With each passing month, fresh discoveries await. "Building a Free Internet of the Future" is our interview series published by APC, highlighting the experiences and perspectives of individuals and communities supported by the NGI Zero (NGI0) grants and also NGI0 Consortium members and actors, with a new interview every month. Funded by the European Commission, NGI0 supports free software, open data, open hardware and open standards projects. It provides financial and practical support in a myriad of forms, including mentoring, testing, security testing, accessibility, dissemination and more.
In August, we interviewed Lio Novelli, one of regional representatives for NGI0 Slovenia and co-host of a monthly tech-critical radio show, Techno Enema at Radio Student. Lio works with several of the Fediverse services we have been discussing since the beginning of our series, such as Mastodon, Pixelfed, PeerTube, Mobilizon, BookWyrm and Gancio. He’s a community organiser of self-hosting collective Kompot, and also a Drupal/PHP developer and member of Emacs user group Slovenia.
In this interview, we delve into the development of technologies that serve the common good, the importance of strengthening user freedom and control, as well as reflections on the gender and cultural barriers that keep people away from this field – and concrete ways to gain support through the NGI0 programme.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
What is your purpose as a regional representative?
As a regional representative, I promote NGI0 calls, encourage developers to apply for funding, and assist them in the application process when needed. Additionally, I help raise awareness of NGI0 projects and advocate for their adoption among FLOSSH (Free, Libre and Open Source Software and Hardware) and privacy-focused organisations, while also working to strengthen collaboration between them.
My motivation for applying for the role of regional representative stems from my commitment to improving user freedom and control over technology. Recent developments in the IT sector have only tightened the grip that multinational corporations hold over their user base. Market and political forces often push these companies toward actions that are far from beneficial to the general public. For example, gatekeepers protect their vast stores of data – data that, it must be emphasised, is generated collectively through our everyday use of technology, such as browsing the web, commuting, or placing online orders – and profit from exclusive access to it.
I believe in a different vision. Instead of access-controlled checkpoints, information and knowledge should flow freely. Instead of atomised users being herded through tightly controlled digital pathways, the internet should be open and accessible to everyone. Users should have real control over the software and technology they use. For that change to happen, the way technology is developed and produced must also change.
It needs to become more inclusive – open to diverse interest groups, not just those focused on extracting profit. NGI0 offers an opportunity to support the development of technology that serves the common good, independent from dominant market forces that increasingly resemble a tech dystopia.
Could you explain further about "the common good"?
When I speak of FLOSSH as a common good, I see it as part of the public knowledge that benefits everyone. Knowledge is a resource that doesn’t diminish through use – it grows – and the same is true for FLOSSH.
A useful analogy is to compare FLOSSH to a public well in a village, where everyone can draw water according to their needs. In much the same way, FLOSSH can be freely used, shared, studied and improved by anyone. In turn, public access to source code benefits the software (and hardware) itself, as more people can identify bugs or vulnerabilities and contribute to fixing them.
While FLOSSH can, in theory, be used and improved by anyone, one key obstacle remains: not all of it is easily accessible to the broader public yet. Not everyone has the time or capacity to switch from proprietary software and hardware to FLOSSH alternatives. Historically, FLOSSH has been the domain of geeks and hackers, and the user experience was often secondary – understandably so, given the limited resources of many FLOSSH projects. But as FLOSSH enters the mainstream, usability and accessibility are receiving increasing attention.
As a common good, I believe that wide and easy access to FLOSSH is of great importance.
Are there (still) gender biases and geographic/cultural biases here?
Thank you for this question. I've spent a fair amount of time researching gender bias in FLOSSH. The gender gap in FLOSSH is significant – arguably even wider than in STEM fields more broadly. While some studies suggest it’s slowly narrowing, the pace of progress is not very encouraging. In the FLOSSH communities where I’m actively involved, we’ve made efforts to address the gender gap, but so far, with limited success. When I speak to women participating in FLOSSH, they often describe negative experiences – from being patronised by male contributors to being subject to unwanted advances. Research on the gender gap in FLOSSH similarly shows that non-cis-male contributors often feel discouraged from asking questions, as the responses can carry an implicit tone of: “How could you not know that?”
Another, and perhaps even more critical, cause of the gender gap in FLOSSH identified by research is the unequal distribution of care and domestic responsibilities. Women tend to take on more household and caregiving duties than their partners, which directly limits the time and energy they can dedicate to voluntary, unpaid work like FLOSSH contributions. I believe this structural barrier is far harder to overcome, because it involves deeply rooted societal norms.
In my personal experience, FLOSSH projects that intersect with arts tend to have a smaller gender gap. Then, I'd also like to highlight the free software project drip., a menstrual cycle tracking app that prioritises security and transparency. Most contributors appear to be women, judging by usernames on their GitLab repository – which makes sense, given that the software is designed for people who menstruate. I believe projects like this, which are directly relevant to under-represented groups, can serve as effective entry points into FLOSSH for those communities.
A notable exception to the gender gap issue is the diversity I’ve observed in the Fediverse. Mastodon, for instance, is known to have collaborated with the queer community in its early stages to design features that would prevent harassment and doxing campaigns, such as those seen on Twitter. This early collaboration is now reflected in both the user and developer base.
As for cultural and geographical biases, I believe much of the disparity comes down to socioeconomic factors – similar in nature to those affecting women, but often more severe. Using, participating in and contributing to FLOSSH typically requires some skills and time, which can represent a significant investment for members of underprivileged communities. Since much of work in FLOSSH is voluntary, there is often little financial compensation available for the time and effort required to learn and contribute. That said, FLOSSH does offer some practical advantages. For instance, FLOSSH projects often run more efficiently on older hardware than commercial, closed-source software. This is largely because proprietary vendors have little financial incentive to continue supporting outdated hardware. As a result, FLOSSH can offer a more financially accessible path to technological infrastructure. Ultimately, these issues are political.
Measures that could help reduce the gender and cultural gap in FLOSSH include public programmes for training and adoption of FLOSSH among underprivileged groups, broader internet access, hardware subsidies, and integration of FLOSSH into public education systems and administration. Unfortunately, these initiatives appear to be losing traction in the EU, where the current political climate favours increased military spending and caters to powerful corporate interests.
NGI0 involves more than a thousand projects supported and financed in the EU zone, with a geographical bias. As a regional representative, what's your take on it?
Part of the geographical bias comes from the fact that the NGI0 coalition partners are mostly based in the countries of Central and Western Europe, with APC standing out as internationally widespread. It is crucial, however, that free and open source development is encouraged and supported also in Europe's peripheral and semi-peripheral regions. In regions that are not represented in the coalition, the regional representatives are spreading the word on NGI0, encouraging researchers and developers to apply for funding and promoting NGI0-funded projects and their adoption.
As the regional representative for Slovenia, I can speak about our local situation. Given our population size, Slovenia is actually quite well represented among NGI0-funded projects. This is largely thanks to a well-developed free and open source scene that has been evolving here for more than 30 years. For example, in 1999, more than 1,000 people attended a Linux install fest in Maribor – an impressive number for a country of just two million people. Today, there are several organisations and communities actively working in this area. However, most of the work done in free and open software is volunteer-based and with little to no policy support (as opposed to some Western and Central European countries). Likewise, adoption of FLOSSH is also limited to these niche communities. That's why the role of a regional representative is especially important in peripheral countries – to promote NGI0 calls and inform developers within FLOSSH communities about them. These calls provide rare opportunities to receive financial support for FLOSSH contributions, which are otherwise hard to come by.
What would you say to people who are on the fence about applying for the NGI0 programme?
Of course, I encourage everyone working on a FLOSSH project that enhances the openness and accessibility of the internet to apply. The application process is very straightforward and should take only a few hours to complete at most, so it’s not a major time investment – even if your project isn’t selected for funding. For a general idea of the kinds of projects that have been funded over the past five years, you can browse the full list here: https://nlnet.nl/project/index.html
As mentioned, the application is quite simple. You’ll need to provide general information about your project and its goals, estimate the amount of work involved, and propose a budget in euros. Another key part of the application concerns the ecosystem your project belongs to, including a comparison with past and current efforts addressing similar challenges.
If you’re unsure about anything or have second thoughts – and you're from Slovenia or a nearby region – feel free to contact me at NGI0 Slovenia email or on Fediverse at @NGIZero_Slovenia@social.ngi.eu for support. If the reviewers find your project interesting, you’ll be invited to an interview, where you might also receive further advice and guidance.
Every project that receives NGI0 funding is also eligible for support from NGI0’s partner organisations – for example, with testing, security, and accessibility improvements. So don't hesitate!