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Sovereign Tech Fund invests over €1 million in KDE software development (kde.org)
submitted 3 months ago by to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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The investment will be used to strengthen the structural reliability and security of KDE's core infrastructure, including Plasma, KDE Linux, and the frameworks underlying its communication services.

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[–] 107 points 3 months ago

Because it wasn't obvious to me from the article, and I was trying to figure out whose sovereign tech fund it is:

The Sovereign Tech Agency is financed by the German Federal Ministry for Digital Transformation and Government Modernisation and is a subsidiary of SPRIND, the Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovation.

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    [–] 70 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    As much as I love Valve, I am actually grateful that such a huge money income is not coming from a company. So there are no need to "please" them. This is very important to stay independent.

    As a non-profit, KDE has no shareholders to serve, no quarterly earnings to grow. KDE charges nothing for its software or its licensing. There are no subscriptions, no spying on users, no disclosure or resale of data that users choose to voluntarily share with KDE, and no secret training of AI models with said data.

    I want to focus on the part of shareholders here. This is extremely important in todays world, because shareholders dictate what to do and they don't need to please them to grow for their survival (instead for the needs of the community and its users). So there are no short term decisions involved, its a long term community project for community.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    I tend to agree that company backed projects go to shit after the shareholders get involved, but while there is nothing stopping Valve from doing an IPO in the future, they are currently a privately held company. This means they have no irrational share holders to appease. I surmize that this is the main reason why the Valve does nothing and wins meme exists because unlike most other corporations, Valve has the luxury of doing nothing.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Yes, that is from Valves perspective. But my argumentation was from KDE's perspective. In my points above I talked about two issues, one about the shareholders of KDE and the other of Valve not funding the project. It is important to make the distinction. While Valve has no shareholders and if they would invest huge funds to KDE, this could create a huge dependency towards Valve, even if it is not formally. Something similar to a position of Firefox depending on the funds of Google in example.

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    • [–] 25 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Thats 1,6 times the money that my uni wastes on zoom yearly!

    (But no this is really cool)

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    • [–] 20 points 3 months ago

    This is wonderful news

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    [–] 14 points 3 months ago

    The Year of Linux KDesktop.

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    [–] 5 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    While this is great, aren't wealth funds required to get a return on investment? How does that work here?

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  • [–] 32 points 3 months ago* (1 child)

    since it's a state fund, return on investment isn't necessarily just money back. more jobs means more tax payers. better reputation means stronger currency. less dependence on foreign actors means lower import costs.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 months ago

    Right, like what's the ROI of a million computers switching from US-based for-profit Windows to Linux?

    Funding open tools/tech/research is exactly the sort of thing that governments are best equipped to do, relative to private sector/individuals. Millions of dollars is a rounding error relative to government licensing costs to proprietary software alone, even ignoring the downstream benefits for the rest of the economy. And if we had lots of money in open software, it would attract a lot more talent to make it even better for the rest of us.

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  • [–] 11 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Who's talking about wealth funds?

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  • [–] 6 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Sorry, my bad. So these people are software funding agencies?

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  • [–] 11 points 3 months ago

    With the Sovereign Tech Fund, we invest globally in the open software components that underpin Germany's and Europe's competitiveness and ability to innovate. By targeting core digital infrastructure, our investments scale across many sectors and benefit a broad range of users. Improving the security, stability, and reusability of open software components directly enhances the productivity, competitive edge, and capacity for innovation of startups and small and medium-sized businesses.

    - https://www.sovereign.tech/programs/fund

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