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Igalia, Servo, and the Sovereign Tech Fund
- bestouff 1y agoThat's nice ! Servo is a good modern engine, it's a pity it's not used in a real browser.
- pabs3 1y agoThere is Verso, but it is on hiatus right now. https://github.com/versotile-org/verso https://github.com/versotile-org/verso
- rob74 1y agoAs the article says, they are currently planning to use it as a WebView component first - which makes sense, because applications using WebViews can work around possible quirks in the engine much better than browsers. Maybe Tauri (https://v2.tauri.app/ https://v2.tauri.app/) will be able to switch to Servo (or offer it as an alternative) soon?
- simonw 1y agoYeah, the great thing about applications that wrap a WebView is that they benefit from a fixed target - if Servo doesn't support some specific CSS feature the application developers can notice and just not use that feature.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 1y agoYes Tauri is keeping an eye on Servo
- bryanlarsen 1y agoIIRC, Dioxus' next version will be based on Servo.
- nicoburns 1y agoWe're actually building our own web engine (https://github.com/DioxusLabs/blitz https://github.com/DioxusLabs/blitz). It does share some components with Servo, but it is much lighter weight as it replaces the JS engine with a Rust API.
- gostsamo 1y agoso glad about the accessibility part. it is a struggle sometimes. also, as far as both chrome and ff converged on the same accessibility architecture, I hope that the project will be using it from the very start and will have tangible results soon.
- Muromec 1y agoIt's mandated by law nowdays, so they just have to mention it (and do it) to tick all the boxes, especially if they take grants from EU.
- gostsamo 1y agoI don't know why it matters to you, but if the end product is accessible, I don't care if it is an EU directive or a german one. Keeping in mind where the team are coming from, there is a high chance that the implementation won't be checking boxes for grand reasons only.
- pygy_ 1y ago> Keeping in mind where the team are coming from [...] Oh... could you elaborate?
- gostsamo 1y agoI don't know the exact details, but as far as I remember they are a employees owned collective with social improvement goals, working on open source, and they are involved in the Orca screen reader for Linux. Wikipedia and their about page give some more info, but they definitely have accessibility experience and the history of delivering stuff.
- pygy_ 1y agoGreat, thanks!
- Muromec 1y ago
- pjmlp 1y agoIgalia has been able to push quite a few set of cool projects, nice to see Servo going as well.
- simonw 1y agohttps://www.sovereign.tech/faq https://www.sovereign.tech/faq "The Sovereign Tech Agency started in October 2022 as the Sovereign Tech Fund and is financed by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. It is a subsidiary of the Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovation, SPRIND GmbH."
- rob74 1y agoGuess they should update their FAQ... according to the footer, they are now part of the (brand new) Federal Ministry for Digital Transformation and Government Modernisation. If as a 69-year-old chancellor, who has finally got his chance at the top job after being sidelined for years, you really want to stress that you are into all that digital stuff, creating an entire new ministry dedicated to it is the way to go! (to prevent any misunderstanding: I don't like Mr. Merz, but the Sovereign Tech Fund - founded by the previous government BTW - is definitely a good idea).
- Muromec 1y agoUkraine has ministry of digital transformation since 2019, but for all I know the minister mostly goes around hyping Diia and larping CEO from cool places.
- riedel 1y agoWhile the new ministry still has to deliver, the idea of creating a ministry with a dedicated budget is not that bad of an idea. Before often money was diverted in other places, ministries failed to synchronizes. Digitalization itself was part of the traffic ministry (as digital infrastructure, the ministry also has many agencies below such as the weather service, so it made sense a bit), however, most administrative procedures were part of the ministry of interior and citizen data often handled by the finance ministry. I am not a fan of the new government either, but I still hope that a bit of digitalization will finally land in Germany. Beyond sovereign tech fund, IMHO, the previous government failed to deliver regarding digitalization. To be fair the big problem in Germany remains the federal structure with tons of stuff implemented differently at state level and even worse at each municipality.
- deleted 1y ago
- rob74 1y agoGlad to see Europe (in this case Germany https://www.sovereign.tech/programs/fund https://www.sovereign.tech/programs/fund) is doing something to support Open Source as part of its bid to make itself less reliant on the US tech giants. They could of course do more, but still...
- Tepix 1y agoThe Sovereign Tech Agency is doing a great job, I hope other countries will follow Germany's example and fund similar agencies. If we want to rely on Open Source software, we need to pay for maintenance.
- ignoramous 1y ago> ...other countries will follow Germany's example Believe, the US government runs biggest such fund viz. https://opentech.fund/ https://opentech.fund/ (WireGuard & Tor being some of the past grantees).
- schubidubiduba 1y agoYou mean the US government _ran_ the biggest such fund, and is currently in the process of defunding it.
- pohl 1y agoI never thought leopards would eat MY face, sobs open source advocate who...
- em500 1y agoA good initiative, but there seems to be nothing on the horizon that can limit the increasing dependence on iOS / App Store and Android / Play Store / Play Services in European citizens' lives, and Microsoft in European corporate and government desktops. If anything, policy makers seem to prefer to increase the dependence, e.g. https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/europe-fit-digital-age/european-digital-identity_en https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-... https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet/.github/blob/main/profile/reference-implementation.md https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet/.github/blob/m...
- ktosobcy 1y agoPlease don't spread FUD. This is only REFERENCE implementeation of the specification: https://eu-digital-identity-wallet.github.io/eudi-doc-architecture-and-reference-framework/1.6.0/architecture-and-reference-framework-main/ https://eu-digital-identity-wallet.github.io/eudi-doc-archit... which doesn't mention anything about being exclusive to iOS/Android. From the linked repository: > The EU Digital Identity Wallet Reference Implementation helps EU countries and stakeholders to build their own wallets. It consists of open-source code libraries, modular components, and a fully functioning reference application based on the ARF.
- em500 1y agoSure, nothing strictly requires iOS/Android in paper specs and in presentations. But we all now that the only working practical implementations will be one iOS/Android. I mean, look at the actual code in the (Microsoft) github repo. The EU forced Apple to open NFC for third party payments, which is great. But all the banks in the Netherlands only have working card payments in Apple and Google Wallet. Including the largest bank (ING), that used to have independent in-app NFC payment on Android (where NFC was always open) but seems to have capitulated and now only offers it via Google Wallet.
- StopDisinfo910 1y agoWero is launching phone payments via NFC in the Netherlands next year. At some point, it’s legitimate that innovations are developed for platform that people actually use. It’s good to be practical before being political sometimes.
- limpbizkitfan 1y ago[flagged]
- reppap 1y agoIt is possible to do more than one thing.
- zerkten 1y agoIt's far from all they can do, but it seems like they are focused on some important and achievable goals. These then feed into adoption which will bring other investment because Servo will be viable for more use cases. I see this investment more at the level of basic science research. Which VC is going to be interested in implementing accessibility in this situation? The Sovereign Tech Fund is an organization that values this. It's too long term and uncertain of a project for most entrepreneurs to be involved in too.
- mrweasel 1y agoI think you misunderstand what Germany's Sovereign Tech Fund is trying to do. They take no stake in Igalia, which also isn't a German company, so best case the tax money goes to Spain. They are trying to build digital sovereignty through open source software. Thinking about the commission from the Sovereign Tech Fund as a VC investment is a bit of a misunderstanding. You're right that VC is all but dead, due to AI, so this is exactly why we need some one thinking about the future or our joint digital infrastructure, rather than profit, to invest in projects like Servo.
- whywhywhywhy 1y ago> tax unicorns > graduate more entrepreneurs Why would I focus towards being an entrepreneur if the state is just going to step in and steal from me after taking all the risk, after giving up time with my family, after taking on all the stress for the extremely small chance of success and if by amazing odds I manage to hit that success the government will knock at my door and scalp the actual payoff for my risk, talent, and years of time despite contributing nothing other than paying a teacher who isn't an entrepreneur and has never run a business to pretend to teach and graduate me on the matter.
- ndom91 1y agoWebview API focus - I'm sure the Tauri folks are happy to hear that
- throawayonthe 1y agoYou can also donate to the Servo project on https://servo.org/sponsorship/ https://servo.org/sponsorship/
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
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- ignoramous 1y agoSovereign's grant to Servo (fy 2025 & 2026) is €545,400. https://www.sovereign.tech/tech/servo https://www.sovereign.tech/tech/servo / https://archive.is/kryIb https://archive.is/kryIb
- daft_pink 1y agoIt’s nice that someone is funding it :)
- shmerl 1y agoLooking forward to Servo replacing embedded Chromium everywhere and getting rid of that pesky $HOME/.pki that Chromium project doesn't care to fix by using libnss correctly.
- amilios 1y agoIs it just me or is the total amount of funding at the Sovereign Tech fund (https://www.sovereign.tech/faq https://www.sovereign.tech/faq) hilariously small? 11.5 mil eur right now? 17 mil next year? Better than nothing of course, but...
- spinningslate 1y agoyes, though perhaps stating the obvious: it depends what they do with it. Ladybird currently has 8 full-time devs [1] and is making impressive progress on delivering a browser from scratch. Wise investment in small, focused, capable teams can go a long way if they're not chasing VC-driven Unicorn status (or in stasis as a Google anti-trust diversion). That's not challenging your point though: in the face of competing budgets at US tech giants, EUR17Mn still barely registers above noise level. Nevertheless, it's a start. We can only hope it grows and doesn't get shut down by some political lobbying by the aforementioned US behemoths. A modest budget might actually help there - not yet big enough to cause concern to incumbents. [1]: https://ladybird.org/ https://ladybird.org/
- School-Cotton 1y agoWhat is the point of a new browser engine? What will be the advantage over WebKit/Blink/Gecko? Sure it “isn’t monetized”, but nothing stops you from making non-monetized forks of chromium or Firefox. And nothing stops company from forking Ladybird and monetizing it, either.
- omnimus 1y agoHopefully new independent voice in the questions of platform features, development and future. Google could do pretty much anything with the platform if it were not for Apple and iOS. And that's a big if because if they align on something it will get to the platform. Firefox unfortunately seems to be infected by Silicon Valley people that seem to be quite obedient to the status quo. Ladybird is at least developed by people from all around the world.
- brcmthrowaway 1y agoHow does Servo compare to Ladybird?
- maxdo 1y ago[flagged]
- timeon 1y agoThis is pretty random.
- ericdotlee 1y ago[dead]
- t_mann 1y agoThe best sovereign tech fund would be a robust commitment to 'public money, public code'. To think how many sponsored features in LibreOffice, GIMP, Nextcloud,... could be paid for by the money that the governments of the world are paying each year to MS, Adobe,... and it would create sustainable demand for OSS development.
- calvinmorrison 1y ago[flagged]
- Centigonal 1y agoYou can't equate economic monopolies with a state's monopoly on the use of force (pretty much the defining feature of a state).
- sojournerc 1y agoNot just that. A state has geographic monopoly, ruling ideally with the consent of the population of that land.
- t_mann 1y agoIn case that wasn't clear, I didn't mean that every government in the world, nor even every agency in the same country, should be using the same office suite (which they pretty much do now). (Part of) the idea is to increase software diversity, for the same reasons that monopolies are generally bad in other areas. It's pretty clear that that goal alone will require switching to open document formats.
- RhodesianHunter 1y agoYou're welcome to move somewhere with no taxes. I hear those places are all very pleasant.
- Woodi 1y agoAnd why exactly web/render/engine/view is silver bullet ? Edit: John Wick got a gift of 7 bullets, EU will do with one ? And it even looks like bullet part in IT world...
- criticalfault 1y ago2 out of 3 points should not be in the list at this point of time. There is no browser around servo that is usable and they start with accessibility? The effort should go first to have it work as an everyday browser and get as much market share as possible. Then think of accessibility and WebView Integration. This is a unique opportunity to have a browser engine not depending on Google, Microsoft or some of AI companies wanting to get into this field. By watering it down, you will just lose the market to the ladybird which is focused.
- spartanatreyu 1y agoHard disagree. 1. Accessibility is easier to build in at the start rather than trying to tack it on at the end. 2. Building a browser around an existing webview is fairly easy compared to all the other parts that go into the finished product. 3. Making the webview integration better means more than just a single browser are using it (which would increase the user share that you deemed as important).