680
US cuts funding to F-Droid, Tor Browser, Let's Encrypt and Tails Linux
(videos.abnormalbeings.space)
Imagine trying to explain FOSS to this fucking administration.
this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2025
680 points (99.3% liked)
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If it's free, then why are we paying for it?
I see what you did there... but freedom costs $1.05.
Freedom isn't free as in beer?
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I didn't know that the government was funding these things to begin with, but I don't know many things.
Because foss projects like tor are regularly used by the agencies. It’s little money for a lot of work they don’t need to do.
Sounds like it may be time for some creative licensing
I also didn't know this, but really we should all be putting money behind FOSS (myself included). We don't need billionaires.
So I guess funds were cut, but then the courts ruled the president doesn't have authority to do this himself since the funds were allocated by congress, and so as of now they have been restored, although congress needs to approve them every year and there's concern they might not do so for next year.
Until Trump ignores court orders and cuts funding anyway.
Supreme Court will probably rule that while congress has the power of the purse, the president has the power of canceling the credit cards in the wallet, because fuck you that's why
Well, this is what the relevant part of the video says:
USAGM disbursed $7.5M to these entities, in "what seemed to be an effort to delay the hearing or woo the judge". Regardless, the latter has sided against USAGM, and just a few days ago, the agency has decided to back off and release the funds for the 2025 fiscal year.
Urgh this is so backwards.
Governments need to fund more FOSS not less!
Hopefully the EU can increase its support to compensate.
Foss is free, and this guy is all about making the American people pay more money to his rich buddies
He's doing a suck job of it. The things he's gutting are pennies towards his dark-souled oligarch masters. Cutting small government projects like the NEA, PBS or like FOSS grants is only used as an appeal to fiscal responsibility conservatives that aren't willing to cut into old-people benefits like Social Security and military sacred cows. Not because gutting tiny projects does anything useful, rather it gives the vibe that representatives are doing something.
This is an appeal to the imbicile MAGA though the tech bros might have specific FOSS projects that compete with their own commercial offerings. Not enough to cut all FOSS grants, though.
In essence he's trying to bankrupt the whole country so he and his circle can buy it all up. He's trying to do the same thing that was done in Russia when the ussr collapsed.
A great opportunity for China to get into open source
Or China! Open source is basically digital communism so maybe they'll step in and support it like they did with the World Health Organization
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They are in order to get away from American products
ikr, i can't believe this administrative did something backwards this time.
I thought the EU was reducing funding to FOSS projects and investing more into AI. I could've sworn I read that somewhere last year.
Edit: https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/17/foss_funding_vanishes_from_eus/
I think it was this event that I read.
While it sucks that FOSS projects will have their funding sapped, let's remember why the open source model is used in the first place: it can't be bought. If it goes down, someone will just fork the last known repository and have it up and running again.
Yep. All the funding they've already put into it will stay put. You can't uncode FOSS.
If you use these services, please donate once or regularly if you're able. They are free as in puppy, not beer - dev work costs money. I would guess many people using Tor/privacy tools are tech savvy enough to have financial comfort due to a good career. If you do it you're doing an everyday act of rebellion for the sake of progress!!!
Puppy?
"free" when you find it on the side of the road, but expensive to actually maintain without having it die on you.
The download is free, but pay for it or it's going to die.
Lets encrypt could run a patreon and stay funded. Plenty of people with money depend on them.
Oh course not. They stop people spying on you.
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