Igalia, Servo, and the Sovereign Tech Fund
igalia.com397 points by robin_reala 3 days ago
397 points by robin_reala 3 days ago
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."
Guess 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).
While 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.
Ukraine 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.
A 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-...
https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet/.github/blob/m...
How https://developer.apple.com/support/alternative-browser-engi... shakes out will be a critical part of this.
The loopholes in this "commitment," e.g. allowing Apple to determine unilaterally whether, say, Servo has a well-enough-monitored software supply chain before giving it access to JIT capabilities, give Apple an iron fist over the ability to use this engine in practice in the EU.
But there's also a world where Servo, with funding like this, can achieve these requirements and Apple (begrudgingly) follows the intent of this policy to avoid further regulatory action. And suddenly there's a new browser on the block that can push the boundaries of mobile web capabilities in ways that make the web better overall, and push standards forward as well so that maybe, just maybe, non-EU folks get the benefit of these innovations down the road. One can dream :)
A pipe dream. Android (with significantly higher market share in Europe than iOS) has no limits on alternative web engines. But all the critical mobile security and payments apps are built on Android/Play Services, not in mobile browsers.
Please don't spread FUD. This is only REFERENCE implementeation of the specification: 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.
Sure, 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.
Wero 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.
> Sure, 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.
No, we don't know. You are projecting and again - spreading FUT.
Did you do anything towards implemeting the specs on other platforms? Or are you only very vocal online complaining?
In that repo they clearely stated, that they focus on Android/iOS as it's the most popular platform (contrary to what the IT bubble here may think) and want to reach the most user with the (initial) implementation.
> 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.
OK, again - you are projecting Netherlands issues over the UE. Surprisingly - in Poland I can pay with ING bank with NFC. Same in Spain with BBVA app.
Just because something is broken in your corner of the universe doesn't mean it's the global fenomena :)
Also - instead of complaining about the EU - maybe try persuaiding the entities to add support?
Alas - I'm pondering ECI initiative to actually force "Open Android" (ie. withou Google Services being required) as a valid platform because I was fed up with Google imposing more and more overreach. Android is quite OK if it werent for the walled garden from google…
> in Poland I can pay with ING bank with NFC
Not in Romania. You have to use Google Wallet. You can't use the ING Pay app anymore since last year.
I was just suggesting that ING has different policies in different countries.
As for "we have to use google wallet!!!":
https://i.ibb.co/4Z9dMvzR/Screenshot-20251011-184343-Setting...
basically all banking apps for accounts I have (alior, PKO - biggest polish bank, ING Poland and spanish BBVA as well as curve to which you can add whicever card)
Sovereign's grant to Servo (fy 2025 & 2026) is €545,400.
https://www.sovereign.tech/tech/servo / https://archive.is/kryIb
Glad to see Europe (in this case Germany 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...
Igalia has been able to push quite a few set of cool projects, nice to see Servo going as well.
You can also donate to the Servo project on https://servo.org/sponsorship/
2 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.
Hard 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).
The 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.
> ...other countries will follow Germany's example
Believe, the US government runs biggest such fund viz. https://opentech.fund/ (WireGuard & Tor being some of the past grantees).
You mean the US government _ran_ the biggest such fund, and is currently in the process of defunding it.
That's nice ! Servo is a good modern engine, it's a pity it's not used in a real browser.
As 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/) will be able to switch to Servo (or offer it as an alternative) soon?
Yeah, 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.
IIRC, Dioxus' next version will be based on Servo.
We're actually building our own web engine (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.
so 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.
It'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.
I 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.
I most certainly welcome laws like this, partly because I work in a place, where compliance always wins, and a11y being part of compliance makes it more of real requirement and less of "nice to have".
That being said, I saw two approaches to this -- negative, when people get some kind of a tool and change things until the tool stops showing warning and positive, where accessibility is another part of UX and has to be designed with positive checks on what actually works.
I sincerely hope that the team behind it is doing it the second way, but I'm not in their heads and don't know whether this text war written as part of government relations to get the moneys or they actually believe it. It's customary to praise Communist party, God allmighty without meaning any of it in some places too.
> Keeping in mind where the team are coming from [...]
Oh... could you elaborate?
I 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.
Looking 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.
Webview API focus - I'm sure the Tauri folks are happy to hear that
Is it just me or is the total amount of funding at the Sovereign Tech fund (https://www.sovereign.tech/faq) hilariously small? 11.5 mil eur right now? 17 mil next year? Better than nothing of course, but...
yes, 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.
What 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.
Hopefully 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.
The 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.
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In 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.
You can't equate economic monopolies with a state's monopoly on the use of force (pretty much the defining feature of a state).
Not just that. A state has geographic monopoly, ruling ideally with the consent of the population of that land.
You're welcome to move somewhere with no taxes. I hear those places are all very pleasant.
It’s nice that someone is funding it :)
How does Servo compare to Ladybird?
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I 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.
It'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.
> 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.
Can you expand on why you think that overnight billionaires are self-made deserving of praise and lower taxes?
You think that making millions isn't enough, they should simply not be taxed? Just because they've invested a few years on an idea rather than invest on their career at a real company? They still benefited from the free education and social safety net and various funds whilst gambling on their idea, though, right? And that safety net catches the 99 failures for every 1 unicorn born, right?
These words aren't apparent in the post.
The post asked a hypothetical question about human motivation. "Why would I..." It came as a question but presumed that the answer was so obvious that the point would be clear without an explicit answer: with such a policy, people won't bother creating the products that lead to unicorns.
And 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...
