This morning I promoted nolto.social, a platform that was made - at least I thought so, to be a Fediverse based alternative to LinkedIn. As I'm getting more and more annoyed by LinkedIn and all the useless posts over there, I was happy to find an independent alternative.
nolto.social still worked this morning, but when I came back later; i found the project deleted and at least when you are viewing the website from your smartphone, you see a message from the developer of nolto.social where he states that this project was never meant to grow. Obviously this was just a one person project who became overwhelmed by the success of the platform and by the fact, that companies started creating profiles and nearly 1000 people joined within a short time period. But now it seems that this project ran out of control and the maintainer decided to pull the emergency break. He is also talking about negative feedback he received for the platform and even personal harrassment.
It is sad that a promising project like this had been terminated, but I can understand what made the maintainer doing so. Managing a business platform can become a fulltime job quite fast and it also requires technical ressources and money to run these resources.
I firmly believe that we need an alternative to LinkedIn. I believe that people don't want all this bullshit posts just created to please the algorithm and to generate likes and feedback. And I believe that people would like a business network which is nothing else than a business network - no space for bursting egos and self promotion, but a space for connection and serious discussion.
Fediverse would be the ideal space for this. But as we know, if business networks are successful, they require more and more attention, more ressources, more money. And at this is the problem. When you need money to run your social network, it's tempting to ask yourself how you could generate money by using the ressources you already have, which are user data...
I don't see a solution for this now, just sharing some thoughts.
Tomorrow in The Hague, EU Member States launch a new international organisation, one that invests in and cares for #DigitalCommons and open source. The EDIC for Digital Commons is a long term commitment and strategy to help governments transition to open source, work with the communities and strengthen the ecosystem. Much needed.
📢 Today, the EC and DINUM signed the EDCOM project, which will support the newly created Digital Commons legal structure jointly established by France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy. This is a €5.3 million initiative — half funded by the EU budget — that will support its first three years of operations through a range of actions aimed at strengthening European digital commons ecosystems.
@dinum#opensource#digitalcommons
@BMDS
"On behalf of the Open Knowledge Foundation, I welcome today’s announcement by the European Commission on the creation of the Digital Commons European Digital Infrastructure Consortium (DC-EDIC). It is a hopeful moment for Europe, where the values of thousands of communities that have worked for years in a different way of doing and governing technology, openness, cooperation and democracy, are finally listened to. This is a milestone moment, finally translating years of ideas and words into concrete action. Europe is showing that technology can be built and governed differently: openly, collaboratively, and with people at its heart.
While DC-EDIC begins as a European effort, its vision will reach far beyond the continent. It is a model built for sharing that provides digital commons open by design, scalable, and reusable, which other countries and regions can adapt to their own challenges and needs. This commons-based approach places public value above proprietary control. It offers a powerful example of how we can collectively shape the digital future as a global public good."
Offiziell gegründet: EU-Konsortium für Digitale Gemeingüter (DC-EDIC)
🤝 Die Gründung eines #EDIC („European Digital Infrastructure Consortium“) für Digitale Gemeingüter („#DigitalCommons“) wurde durch die EU-Kommission heute offiziell bestätigt.
Frankreich, Deutschland, Italien und die Niederlande sind Gründungsmitglieder der neuen Organisation.
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Screenshot of the EUC press release: "Commission to launch Digital Commons EDIC to support sovereign European digital infrastructure and technology"
“The confirmation of the Digital Commons EDIC marks a new chapter in Europe’s digital journey — one built on collaboration, transparency, and shared responsibility. Together, we’re working to ensure that Europe’s digital foundations remain open, resilient, and sovereign.” - Adriana Groh, Sovereign Tech Agency CEO.
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The #EDIC#DigitalCommons, launched by France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy, reflects a shared ambition: building the foundations for a strong, open and sustainable European digital landscape. The Sovereign Tech Agency’s experience in strengthening open digital infrastructure directly informs this work, having developed structures and programs with international reach and impact.
Two weeks ago, this was just an idea. Now, it’s becoming an organization.
Since launching the call for a PeerTube co-op, momentum has turned into structure. Over 35 people have expressed interest in becoming founding member-owners, and the Steering Committee has now been formalized. We’re in the orientation phase, preparing to define the co-op’s mission, vision, and bylaws before incorporation in BC.
We’re also working closely with GIA Consulting Co-op, who will join our first Steering Committee meeting to help orient the group and guide early governance discussions.
Beyond that, conversations are expanding. I’ve been in touch with CoSocial.ca (a Canadian Mastodon co-op) about collaboration, BT Free (a Fediverse non-profit PeerTube host) about resource-sharing, and
@damon from We Distribute about the initiative more broadly.
Next step: Steering Committee orientation, followed by our first working session on Vision & Mission.
If you’d like to stay informed or get involved, DM me your email address and I’ll make sure you’re included in future updates.
A simple animation of a white paper airplane gracefully taking off against a solid blue background, leaving faint curved motion trails behind as it ascends upward, symbolizing new beginnings and forward momentum.
🚀 OFE Publishes Landmark Study Calling on Funding Europe’s Open Digital Infrastructure through an EU Sovereign Tech Fund (EU-STF)
Our new report urges creation of an EU Sovereign Tech Fund (EU-STF) to fix chronic underfunding of open source technologies – the backbone of Europe’s digital sovereignty, cybersecurity, and competitiveness.
Free software is critical infrastructure, yet its upkeep falls on volunteers while giants like Microsoft or Google profit. As with other public goods, they should fund it via a dedicated tax feeding (like roads) a European fund (EU-STF) to ensure security and digital sovereignty. Europeans shouldn’t pay so Amazon can remain a free rider.
I'm attending the
@EUCommission's #NGIForum25 in Brussels today and am super happy to finally see essential #FOSS digital service providers being better represented in the policy debates, e.g. with speakers from
@Mastodon,
@xwiki and
@Taler-related projects. 🎉
Photo of conference room with panel speakers and audience members shown from the back.
Just listening to the speech of the
@EUCommission's DG Connect Director Thibaut Kleiner, who celebrates #FOSS and the global ecosystem of #opensource developers as well as the #NGI programme but somehow his convictions seem to not be enough for the Commission to massively scale up investments in the #digitalcommons. What am I missing? 🤔
I'm at #NGIForum25 for the next two days. There will be some live conference tooting, follow the hashtag to see more.
You can also see the presentations live: https://webcast.ec.europa.eu/ngi-forum-2025-06-19
If you're in Brussels, let's meet 😊
“
@decidim has an average of 56 commits a day, is translated in 55 languages, even though we're not a company and no one is paying us to implement anything.” — Ali Gonzalez
The contributions come from contributors and users because they fix their own problem and there is proper coordination. That's what #DigitalCommons look like and what I'm trying to scale with @openfisca 🙂 #NGIForum2025
“Building #DigitalCommons is not sexy. You need to clean up legacy features, update the doc, do the things no one wants to pay for” but everybody needs, and that's what NGI funding enables.
💯
We can get the features and most of the bug fixes by contributors and can find funding for reviewing and doing parts of that work. But the social and technical infrastructure work that is critical, nobody wants to pay for. That can be “overhead costs” for features but exhausting to fundraise. #NGIForum2025
“The problem is that we don't have the institutions for industrial sovereignty, so we rely instead on project governance. So we need to think about things like levying a tax”, or in general ways to capture some of the €€ that is made at the end of the chain from #FLOSS and #DigitalCommons. — Lukasz Klejnowski
Yep, I'm tired to have to think of business models that cost a lot to establish to capture some of the value provided to society. DPI funding should be like physical infra: tax! #NGIForum25