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1. Embed this notice
   silverpill (silverpill@mitra.social)'s status on Monday, 19-May-2025 20:14:19 JST silverpill

   @b0y They occasionally fund interesting projects, but overall their performance is not good because most of the funded projects don't go anywhere. Sometimes it should be obvious from the start, because the recipient is a noname with zero users, so I suspect corruption. Sometimes they even fund noname competitors to an existing high-quality software.

   • Embed this notice
     silverpill (silverpill@mitra.social)'s status on Monday, 19-May-2025 21:43:23 JST silverpill

     in reply to

     • cjd
     • NGI Zero open source funding

     @cjd @b0y @NGIZero

     >basically everybody else who is doing this type of funding is worse

     Maybe, but it's not an excuse. For example, what is that?

     https://nlnet.nl/project/ActivityPub-CommunityStewardship/

     Besides, I don't think everybody else is worse. Those who do donation matching perform better, although that method also has many problems

   • Embed this notice
     cjd (cjd@pkteerium.xyz)'s status on Monday, 19-May-2025 21:43:25 JST cjd

     in reply to

     • NGI Zero open source funding
     I'm pretty familiar with these guys, and what I can say is their performance is best in class. You can wish it would be better, but basically everybody else who is doing this type of funding is worse.
     
     > the recipient is a noname with zero users, so I suspect corruption
     
     When the financier earmarks funds to a topic but only one person applies who is even arguably a fit, it's very hard to justify rejecting them.
     
     > noname competitors to an existing high-quality software
     
     Usually that's because the no-name competitors apply and the existing high-quality software projects don't. A related aspect is that project reviewers don't want to award funds to anyone who can't clearly specify what they plan to use them for. If someone says "give me money and I'll keep doing what I'm doing", it's risky to fund them because they haven't really agreed to do anything. But new ambitious start-up projects tend to be the ones with grand and detailed plans about how they're going to take over the world, and that allows NLnet to say "okay, when you complete those tasks we'll release the money".
     
     There IS a form of corruption that's endemic to all public financing. It's not like bribing judges or anything so dirty as that, it's just that some people know how to write really high quality project proposals and other people don't. It's just like how great law firms make great lawyers who make great law firms, and if you don't work at one you don't become one.
     
     Out of all the different funding bodies, NLnet is the best at mitigating this because they don't take formal project proposals and evaluate them as bids, instead they take draft proposals and evaluate them based on potential. Then they have their own team work with the (tentative) winners to convert those drafts into final form. This is the only reason why ANY recognizable open source projects get funded at all.
     
     But still, even just the fact that you need to write a clear plan with deliverables, or even that you should apply, is still knowledge that some people have an others don't.
     
     RE: @NGIZero Is this accurate? Did I miss anything?
   • Embed this notice
     silverpill (silverpill@mitra.social)'s status on Monday, 19-May-2025 23:57:49 JST silverpill

     in reply to

     • cjd
     • NGI Zero open source funding

     @cjd @b0y @NGIZero

     >What it tells you is that being a research funding body is harder than you think it is.

     I don't care how hard it is, my point is that NGI* gets a lot more praise than it deserves.
     They are only slightly changing incentives here and there. Important projects can survive without them. Non-important will die anyway, and giving them money only prolongs the suffering.

   • Embed this notice
     cjd (cjd@pkteerium.xyz)'s status on Monday, 19-May-2025 23:57:50 JST cjd

     in reply to

     • NGI Zero open source funding
     > it's not an excuse
     
     What it tells you is that being a research funding body is harder than you think it is.
     
     > For example, what is that?
     
     Based on the date and extremely vague description, I *think* that is a placeholder because the project structure and deliverables have not been finalized yet.
   • Embed this notice
     烟伙 🎆 (monad@thefire.work)'s status on Tuesday, 20-May-2025 03:17:22 JST 烟伙 🎆

     in reply to

     • cjd
     • NGI Zero open source funding
     @silverpill maybe they can better explain their strategy and process better, but you questions are definitely valid and worth asking.
     
     I still remember they funded Group in Mastodon years ago and not going anywhere, I assume there are good reasons but I don’t pay tax in EU so didn’t bother asking.
     
     @cjd @b0y @NGIZero
   • Embed this notice
     silverpill (silverpill@mitra.social)'s status on Tuesday, 20-May-2025 03:17:22 JST silverpill

     in reply to

     • cjd
     • NGI Zero open source funding
     • 烟伙 🎆

     @Monad Mastodon devs implemented groups, but that work hasn't been merged yet. It was done in the usual Mastodon way, incompatible with every other existing implementation of groups, so I hope it stays unmerged forever.
     There is another Mastodon grant, for Quote Posts: https://nlnet.nl/project/Mastodon-Quoting/. Again, they ignored the existing FEP, and are rolling out an incompatible solution.

     Thanks NLNet!

     @b0y @NGIZero @cjd

   • Embed this notice
     silverpill (silverpill@mitra.social)'s status on Tuesday, 20-May-2025 04:16:40 JST silverpill

     in reply to

     • cjd
     • NGI Zero open source funding
     • 烟伙 🎆

     @cjd Yes, they fund no-name projects AND help Mastodon break things! It's really difficult to find a Fediverse-related grant that is neither a waste nor net-negative. Even Pleroma, to which I otherwise well-disposed, didn't deliver on their grant.

     @b0y @NGIZero @Monad

   • Embed this notice
     cjd (cjd@pkteerium.xyz)'s status on Tuesday, 20-May-2025 04:16:41 JST cjd

     in reply to

     • NGI Zero open source funding
     • 烟伙 🎆
     First you were complaining about them funding no-name competitors to an existing high-quality software, now you're complaining about them funding Mastodon rather than no-name competitors to Mastodon :P
   • Embed this notice
     silverpill (silverpill@mitra.social)'s status on Tuesday, 20-May-2025 04:33:05 JST silverpill

     in reply to

     • cjd
     • NGI Zero open source funding
     • 烟伙 🎆
     • chris

     @chris I think that can be said of every desoc protocol. When the protocol is flexible enough to support many different kinds of applications, there will be many different ways of doing the same thing.
     The only solution to this problem is cooperation.

     @Monad @b0y @NGIZero @cjd

   • Embed this notice
     chris@mitra.northumbria.me's status on Tuesday, 20-May-2025 04:33:06 JST chris

     in reply to

     • cjd
     • NGI Zero open source funding
     • 烟伙 🎆

     @silverpill @Monad @b0y @NGIZero @cjd

     As a novice observer that appears to me the main downside of ActivityPub, there are multiple incompatible ways of doing the same thing. Very often it seems to be the Mastodon way and the FEP (everyone else's) way.