# Stewarding Resilient, Free & Open Digital Infrastructures | X.Damman, M.Kirschner, F.Glatz, T.Merk

- Channel: [Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress](https://streameth.org/ethereum-cypherpunk-congress)
- Date: 2026-07-09
- Duration: 32:26
- Topics: web3, privacy, now, crypto, cryptography, blockchain, data, security, human right, rights, tech, technology, internet, open source, free, freedom, ethereum, hackers, ethics, cypherpunk, dev, developer, dapp, decentralization, bitcoin, computer, surveillance, cyber, peer2peer, p2p, love, solidity, zk, zero knowledge, education, academy, w3pn, neo, summit, berlin, neocypherpunk
- Watch: https://streameth.org/watch/yt-ixNnXXj_PFA
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixNnXXj_PFA

## Description

“Stewarding Resilient, Free & Open Digital Infrastructures”
Xavier Damman, Matthias Kirschner, Florian Glatz, Tara Merk
Moderated by: Joshua Dávila

From cooperative funding models enabling innovations in collective ownership, to local hosting and political/legal advocacy, there are many pathways to support sustainable FOSS infrastructures. Maintaining and scaling these infrastructures are vital to ensuring censorship resistance and digital freedom, especially as demands for compute and data storage escalate.

Panelists: Xavier Damman, Matthias Kirschner, Florian Glatz, Tara Merk
Moderator: Joshua Dávila

Panelists

Xavier Damman — Open Collective
https://opencollective.com/
X: https://x.com/xdamman
Matthias Kirschner — Free Software Foundation Europe
https://fsfe.org/
Florian Glatz — Common Ground
https://www.commonground.cg/
X: https://x.com/heckerhut
Tara Merk — Open Future
https://openfuture.eu/

Moderated by

Joshua Dávila
X: https://x.com/TBSocialist

Follow Web3Privacy Now:

🌐 https://new.web3privacy.info
𝕏 https://x.com/web3privacy
🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/web3privacy.info
📸 https://www.instagram.com/web3privacy_now/
🎤 Neocypherpunk Summit: https://s26ber.web3privacy.info/

Subscribe for more talks on privacy, cryptography, digital rights, decentralized infrastructure, and the future of the open web.

## Transcript

[applause] >> Hello, hello. Uh, thank you for the introduction. I don't have to introduce anyone now, so I'll go right into it. Um, so the first question I have for my panelists uh, is asking just kind of a a broad question that I'm free to let anyone uh, take the mic to to answer. Do you guys have mics? You guys have mics? Okay, okay. Um, kind of broadly, what are the, in your eyes, the biggest difficulties for open source projects today? And how does that growth model differ from traditionally uh, either venture capital or just kind of normal LLC type of companies that receive investment? How does it differ uh, building that type of organization versus building one that builds uh, open source uh, software? Whoever is brave enough to start. >> Well, I can start. Um, so you know, when you talk about today, I really think about the world where we have where code generation is effectively solved with LLMs. So, I think that was very different until a couple of years ago where writing code was super hard. Uh, and now with code being cheap to produce, uh, I feel startups that follow a traditional path and open source projects, they actually have a very similar problem, which is distribution. Like, how do you even get attention in a market that is so saturated? And then, um, like, I myself find myself building a lot of software now that it's become so easy. And I just make all of that open source because I'm like, well, I didn't write a a line of code, that was all clawed. So, why should I even make this close source in the first place? And then I see a a big problem there is just trust. Like, how can you even trust software at this point because it's become so cheap? And so, that might be something that open source projects have sort of a particularly hard issue with because typically when you start an open source project, you might not have a lot of credibility versus if you're a commercial project that has big investors behind them, that might serve as a trust signal in the market. So, people have actually an easier time downloading and using your software because they know, "Ah, there's whatever some big VC name behind this." So, they made a due diligence on the team versus me as a solo open source guy, nobody knows me, why should I trust this guy? It probably has 10 backdoors and I'm not going to use the project. >> Okay, so attention. So, in general, making money with software is difficult. So, finding a good business model for software you write is a difficult challenge and that does not change if it's free software or proprietary software. There are also a lot of proprietary software developers out there and they don't make any money with with their software. So, that's the first thing. It's And I mean, there are so many different business models that when when I'm often asked, like, "Okay, what business model can I do with free software?" I say, "Everything. Everything except you can't charge for the licenses." So, that's the big difference. And how do you now make money with this? Well, that's something I'm not an expert in. There are many people out there who are helping others to find business cases for for their for what they want to do. And then there is also like there are even examples out there when we talk about venture capital, there are software or there are companies out there they have venture capital and their software, even decentralized free software like like element with with matrix, they get VC money and there are other out there who got VC money. And so, that's for me not the differentiate out there how how you see if it's free software or or proprietary software. And I think what what a lot of what a lot of people are challenged with at the moment is there were times where it was easier to innovate and then find people who are willing to pay for this. Nowadays, there are there is more and more centralization and a lot of um a lot of the services are already centralized and it's so difficult to to to get over those market entry barriers there. So, if you have those big companies who have a lot of wealth in the in the world, how do you compete with any service they have? And if they see that one of those services is relevant for them, they destroy you or they buy you. So, I think that's a big challenge and it's not just for free software companies, but it also hits a lot of free software developers who want to bring their software to to users. >> I think maybe adding to that and I feel like Matthias has talked sort of about it but not named it is the the issue of sustaining free software projects that also maybe some that have already seen very broad adoption in the market and I think that's a really critical issue in terms of we still need people to to care for for these infrastructures to make sure um that they're secure, to keep them up to date, and just with the explosion of vibe coded everything that pulls on a lot of these free ostensibly tools and integrates them. When something breaks, there's a big question of of who's there and who also has the knowledge and skills, the resources, and the time to ensure that these these software the software remains safe. And often, of course, traditionally we've seen big companies sort of allowing their developers to spend some time working working on on open source software. We we see independent funders coming in. We see some projects having revenue models, but I think there's really a big open question of how are these people also going to be funded and sustained in a humane and equitable way going forward. And this, I think, is also a generational shift a little bit as in a lot of free software projects that, you know, are powering my phone, etc. where were developed quite a long time ago, and they their existence still depends on a few people, right? Who are really making sure that this whole thing is kept going, and there's a question of succession as well happening in the the the free software movement in terms of like who takes on the stewardship going forward, and how can they do so in a sustainable sort of way, and that maybe also doesn't expose us too much to risks of of BDFLs and and centralization or capture from big companies. So, yeah, about the people. I would say. >> Uh we've already touched on the various different things. I think the the of course the big disruptor, the trickster now in this conversation because we had that conversation about sustaining open source for decades, right? Um that's how we we we started Open Collective 10 years ago to try to address that. Um but now there's a big new elephant in the room, which is of course Claude and other friends. Um to me what's interesting is that building software is a bit like now like a um making photos, cameras, right? With digital photography it becomes super easy. Everybody can be a photographer, but of course nobody cares, right? And so when you you know, when you brag about how many tokens you are burning is like bragging about how many pictures you take. That doesn't really make sense. You are the only one who going to ever see them, um maybe once, maybe twice. And so to me like the main competitive advantage that we have compared to Claude and others is actually the soul that we put in what we do. And in that regard software, building software is is more than ever an art. And so software developers are actually artists. It's just that the poems we write actually can be understood by computers. And I think the more we put our soul into it, the more those uh software being built by just with LLMs um cannot compete with us. And like artists, I think the way we need to think about this is uh in the sense of developing a community around all of those different software. And how do we sustain open source developers? Well, the same way that we sustain artists. Right? It is as a community. And communities are sustaining their artists through taxation, through other things. And And I know that's a question that's going to come later. Maybe it's a good segue to it, but this to me also this idea that is another elephant in the room is realizing that to fund and sustain open source developer it takes a community. And for a community to exist you need to have boundaries. And we've never really been really good at talking about boundaries when it comes to using software. >> I I would have a question for the audience. Who of you this year already paid for free software or open source software? And who would say in general that you already paid more for free software, so for developers who give you the freedom to use, study, share, and improve the software than to companies or individuals who are not giving you the freedom to do this? I think if we have a community and we want to sustain those artists and those people who create software that is protecting our freedom, we need to change this answer here. >> change. That's not going to change on its own. We're going to have to create boundaries and enforce them. But more later. >> More to come, folks. >> [laughter] >> Yeah, I mean, it's at least personally it it's um it sounds nice to kind of I think you know, being a developer is also like being an artist, but that's also kind of a uh I feel like that doesn't bode well economically for the person developing the code in the same way that like artists also have to struggle quite a lot and also have the issues with attention in order but like yeah, art the kind of value of art a lot of the times is created by the story around the art. Uh and that's what's kind of what gives it value. I mean, yeah, maybe we need to start a um I don't know, a show about open source. I don't know. Someone needs to be We need good storytellers on open source maybe to provide it that value. But um so we kind of touched on AI already and I think it's good to to talk about it directly because um I don't know if you guys have seen uh some of the news that's happened fairly recently and it was a while back but um basically one big open source project Tailwind for example lost a significant amount of their revenue from because of AI was kind of what they what they deduced right? A lot of people because they're using AI to build software they don't need to go into this at least a specific business model that Tailwind had which was to purchase for uh kind of like have more um closer connection to the people who are building Tailwind so they couldn't they wouldn't pay for those services because they're just using AI anyways. Um so that really really I think it's like I think they lost like half of their revenue or something like that like very quickly. Um but so AI is clearly destroying some of the business models that a lot of these open source projects have. Um what can we do about it? Um what are some potential answers here? Is it the thing the only thing that comes to my mind kind of immediately is like a regulatory thing but maybe there are there are other other things out there if there are thoughts. >> We were just talking about it over lunch um and I mean this is a bit speculative but um there's this idea floating around I think it was coined by Nathan Gardels who's the editor-in-chief at the Noema magazine and it's this idea of instead of universal basic income an idea of universal basic capital. Um and the idea is then not to distribute money to people but to distribute shares in some sort of way and and one way in which like maybe not a universal but a basic capital could be applied to the the concept of like how do we reward actually the people who are creating the data and the the inputs that these AI systems are feeding off of and then, you know, taking people away from actually paying um Tailwind creators uh is to say, "Okay, is there a way and I don't I don't think it exists right now, but or is there uh an an argument or a regulatory trick to be done to say, "Okay, if you're feeding significantly on on this data source, then these data creators should hold shares in in whatever is producing the value." So, would it be Anthropic sort of uh you know, granting shares to the open-source models that sort of like are dominantly used in the outputs that Claude code uh creates. And then uh these communities sort of benefiting from from the the growth in value of these companies that are appropriating. I'm not saying this is the solution, but I think it was a it's an interesting thought experiment um to to do in in thinking about how can the the creators of the data sort of sustainably benefit from the value that is being reaped at the moment instead of thinking about direct income redistribution. >> Which is which is funny because, you know, history doesn't repeat but often rhymes. This is exactly what we've been doing with artists where there would be like agencies. I don't know here in Germany, in Belgium it's called SABAM and basically any radio will have to pay a tax, right? Or any times you would do a party, you would have to pay a tax that governmental body and that would then like uh go for copyrights and basically based on what are the most popular artists would do that. So, it's kind of interesting to see that how actually another generation is coming back to the same to the same recipes. Um I wanted on on on the Tailwind one, I think what was interesting thing at the end what ended up happening is that they they got a bunch of different new sponsors. Basically, people companies in the community using Tailwind that basically showed up. And to me, that's interesting because it shows that in times of disruption, community is immunity. And so, everything that we do when you develop software, thinking about how you develop your community, take care of it, it's very important. Um and then on the on the idea of a UBI, actually, I really love that idea, actually, but I I was wondering the the biggest pushback on UBIs, people are afraid of yes, but why would we give money to people that would do nothing? I said like, "Hey, but why don't we start with the with a place where we easily can see if people actually contribute, which is open source?" Right? So, what if Europe, actually right now, when you talk a lot about digital sovereignty, would actually, instead of spending through gazillion of intermediaries, then we don't know how the money is gone and there is so much overhead, just give the money directly to open source software developers that are based in Europe that contribute to open source code. It's very easy to track that they keep on contributing. >> I feel like you were going to say something. >> And I think like going in this direction, if you I mean, one large market is public procurement. And if you would manage it there already, that the money which is spent there, so taxpayers' money, is actually going towards free software developers and companies, that would make a big shift and also allow to grow an economy which makes it easier for companies to also then buy free software and other solution in this area. So, that's I mean, I'm wearing the t-shirt now. That's why the FSFE is for since 2017 already promoting that uh every software that is procured with taxpayers money should be available under free software license, so allowing everyone, including all companies and organizations, to use the software for any purpose, to study how it works, to share it with others, and to improve it. And I think that will make a big shift there, and uh yeah, I mean, it's a very slow progress, but I think if we manage this, and if we now also stick true to the There are a lot of discussions about digital sovereignty, tech sovereignty, if we stick to this that this has to be with free software, and that when there are software procured that the taxpayers' money needs to benefit society again, then I think this will be a big big change we can accomplish there, which will benefit also not just the public administration, but um companies and other um um actors in society. >> I think uh just to add on those uh ideas, the uh European Commission just rolled out its uh open source uh strategy, which contains a lot of these ideas, and I think it's thanks to you and your efforts, actually. You were involved in these these things. So, uh maybe we will see something in Europe that goes in this direction, so we can be uh hopeful, and I think everybody should follow what's happening there. And then maybe worth mentioning is also that uh since about a year or something inside the uh Ethereum community, there's this effort around the I think it's called the Prosperous Software License, or something like this. So, it's the idea that um you can license It's a new uh open source software license, or free software license, but it requires you to uh if you use a software with this license, it requires you to pay some fraction of your annual revenue uh towards that dependency. So, people call it Well, it's not a free or open source software license anymore. That's sort of the debate that they are having. [laughter] >> [gasps] >> And they get a lot of uh um Yeah, negative feedback on this as well from the community. So, it's it's very contentious. But I think it goes into an interesting direction at least to to consider it. And I think there are also experiments in the Ethereum community around sort of looking at the dependency graph of open source or of generally of software and sort of sending contributions based on the dependency graph to to various maintainers of software. So, I think there's an interesting linkage to what the Web3 community is working on. >> So, you're right when you have such a clause in a license, it's not a free software or open source license anymore. And I mean, that also makes sense because it's it's very hard to force people to contribute to something. And I think that would also be against the spirit of of software freedom. And I mean, there's freedom in there. So, you should not be forced to pay someone for something in there. You should not be forced to contribute back to something, but you should have the freedom to do that. And so, it's more about convincing people why it's also in their own interest, convincing public administrations, governments why it's in their own interest, convincing companies why it's in their interest, or also convincing all of you why it's in your personal interest to pay some of the money you have to people who are providing software that is in your interest and not in the interest of someone else. That's one of the things where it's it's leading to it might sometimes take longer, but it's a more sustainable way to accomplish a free society. >> Yeah, I think it's an open question because if we for example the Tailwind example that he gave in the beginning, when they posted on Twitter that they've lost 80% of their revenue or something because of coding agents, some big companies like Vercel, Google stepped in and were like, "Oh yeah, we're just going to sponsor you guys." And they just sent them a couple of millions, and they actually had more money than than before in the end. And so, it really becomes a popularity contest. If it's purely voluntary, that the problem is the attention window of of people, right? And so, making it something that is more taxation-like, you might have a broader base of of projects you can support. But I I understand the sentiment against license schemes like this, but maybe there's no no better alternative in the end. I I don't know. >> To glorify that point, so I don't think that there shouldn't be also some force mechanisms. So, there is regulation out there, and some regulation coming from the European Commission that should not be like, "Oh yeah, we could do that." Or we couldn't do that. So, there is some regulation there, and it's good that there is regulation there. Also, for example, with the Cyber Resilience Act, which there was also a lot of criticism about that, but that is also a mechanism that can lead to some more sustainable funding models for free software companies or for for developers because others depend on them to fulfill this regulation, and then there is a money flow there. So, this is one of the things where I'm I'm not opposed to regulations. I'm just think it's a very difficult thing to include that in licenses because in the on the license side, it then disables you to collaborate with others, and free software is something which is international, and you have then different different policy regulations in different countries, and it could prevent you to work together as a as humankind to solve our problems if you include those in licenses. >> Okay. I think I think so there's like yeah, kind of two uh you're not against regulation, but it sounds like you're like more for a kind of free association type of um model like find that as like a tactically or strategically as a way to create like that is more sustainable in the long term. Uh versus like kind of like a regulatory pressure, I guess. But you're not against regulatory pressure. >> Sorry, that was from the from the audio. I didn't uh >> That uh the kind of strategically or tactically you were kind of taking your advocating for kind of like a free association that like people uh opt in to pay if they want to versus like being forced to as kind of like a broad ethos. >> I think the debate was between forcing payment on a license level versus forcing payment on a regulation level. And he's actually for regulation, but he's against amending the open source licenses that we use and adding payment clauses into the licenses. And I think that's a very contentious uh proposition, actually. Yes. >> And of course in general, if you are a company and you are selling any product or service, you can charge for that. And I think they might not like this to be voluntary. >> [laughter] >> So it it depends on the product. You also have some products where it's voluntary. Um you have some where you don't have to pay anything and then you just have to pay at a certain level. But yeah. I think that's the summary there. >> Okay. >> Yeah, maybe I think that Europe should um basically anyone want to sell electronic any device that can use software. Um we should actually make it mandatory that the Europeans should be able to install whatever software they want. If they want to hack their device, they should be able to do that. Therefore, it should be assumed that any soft any device that can run software should have open source code somewhere down the line. Therefore, there should be a tariff or some kind of a you know, a tax whenever you sell hardware and that tax could be used to pay all the people who contribute to open source code. And so, it's exactly the same way that we sustain our road and bridges, right? If you sell products or import products, you need to pay there's a tax, there's a tariff and that's being used because we know that you're going to have to use trucks, they're going to have to use the road system and we're going to have to find a way to fund that common public infrastructure. So, open source is common public infrastructure. Let's fund it through taxes and let's tax whatever is actually making use of that software. >> I just want to add that this already exists for copyright. So, whenever you buy anything that has the capacity to store data, you're paying a copyright tax that is redistributed to artists. So, >> [laughter] >> it it follows your your music. >> We can we can, you know, they will understand it. >> Um so, probably potentially looking at the time, one of my my final question. Um I kind of also wanted to look into uh rather than the kind of state or like regulatory lens, I was also interested in looking through um thinking about this through the lens of cooperative ownership of infrastructure. So, yeah, I'm curious if you guys have much thoughts on uh the ownership aspect of the use of open source technology versus being a kind of like privately owned type of technology. >> Go first. >> I mean, I can maybe uh I mean, the ownership of open source, that's a weird thing, but I can maybe talk a little bit about the the ownership of the the hardware and the facilities in which that hardware is sort of housed on which then open source and other um software uh is operated from. And um So, I think this is a really interesting one depending depending on the case that you're looking at, but maybe being here in this room uh Ethereum or Bitcoin or all these open source projects that rely on on hardware components, obviously data infrastructures uh to run are interesting to look at. And what we've seen sort of over the years, right, with the in the Bitcoin example, um the And I suppose it's still ongoing. I haven't checked in on it, but but people being worried about a concentration of mining power. Um and here it was really it it wasn't on the software level. It was just like who owns the physical machines um that constitute the validating uh nodes. And in the case of Bitcoin, of course, it was specialized uh ASIC um machines that were being operated by commercial actors situated in certain areas of the world uh rather than others, and there was a concentration of power there. In the case of Ethereum where um the software is implemented in a way that is trying to be more accessible to different types of hardware, um we're seeing a different risk, right? So, people running their nodes uh on AWS or on other proprietarily owned uh infrastructure, which I think again, if we're talking here about stewarding resilient and free uh open digital infrastructure is a major risk that we should talk about and think about alternative forms of ownership of these hardware uh or of these data centers. Um I can say we've done some uh research. uh Uh a colleague of mine Reiner is also here at the Weizmann Institute uh specifically looking at alternative uh ownership forms of data centers. And I think there's a lot out there that we need to bring more to the forefront of the conversation. It might seem very available and easy to to spin up something on AWS, but you know, self-hosting has a very long tradition and history. Um, there is uh city-owned uh data centers that provide co-location where you could plug in your own hardware. There's these ideas of uh federated uh networks again through which virtual capacity is uh can be rented out and and used. So, I I think that's a really big conversation. I see the time ticking. Um, and also cooperative forms of ownership that have existed historically and been quite successful and also successfully funded. Uh different conversation, but that needs to be had when we talk about the resilience of these things. >> Um, I I actually I really love this idea of open source project as digital cooperatives. Actually, when Thank you for bringing actually Bitcoin and Ethereum because they're actually the largest digital cooperatives out there in many ways. And uh and to me, I'm really interested in um yes, how can we um have an internet native form of organization that would be much more democratic and much more collaborative that wouldn't be depending on nation states that can capture uh the project. And we we talked a lot about regulation and stuff, but also really I mean uh I would invite you to think in terms of your own community. We talk a lot about digital uh the sovereign individual, but I think we should talk more about sovereign collectives. And oh, with everything the open source project that you do, um you know, it's like really I go back to the artist analogy. Like you cannot force people to pay for playing your song. Right? You cannot force people to contribute, but um they also the people cannot force you to play at their party. And if especially now with AI, it's so easy to contribute and pull a pull request and ask something to to fix, you don't owe them anyone. And so I think that can we create a boundary that I promised I would go back to the boundary idea. Can we create a boundary where we make sure that in order for you to pay attention to someone who would like to pull to put a pull request that there is first that they need to show that they've also contributed to open source. Can we basically make sure that we are effectively creating kind of a cooperative a digital cooperative where to be a member you also need to be a contributor in whatever shape or form. >> I I think there's one important struggle at the moment going on and that is we have to keep the baseline that we are as you said before allowed to install or remove any software on any of our devices. So what what we call device neutrality. I think that's a challenge at the moment at the FSFE is at the moment at the European Court of Justice against Apple on this case and that's something we need to defend this. We need to make sure that the software we are building in whatever form for whatever we are building it, we need to have devices where we can actually run it. >> I think that's all we have in terms of time. So thank you guys so much for coming on. Um yeah, find them if you want to talk about it some more. >> [applause]