cross-posted from: https://lemmy.abnormalbeings.space/post/952648
TEXT VERSION: https://thelibre.news/trump-cuts-funding-to-foss-projects/
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.
Until Trump ignores court orders and cuts funding anyway.
Supreme Court will probably rule that while congress has the power of the purse, the president has the power of canceling the credit cards in the wallet, because fuck you that’s why
Well, this is what the relevant part of the video says:
USAGM disbursed $7.5M to these entities, in “what seemed to be an effort to delay the hearing or woo the judge”. Regardless, the latter has sided against USAGM, and just a few days ago, the agency has decided to back off and release the funds for the 2025 fiscal year.
Urgh this is so backwards.
Governments need to fund more FOSS not less!
Hopefully the EU can increase its support to compensate.
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.
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
Yeah… Because China is big into encryption
They are in order to get away from American products
I thought the EU was reducing funding to FOSS projects and investing more into AI. I could’ve sworn I read that somewhere last year.
Edit: https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/17/foss_funding_vanishes_from_eus/
I think it was this event that I read.
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.
Freedom isn’t free as in beer?
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.
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.
Yep. All the funding they’ve already put into it will stay put. You can’t uncode FOSS.
Lets encrypt could run a patreon and stay funded. Plenty of people with money depend on them.
I really appreciate that there’s a text version for those of us who can’t or won’t use videos! Thank you so much for sharing it, too. 💙
FLOSS projects can only be sustainable if their are enough shared interests able to support it through contributions of all kinds. Fortunately the code is free so that constellation of support can change over time. It’s a shame this particular line of government funding is coming to an end but others can help.
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
Oh course not. They stop people spying on you.
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.
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
@thingsiplay It does, if it turns into dependence. Look at Mozilla.
Mozilla was not controlled by Google.
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.
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.
You can also take an intermediate approach, actually. Usually I can tell from just the developer docs or whitepapers if something has a way of producing the guarantees it claims.
Showing my ignorance here, but would genuinely like an explanation - aren’t/weren’t compromised exit nodes a thing?
No system can be proven to have no exploits, but a backdoor is when there is a hidden prepared exploit planted on the inside (in this case presumably because they were funded by the government they assume they would get this in return, even though if that was the case they would do a crypto transaction and not openly fund them)
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.”
but that wasn’t his last reply
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.
Yeah the government has an institutional thing I forget what it is called, with massive amount of known exploits. That’s not backdoors. A backdoor is a “planted” exploit, not a discovered exploit. It makes no sense to call all exploits backdoors.
Okay buddy keep it going as long as you need to. You might enjoy Reddit more, it’s a safe space for people who cannot change their opinions. Bye.
Why? I am trying to understand what you mean so I can change my opinion. I’m not changing it because you are fuming and escalating the aggression, in fact, that has the exact opposite effect
