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NLnet is a great initiative. Among the numerous projects they have supported is Marginalia [1] search engine. 1. https://www.marginalia.nu/ https://www.margina

• zoobab 1y ago
  "NLnet is a great initiative" Originally, NLNet was *private money* given by the founders of a dutch ISP¨. Now that this private money run out, they made a partnership with the European Commission, which is *public money* and comes with more strings attached.
  • danparsonson 1y ago
    That all sounds like it's meant to sound sinister, but why? Private individuals sometimes fund great initiatives, as do public organisations. What's your concern?
    • MyPasswordSucks 1y ago
      Both have their ups and downs, but broadly speaking, private money tends to be a lot more flexible and risk-liberal, whereas public money can be like having the worst aspects of the ignorant absentee CEOs-golf-buddy manager and the micromanaging hands-on desperate-to-prove-himself CEOs-nephew manager. Public money is eventually traced back to some elected official who has absolutely nothing to do with technology but is also very emotionally-invested in showing to the constituents that the money isn't being wasted - to the point where spending the money on something useless but concrete ("ergonomic" coffee mugs) might be deemed preferable to a long-term investment that falls on the wrong side of a term-limit. Again, public money can be fine and completely no-strings sometimes (and, conversely, private charitable contributions can sometimes end up with plenty of strings too), but there's certainly reasons to point out the differences.
• mprime1 1y ago
  Mastodon is another one (ActivityPub / Feediverse) https://nlnet.nl/project/Mastodon/ https://nlnet.nl/project/Mastodon/