F-Droid has received funds from US Congress (via OTF), just like Signal

[notfromhere@lemmy.ml]

OTF receives the majority of its funding from the U.S. government via the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM). Funding is appropriated for OTF through the annual  Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs appropriations and provided to OTF via a grant agreement from USAGM.

For FY 2023, Congress allocated $90.5 million for programs to promote Internet freedom globally, representing a $13 million increase from FY 2022. Of the funds allocated for Internet freedom, $40 million was designated for OTF. Per the appropriations, all Congressional funding provided to OTF is used to support “programs to promote Internet freedom globally.” In addition to helping to further OTF’s mission, this funding increase is also further recognition of the increasing need for the tools and technologies OTF supports.

In addition to funding from USAGM, OTF also accepts funding from other mission-aligned donors for discrete Funds, Labs, or Fellowships. For example, OTF’s FOSS Sustainability Fund is supported in part by funding from Schmidt Futures’ Plaintext Group, Okta for Good, and the Github Foundation.

[mox@lemmy.sdf.org]

Huz-fucking-zah. Independence from corporations like Google in the technologies we depend on to live our lives is important, and F-Droid provides an unmatched service in support of that goal.

[jubilantjaguar@lemmy.world]

Well said. And I think there's more. In the Anglosphere and the USA in particular, government and state are often conflated, but they really are two different things. The former is the cockpit, the latter is the airplane.

Things are different in European cultures. In Latin languages, for example, the government is understood to be the body of politicians in control right now, whereas the state is a sort of expression of the people's will and therefore has much wider legitimacy. Two very different things. I believe it's similar in German.

I sometimes wonder if this semantic quirk has exacerbated the general skepticism of English-speakers towards collective action.

[justanotherkay@lemmy.world]

Strong feelings about issues do not emerge from deep understanding

My feelings about capitalism are largely fueled by how well I understand it. When I understood it less, I didn't mind it as much

I don't like this quote

[prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone]

Why change the title??

[justenoughducks@feddit.nl]

I think you will find that almost all grants either come from a corporation or a government. Crazy isn't it? A very small amount comes from non-profits and often those nonprofits are majority funded by governments and corporations.

[freeman@feddit.org]

I understand that "Regierung" (government) = executive branch
"Parlament" (parliament, in the US congress+senate) = legislative branch

"Staat" (state) is an imprecise word as it can mean different things
https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staat
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_(polity) (see Definition)

[thorned_rose@sh.itjust.works]

I mean, Fdroid has problems but funding from government is the absolute least of them.

[jagged_circle@feddit.nl]

Do they also have a warrant canary?

[surph_ninja@lemmy.world]

Depends what the funding is for. If it’s payment for compliance with CALEA (which has become a major revenue stream for big tech), then it’s compensation for building backdoors.

[refalo@programming.dev]

I don't consider those to be useful anymore because a court can compel them to keep the canary up in secret, and I'm pretty sure that's already happened more than once before.

[jagged_circle@feddit.nl]

That's never happened in history

[refalo@programming.dev]

How would you know?

You probably wouldn't have heard about it simply because it's illegal to publicize a secret subpoena/warrant. Such orders are given as National Security Letters with a permanent gag order, going so far as to preventing the recipient from even seeking counsel; it's a massive abuse of power and due process in the US to get companies to lie and do whatever they want.