cross-posted from: https://lemmy.abnormalbeings.space/post/952648
TEXT VERSION: https://thelibre.news/trump-cuts-funding-to-foss-projects/
That would be good for government to cut funding. Users should give away their own cash to support the projects.
Funders of any project can influence decisions, but users giving from their own personal money can keep open source software free from any influences.
But sadly in reality it means these projects will most likely go underfunded
EFF should GTFOutta US and set up shop in a safer region.
So I guess funds were cut, but then the courts ruled the president doesn’t have authority to do this himself since the funds were allocated by congress, and so as of now they have been restored, although congress needs to approve them every year and there’s concern they might not do so for next year.
While it sucks that FOSS projects will have their funding sapped, let’s remember why the open source model is used in the first place: it can’t be bought. If it goes down, someone will just fork the last known repository and have it up and running again.
Imagine trying to explain FOSS to this fucking administration.
If it’s free, then why are we paying for it?
I see what you did there… but freedom costs $1.05.
I can hear ypu americanness from behind the screen darling.
Free means freedom not “no payments” it takes huge money to develop and maintain software and infrastructures like these. So they need funding to survive.
Sorry, I was writing that in Trump’s voice. I am an American who loves and contributes to open-source :)
Plenty of people who (I assume) are smarter than Trump don’t understand that FOSS refers to freedom, not price. It’s not a very good term and I don’t like how widely used it is now.
Sarcasm…
Why was the US funding FOSS projects? That strikes me as weird, inappropriate and suspicious.
I didn’t know that the government was funding these things to begin with, but I don’t know many things.
I also didn’t know this, but really we should all be putting money behind FOSS (myself included). We don’t need billionaires.
Because foss projects like tor are regularly used by the agencies. It’s little money for a lot of work they don’t need to do.
Urgh this is so backwards.
Governments need to fund more FOSS not less!
Hopefully the EU can increase its support to compensate.
Or China! Open source is basically digital communism so maybe they’ll step in and support it like they did with the World Health Organization
A great opportunity for China to get into open source
They open sourced deepseek and the US government banned it 😭😭 even universities are barred from using it
Funny reading westoid commenters here bashing China for being “authoritarian” when it literally open sourced a groundbreaking innovation a month ago. Washingtobot crackers
Why does that exclude the Chinese government from being authoritarian?
China is authoritarian just like every other state in the world. Except that it’s also a whole-process people’s democracy unlike the W🤮st
> just like every other state in the world
Really? Let’s talk about Tiananmen Square. Or how about Uyghurs. Let’s use a picture of Winnie the Pooh. Is it really “just like” every other state? I’d say it’s a little bit above the average. People’s democracy my ass. Just because trump turned USA authoritarian didn’t make China less authoritarian.
Let’s talk about Tiananmen Square.
- Tank Man (now with more raw footage)
- The Tian’anmen Square ‘Massacre’: The West’s Most Persuasive, Most Pervasive Lie.
- Columbia Journalism Review: The Myth of Tiananmen
- 1989 Tian’anmen Square riots
- A Note on the Tiananmen Protests
- Images from Tiananmen 1989 the West never shows (NSFW / CW: violence and death)
- How psy-ops warriors fooled me about Tiananmen Square: a warning
.
Or how about Uyghurs.
.
Let’s use a picture of Winnie the Pooh.
Not censored. You can buy Pooh-branded toys, watch Pooh Disney films, and ride Pooh-branded amusement park rides. Nobody has a problem with this adorable meme.
People’s democracy my ass.
- Most in China Call Their Nation A Democracy, Most in U.S. Say America Isn’t
- Long-term survey reveals Chinese government satisfaction
- Helping 800 Million People Escape Poverty Was Greatest Such Effort in History, Says [UN] Secretary-General, on Seventieth Anniversary of China’s Founding
- China’s Energy Use Per Person Surpasses Europe’s for First Time
- At 54, China’s average retirement age is too low
- China overtakes U.S. for healthy lifespan: WHO data
.
If you want to talk about a fake democracy, look no further than the US. Previously:The US government was never not captured by the bourgeoisie, because the US was born of a bourgeois revolution[1]. The wealthy, white, male, land-owning, largely slave-owning Founding Fathers constructed a bourgeois state with “checks and balances” against the “tyranny of the majority”. It was never meant to represent the majority—the working class—and it never has, despite eventually allowing women and non-whites (at least those not disenfranchised by the carceral system) to vote. BBC: [Princeton & Northwestern] Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy
Ok, let’s talk. Trump never really changed anything about “authoritarianism”. Every single state is by nature authoritarian. Where in the West do you see a democracy? Almost all media in the US is controlled by 6 corporations. What kind of democratic process can there be if the only candidates that get mainstream attention are Trump and controlled opposition (Kamala)?
Again, here’s some Chad Lenin:
It is sheer mockery of the working and exploited people to speak of pure democracy, of democracy in general, of equality, freedom and universal rights when the workers and all working people are ill-fed, ill-clad, ruined and worn out, not only as a result of capitalist wage slavery, but as a consequence of four years of predatory war, while the capitalists and profiteers remain in possession of the “property” usurped by them and the “ready-made” apparatus of state power. This is tantamount to trampling on the basic truths of Marxism which has taught the workers: you must take advantage of bourgeois democracy which, compared with feudalism, represents a great historical advance, but not for one minute must you forget the bourgeois character of this “democracy”, it’s historical conditional and limited character. Never share the “superstitious belief” in the “state” and never forget that the state even in the most democratic republic, and not only in a monarchy, is simply a machine for the suppression of one class by another.
Foss is free, and this guy is all about making the American people pay more money to his rich buddies
He’s doing a suck job of it. The things he’s gutting are pennies towards his dark-souled oligarch masters. Cutting small government projects like the NEA, PBS or like FOSS grants is only used as an appeal to fiscal responsibility conservatives that aren’t willing to cut into old-people benefits like Social Security and military sacred cows. Not because gutting tiny projects does anything useful, rather it gives the vibe that representatives are doing something.
This is an appeal to the imbicile MAGA though the tech bros might have specific FOSS projects that compete with their own commercial offerings. Not enough to cut all FOSS grants, though.
In essence he’s trying to bankrupt the whole country so he and his circle can buy it all up. He’s trying to do the same thing that was done in Russia when the ussr collapsed.
Does this government funding really ever result in a hands off approach. In the case of Tor I wouldn’t be surprised that funding comes with backdoor access.
TOR fundamentally cannot be backdoored. The US government funds it because more traffic on the network helps mask the traffic coming from CIA agents and the like
I’m not going to outright disagree with your opinion but I honestly have my doubts.
Go look at the code, then.
Yeah whatever. Sorry you got butthurt.
Look, you either check for yourself, or trust people who have. The only other option amounts to building your own parallel reality.
Let it go buddy.
Backdoor access to what?
The last reply I will make.
From September 19 2024
“In response, the Tor Project acknowledged that one user of an outdated application called Ricochet was likely deanonymized through a “guard discovery attack.” However, they emphasized that this vulnerability has since been patched in current versions of Tor software.”
Excuse me? Are you saying using guard discovery is a backdoor someone gave to the government? I mean, you can think whatever, but the technology isn’t really… backdoorable? It doesn’t make sense in the context. Where will the backdoor lead? It has no where to go.
(I am a different person, not arguing anything about this particular vulnerability or the government’s funding of Tor.)
I think you’re defining backdoor too literally. I get your point, but colloquially it just means to get something nefarious in. If someone is saying “the government has a backdoor in an encryption algorithm” it would mean they believe the government has a vulnerability in that allows them to easily break the encryption, not necessarily a separate “door” or something.
Oh No ! Leopards Ate My Face.
Better off in the long run.
This is not an example of leopards eating someone’s face. Unless those projects threw their support behind Trump’s admin, and I have no reason to believe they did, this is simply falling victim to fascist idiots.
Valid point.
Uhh… these projects are the backbone of the free and modern web. How is less funding a good thing?
Not the one you answered to, but I think I can understand the idea of US funding having been a toxic source of dependency, and it being better in the long run to get money elsewhere. That “elsewhere” is a good question, though.
Just me, personally, my dream would be an international fund, carried by the UN or maybe an independent NGO, that can get funding from both private and public funds, that prioritises free internet access the way the WHO prioritises health. But I think that’s still far off.
No. UN and related independent NGOs have shown their cards. They cannot be trusted. ICANN is the quintessential example of an ossified vulturous bureaucracy laser focused on oligarchic control. And the ITU has designs to rewrite current Internet protocols to have a fee structure built in at the packet level to ensure no packed flow without someone paying money.
We cannot trust the systems we have now. We must focus on diversifying income sources for us to be safe
US funding having been a toxic source of dependency, and it being better in the long run to get money elsewhere.
Yup, pretty much my intent, that and the insecurity it engenders, rather surprised by the reaction.
the reaction makes sense; these organizations are modeled after for-profit corporations since that’s where most of its leaders come from and oriented towards simpler modes of funding like the american gov’t; this is effectively a disaster for this sort of posture and it’s hard from them to imagine any other form.
Isn’t the OTF already an NGO that can receive funding from different sources?
Kind of, I wouldn’t really call them an international organisation in the way I would be imagining, see how easy it was to cut their funding when national interests turned openly fascist. Their affiliation with the US government above more independent, international organisations meant, that they would support privacy and a free and open internet, as long as it helps dissidents in other, non-aligned countries, but quick to cut it, if it reaches their own doorsteps.
Not sure if this is meant here, but shockingly many people believe that “funding” something equals to “controlling” it.
many people believe that “funding” something equals to “controlling” it.
Pretty much the definition of soft power, which an awful lot of politicians believe in.
For a good reason
Not a good thing, just an inevitable one, as they conflict with the interests of the US (oligarchs and techbros).
@MalReynolds Are you saying F-Droid, TOR, Tails or Let’s Encrypt supported Trump? I’d like to read more about that.
How could you read it that way ? I’m saying eventually they were going to conflict with the interests of the US (oligarchs and techbros) and lose funding. Shocker, it happened under cheeto.
@MalReynolds Leopards eating faces implies that they voted for the Leopards. But ok, issue clarified, all good.
Yeah, I have a broader view of the phrase, which includes complacency (not actively working at alternatives) as well as just voting, seems most agree with you.
