as closed gardens.
We are only too familiar with the results of this: online business models that rely on the mass harvesting and exploitation of user data; users being vulnerable to the whims of the owners of the online services they use every day, without being able to easily transfer their account data elsewhere.
Free alternatives to the big platforms offer one means of escape from this. Many security-conscious applications that prioritise user privacy, or anonymity are free and open source, allowing anyone to examine their source code. The encrypted messenger Signal is free and open source, as is the anonymous messenger Ricochet Refresh that we develop at Blueprint.
In the past few months, we have seen many social network users move to alternative services, including Bluesky and fediverse apps like Mastodon. These promise increased user control and decentralisation.
In 2018 five years after the Snowden disclosures, the EU accepted a challenge to support an independent, free, interoperable internet in Europe by funding software projects, including those that are part of the basic online infrastructure that users barely notice. From that time on, nearly 1000 projects have been funded by NLNet, including videoconferencing, open social media - including Mastodon - and productivity tools like LibreOffice.
In summer 2024, there were rumours that this relatively small, but critical source of funding would not be renewed. Many people signed open letters and posted on social media. As yet there is no news about the future of the programme, though if it happens, it probably won't be called Next Generation Internet.
"Europe needs to steer its way out of the funnel leveraging its wallet, brains and ethical compass," said NGLNet's Michiel Lenaars at this year's FOSDEM, the biggest gathering for Europe's free software communities.
Noting that the End of Life date (ie the point at which software no longer receives updates) for Windows 10 and 11 is October 2025, Lenaars questioned whether European organisations should be looking for free and open alternatives. Given the new Trump Administration's attitude towards data privacy should public authorities and companies in Europe be more wary of becoming dependent on US software and online services?
"We can get software as a service but we can't get freedom as a service."
Blueprint for Free Speech develops the anonymous messenger Ricochet Refresh and the sofrware library Gosling, both of which have recieved funding from NLNet.