[HN Gopher] We Fund Public Interest Tech
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We Fund Public Interest Tech
Author : doener
Score : 116 points
Date : 2021-12-25 13:46 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (prototypefund.de)
(TXT) w3m dump (prototypefund.de)
| greatgib wrote:
| Awesome fund. Sad that it is limited to German residents and not
| to all Europeans!
| acqbu wrote:
| That's true, I've just noticed that. I wish there was an EU-
| wide initiative available.
| tomtomistaken wrote:
| Is that even allowed for public funds?
| Xylakant wrote:
| Why would that not be allowed? There's no limitation on
| nationality, the requirement is for residency.
| tomtomistaken wrote:
| > If your company, organisation or institution is
| established in the EU, you have the right to compete for a
| public tender in any EU country.[0]
|
| [0]https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/selling-in-
| eu/public-c...
| Xylakant wrote:
| This is not a tender, so the rules don't apply.
| Generally, tenders would only apply to contracts where
| the government procures a service or good and only from
| certain thresholds on (~ 130 000 EUR for services), see
| further down on the page you linked.
| https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/selling-in-
| eu/public-c...
| tomtomistaken wrote:
| Right, thanks for clearing it up!
| wongarsu wrote:
| There are funds by the EU, like Horizon Europe (which funds
| research and innovative products). Those are obviously open
| to the entire EU.
| jacquesm wrote:
| There is the EIF, of which many of these local funds are
| recipients. Which country are you in?
| mellifluousbox wrote:
| Correct but I believe EIF rarely invests in startups/projects
| directly. I may be wrong but I think they rather invest in VC
| funds which then invest the money.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Precisely, hence my question, I know for most countries
| which funds are the recipients of the EIF funds.
| auggierose wrote:
| > The project teams will receive up to EUR47,500 over six months
|
| What a nice round number.
| hansel_der wrote:
| aka 95k a year, which is just short of the magic six-figures i
| guess for political reasons.
| DarylZero wrote:
| Most of these kinds of funds aren't enough to be a salary at
| all, intended as social validation tokens for people who
| don't even need money.
| Xylakant wrote:
| This works out to just shy of 8000 EUR per month, enough to
| fund two people on an acceptable salary for that time.
| Folks with a sufficiently high profile could earn more on
| the open market, but you can live of that in most regions
| of germany.
| csdummi wrote:
| guerby wrote:
| - French not for profit Framasoft (peertube & others)
| https://framasoft.org/fr/ EN version https://framasoft.org/en/
| axlpr wrote:
| See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29682645, which
| discusses another German fund that is apparently organized by
| largely the same group of people.
|
| That submission has been sinking (due to critical comments?).
| ignoramous wrote:
| See also:
|
| - The Open Tech Fund (US): https://opentech.fund/
|
| - FOSS Host (UK): https://fosshost.org/
|
| - The NL Net Foundation (EU): https://nlnet.nl/
|
| - The Calyx Institute (US):
| https://calyxinstitute.org/projects/microgrants-and-small-pr...
|
| More:
|
| https://github.com/nayafia/microgrants
|
| https://github.com/ralphtheninja/open-funding
| DarylZero wrote:
| Wish they would fund projects that already exist and that have
| years of unpaid effort already delivered. Instead they fund a
| bunch of prototypes that will probably go nowhere.
| Xylakant wrote:
| That's the entire point of the prototype fund - there's another
| technology fund that funds basic open source and
| infrastructure.
| ctrayx wrote:
| The issue is not one of linguistic subtleties, but whether
| the government should fund boondoggles at all. While
| probably, at least judging by the pictures of the funded
| projects, engaging in age discrimination.
| Xylakant wrote:
| > The issue is not one of linguistic subtleties, but
| whether the government should fund boondoggles at all.
|
| Most early tech and prototypes are considered "boondoggles"
| at first. Some of them are. Some of them not. Some of them
| may seem so to you, but I can tell that I have used at
| least a handful of the projects on the list and have
| personally supported at least one (without knowing that
| they're prototype fund funded, or maybe they were not yet,
| doesn't matter). And whether the government should have a
| hand in funding public good software projects - who else
| should?
|
| > While probably, at least judging by the pictures of the
| funded projects, engaging in age discrimination.
|
| The age selection could also be just a natural consequence
| of how the fund is set up. The funding is capped at less
| than 50 000 EUR, which is a sum that's less interesting to
| older people since they're more likely to have something
| close to that in the bank. Applying isn't free - it costs
| effort, so if you can fund without, it's attractive to do
| so. Just alleging age discrimination without a shred of
| proof isn't really reflecting good on your arguments.
| hinkley wrote:
| That may be more in the model of prizes, such as the Ansari or
| Ashden awards.
|
| We need more of those too.
| mellifluousbox wrote:
| That's factually incorrect. Mastodon was funded by Prototype
| Fund this year to develop new features. Mastodon was released
| in 2016 and has more than 26k GitHub stars, so is quite clearly
| way beyond being a prototype.
| riffic wrote:
| Mastodon's an amazing project, but there are many others that
| exist in the space and are interoperable to some degree.
| gumby wrote:
| Surprise the web site is available in English.
| [deleted]
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(page generated 2021-12-25 23:00 UTC)