The governments fund projects which are of public interest. They don't actually have development teams in-house.
This is much like the EU funding open source projects of public interest through grant calls.
It's exactly what we want: to fund individuals who's interests align with the public. In fact, it would be great if there were a browser which matches this criteria: publicly funded and designed for the average citizen (as opposed to designed to maximise ad revenue).
> I think it would be better to pay a vendor like Redhat or SuSE or Cannonical to do it.
We don't want governments to fund for-profit corporation. These corporations typically have interests opposite to end-users. E.g.: less digital rights, less digital autonomy, more vendor lock-in, and solidifying their position of power.
In an ideal world, you'd have none of these type of organisations, but much smaller teams and individuals working on individual projects which can inter-operate.
This is much like the EU funding open source projects of public interest through grant calls.
It's exactly what we want: to fund individuals who's interests align with the public. In fact, it would be great if there were a browser which matches this criteria: publicly funded and designed for the average citizen (as opposed to designed to maximise ad revenue).
> I think it would be better to pay a vendor like Redhat or SuSE or Cannonical to do it.
We don't want governments to fund for-profit corporation. These corporations typically have interests opposite to end-users. E.g.: less digital rights, less digital autonomy, more vendor lock-in, and solidifying their position of power.
In an ideal world, you'd have none of these type of organisations, but much smaller teams and individuals working on individual projects which can inter-operate.