August 27th, 2024

Sovereign Tech Fund to Invest €686k in FreeBSD Infrastructure Modernization

The FreeBSD Foundation will receive €686,400 from Germany's Sovereign Tech Fund to modernize its infrastructure, focusing on security and developer experience, starting August 2024 and continuing through 2025.

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Sovereign Tech Fund to Invest €686k in FreeBSD Infrastructure Modernization

The FreeBSD Foundation has announced an investment of €686,400 from Germany's Sovereign Tech Fund (STF) aimed at modernizing the FreeBSD infrastructure. This initiative, set to commence in August 2024 and continue through 2025, will focus on five key projects: enhancing zero trust builds, streamlining CI/CD automation, reducing technical debt, modernizing security controls, and improving Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) tooling. The investment is intended to bolster security, regulatory compliance, and the overall developer experience within the FreeBSD community. This effort aligns with recent priorities outlined by the U.S. Office of the National Cyber Director regarding the security of open-source software. Fiona Krakenbürger, co-founder of STF, emphasized the importance of this investment for enhancing digital infrastructure and security hygiene, which will benefit various sectors including public, research, and commercial users. Deb Goodkin, Executive Director of the FreeBSD Foundation, expressed gratitude for the investment, highlighting its potential to enhance security and infrastructure for FreeBSD users and developers. The STF is supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action and aims to strengthen the open-source ecosystem sustainably.

- The Sovereign Tech Fund is investing €686,400 in FreeBSD infrastructure modernization.

- The project will focus on enhancing security, developer experience, and regulatory compliance.

- Work will begin in August 2024 and continue through 2025.

- The initiative aligns with U.S. cybersecurity priorities for open-source software.

- The FreeBSD Foundation is a non-profit organization supporting the FreeBSD Project.

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Sovereign Tech Fund to Invest €686,400 in FreeBSD Infrastructure Modernization

Sovereign Tech Fund to Invest €686,400 in FreeBSD Infrastructure Modernization

The FreeBSD Foundation will receive €686,400 from Germany's Sovereign Tech Fund to modernize its infrastructure, focusing on security and developer experience, starting August 2024 and continuing through 2025.

Link Icon 10 comments
By @carstenhag - 3 months
Interesting, the first time I've heard of the https://www.sovereigntechfund.de/ .

They have funded a variety of tooling, including curl, ffmpeg, gnome, php, etc: https://www.sovereigntechfund.de/tech

By @tristor - 3 months
I am really surprised by all the negative comments in this thread about FreeBSD by people who seemingly use Linux and think this is an appropriate way to behave.

There are many reasons why someone might use BSD, and it has several specific advantages over Linux for some use cases. That aside, even in cases where Linux is "better", FreeBSD is more than sufficient. There is no downside and many upsides to having multiple free operating systems that are aligned around the same core standard (POSIX) with tooling for software portability.

Thank you Germany for helping fund open source.

By @ruthmarx - 3 months
This seems like a strange use of money, surely? Nothing against FreeBSD, but Linux is where most of the focus already is. People using FreeBSD are doing so due to preference or legitimate need due to their software somehow specifically being BSD dependents.

Not that this isn't 'nice', but is that the goal here? I would have thought it would make more sense to put this money toward something underfunded but still useful for the government.

By @darkamaul - 3 months
Is anyone aware of similar funds or structures from different countries?

Sovereign Tech Fund is German, but I did not find (albeit not looked too much) any in other European countries.

By @rahen - 3 months
I am interested in the details, particularly how they plan to reduce the technical debt. Are there any additional resources available?
By @vegadw - 3 months
On the one hand, this sounds like a lot of money, on the other, it's ~765k USD. If you just go off the rough assumption that 1 engineer/100k USD/yr then it's either a team of 7 for a bit over a year or a single engineer for a decade or so. I don't know if that's enough to make a significant impact? I'd like to think so, but a project that big, once it gets funding, is sure to have some tech debt that needs paid before anything new, so, will new things come of this?
By @oytis - 3 months
Why FreeBSD? How did they decide that it's worth supporting? What return is expected?

I don't even know a reason to use FreeBSD these days apart of being a FreeBSD enthusiast.

By @M95D - 3 months
This isn't generosity. They probably need it for a bank or something.