Sovereign Tech Agency
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Short description: German funder of open source software
The Sovereign Tech Agency is a subsidiary of the German Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation, funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, aimed at providing financial support to open-source software. The initial funds were allocated by the Bundestag in May 2022.[1][2]
Purpose of funding
According to the federal budget of Germany plan, the program aims to promote and secure open-source foundational technologies.[3] It intends to make the open-source ecosystem more resilient against external attacks, thereby enhancing cybersecurity and resilience across the German economy. This initiative fulfills a demand from the coalition government.[4] This is also an approach to the classic free-rider problem faced by many open source projects.[5]
The funding is described as time-limited and targeted at specific challenges or security vulnerabilities.[6][7]
Scope and organization
In 2022, the program had a budget of 13 million euros,[8] which increased to approximately 22 million euros in 2023 and was expected to reach up to 16 million euros in 2024. The executive team consists of:
- Adriana Groh (co-CEO), previously from the Open Knowledge Foundation's Prototype Fund[9]
- Luisa von Beust (co-CEO), previously at several commercial organizations
- Fiona Krakenbürger (CTO), previously worked at the Open Technology Fund[10][11]
Supported projects
As of April 2025, the following projects received funding:[8][12]
- ActivityPub testsuite: 152,000 €
- Arch Linux Package Management (ALPM): 562,800 €[13]
- coreutils: 99,060 €
- cURL: 195,500 €
- domain: 993,600 €
- Drupal: 278,700 €[14]
- The Eclipse Foundation: 515,200 €[15]
- FFmpeg: 157,580 €[16][17]
- Fortran ecosystem (e.g. Fortran Package Manager, fpm): 816.000 €[18] 182,930 €
- FreeBSD: 686,400 €[19]
- GNOME: 1 million €[20][21][22]
- GNU libmicrohttpd: 300,000 €
- GopenPGP/OpenPGP.js: 176,955 €
- GStreamer: 203,000 €
- JavaScript ecosystem (see also OpenJS below, for additional investment): 176,955 €
- JUnit: 180,000 €
- Log4j: 596,160 €
- Mamba: 349,875 €
- OpenBGPd: 200,000 €
- OpenBLAS: 263,000 €
- OpenJS (investment in JavaScript, see it also above): 874,940 €[23][24][25]
- OpenJS Foundation: 874,940 €
- OpenStreetMap: 384,000 €
- OpenMLS: 195,000 €
- OpenSSH: 200,000 €[26]
- Pendulum: 449,850 €
- PHP: 205,000 €[27][28]
- Prossimo, part of Internet Security Research Group, to support projects including Rustls:[29][30] 1,436,729 €
- Python Package Index: 1,056,672 €
- Reproducible builds: 353,430 €
- RubyGems & Bundler: 668,400 €
- Samba: 688,800 €[31]
- Sequoia PGP: 900,000 €
- systemd: 455,000 €
- WireGuard: 209,000 €
- Yocto Project: 759,000 €[32][33]
See also
- NLnet
- Next Generation Internet
- Horizon 2020
- Horizon Europe
- EU Sovereign Tech Fund (EU-STF)
- Technological sovereignty
References
- ↑ "51 Millionen Euro für Open Source und digitale Souveränität" (in de). 2022-05-20. https://www.embedded-software-engineering.de/51-millionen-euro-fuer-open-source-und-digitale-souveraenitaet-a-2f8988949f6a7611b1f01fa92ef8784a/.
- ↑ "Germany to launch sovereign tech fund to secure digital infrastructure" (in en). https://sciencebusiness.net/news/cybersecurity/germany-launch-sovereign-tech-fund-secure-digital-infrastructure.
- ↑ Bundeshaushaltsplan 2023, Einzelplan 09, Federal Budget Plan 2023, Single Plan 09, Chapter 09 01 – Title 685 03.
- ↑ "51 Millionen Euro für Open Source und digitale Souveränität". 2022-05-22. https://www.embedded-software-engineering.de/51-millionen-euro-fuer-open-source-und-digitale-souveraenitaet-a-2f8988949f6a7611b1f01fa92ef8784a/.
- ↑ "Open-Source Software is in Crisis - IEEE Spectrum" (in en). https://spectrum.ieee.org/open-source-crisis.
- ↑ Response from State Secretary Udo Philipp, October 26, 2022, to a written question from Member of Parliament Dr. Petra Sitte (THE LEFT), Parliamentary Paper 20/4209, p. 19., Bundestags-Drucksache 20/4209, S. 19.
- ↑ "The Open Source Way - Sovereign Tech Fund – Investing in the Future Today" (in en-US). 20 December 2023. https://podcast.opensap.info/open-source-way/2023/12/20/sovereign-tech-fund-investing-in-the-future-today/.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Inga Pöting (2022-12-30). "Steuermillionen für Hobbyprojekte". Zeit Online GmbH. https://www.zeit.de/digital/internet/2022-12/open-source-software-sovereign-tech-fund-foerderung/komplettansicht.
- ↑ "How to innovate? Prototype everything!". 19 December 2017. https://blog.okfn.org/2017/12/19/how-to-innovate-prototype-everything/.
- ↑ "Sovereign Tech Fund" (in en). https://www.sprind.org/en/projects/sovereign-tech-fund.
- ↑ "Episode 368 – The Sovereign Tech Fund with Fiona Krakenbürger" (in en). 2023-03-27. https://opensourcesecurity.io/2023/03/26/episode-368-the-sovereign-tech-fund-with-fiona-krakenburger/.
- ↑ Niklas Dierking (2022-11-14). "Freie Software: Bund fördert Open Source". https://www.heise.de/news/Bund-foerdert-Open-Source-7324588.html.
- ↑ "Arch Linux Package Management (ALPM) gets funding from Sovereign Tech Agency" (in en). 2024-12-10. https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2024/12/arch-linux-package-management-alpm-gets-funding-from-sovereign-tech-agency/.
- ↑ "Drupal Association secures $300,000 in funding from Sovereign Tech Fund" (in en). 2024-01-11. https://www.drupal.org/association/blog/drupal-association-secures-300000-in-funding-from-sovereign-tech-fund-1.
- ↑ "Sovereign Tech Agency Investing €515k Into The Eclipse Foundation" (in en). https://www.phoronix.com/news/STA-Invests-In-Eclipse.
- ↑ "Germany's Sovereign Tech Fund Now Supporting FFmpeg" (in en). https://www.phoronix.com/news/Germany-STF-For-FFmpeg.
- ↑ "FFmpeg" (in en). https://www.sovereign.tech/tech/ffmpeg.
- ↑ "Fortran" (in en). https://www.sovereigntechfund.de/tech/fortran.
- ↑ "Sovereign Tech Fund to Invest €686,400 in FreeBSD Infrastructure Modernization" (in en). https://freebsdfoundation.org/blog/sovereign-tech-fund-to-invest-e686400-in-freebsd-infrastructure-modernization/.
- ↑ "GNOME" (in en). https://www.sovereigntechfund.de/tech/gnome.
- ↑ "GNOME Recognized as Public Interest Infrastructure – The GNOME Foundation" (in en-US). https://foundation.gnome.org/2023/11/09/gnome-recognized-as-public-interest-infrastructure/.
- ↑ "For Drupal to Remain Well and Alive: An Exclusive Conversation with Tim Doyle". 2024-04-02. https://www.thedroptimes.com/interview/38423/drupal-remain-well-and-alive-exclusive-conversation-with-tim-doyle.
- ↑ "OpenJS Foundation" (in en). https://www.sovereigntechfund.de/tech/openjs.
- ↑ Foundation, OpenJS. "Sovereign Tech Fund" (in en). https://openjsf.org/sovereign-tech-fund.
- ↑ "OpenJS Foundation Receives Major Government Investment from Sovereign Tech Fund for Web Security and Stability" (in en). https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press/openjs-foundation-receives-major-government-investment-from-sovereign-tech-fund-for-web-security-and-stability.
- ↑ "OpenSSH" (in en). https://www.sovereigntechfund.de/tech/openssh.
- ↑ "PHP" (in en). https://www.sovereigntechfund.de/tech/php.
- ↑ "Sovereign Tech Fund Makes New Investments Into GNOME & PHP, Bug Bounty For systemd" (in en). https://www.phoronix.com/news/Sovereign-Tech-Fund-PHP-GNOME.
- ↑ Gran, Sarah (2023-07-11). "$1.5M from Sovereign Tech Fund to Fuel Memory Safety". https://www.abetterinternet.org/post/1.5m-for-memory-safety/.
- ↑ Tarakiyee, Tara (2024-05-22). "On Rust, Memory Safety, and Open Source Infrastructure" (in en). https://www.sovereigntechfund.de/news/on-rust-memory-safety-open-source-infrastructure.
- ↑ "Samba" (in en). https://www.sovereigntechfund.de/tech/samba.
- ↑ "The Yocto Project" (in en). https://www.sovereigntechfund.de/tech/yocto.
- ↑ Knight, Megan (2023-10-10). "Sovereign Tech Fund Boosts Yocto Project" (in en-US). https://www.yoctoproject.org/blog/2023/10/10/sovereign-tech-fund-boosts-yocto-project/.
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