[pmwiki-users] European Union funding for open source software and research

Wed Jan 8 11:20:04 PST 2025

Hi Andrius,

Thank you for sharing this information and the links. I find this very 
interesting and was hoping to secure funding for core PmWiki development 
and additional functionality. Last August, I discussed this with someone 
at a university, but unfortunately, it didn't lead to any results. For 
context, I'm an EU citizen currently living in France and Bulgaria.

I'm deeply committed to Free/Libre software and the principles of 
knowledge and culture sharing. For the past 16 years, I have maintained 
the PmWiki core, its documentation in English, and over 140 addons by me 
or by other authors. In addition, I've supported the community on 
mailing lists, talk pages, and off-list for even longer.

Despite this extensive work, I've only received dedicated funding 
once--for five weeks in 2017. During that time, I was able to update 
dozens of popular addons to work with newer PHP versions. I typically 
update the core as soon as I learn of breaking changes in PHP, and I 
stay ahead by using the latest PHP versions or their release candidates.

In 2017, I created the page Pay for PmWiki [1], and while I am deeply 
grateful that some generous individuals donated or commissioned specific 
work, some people more than once, it has only covered 1-2 days of 
full-time development annually in recent years. Everything else I do in 
my free time--nights and weekends--after my regular day job.

My professional work involves maintaining and supporting PmWiki-based 
websites, which has contributed significantly to core updates, 
enhancements, hooks, and addons. I've also developed several custom 
functions that I hope to publish as extensions when time permits. These 
include:

  	* Database integration: MySQL/MariaDB.
  	* Advanced user management: Email-based registration, verification, 
self-recovery, two-factor authentication, access control delegation.
  	* Rich email notifications: Customizable templates with rich text 
(from wiki markup), embedded images, and attachments.
  	* Enhanced analytics: GDPR-compliant, without external tracking, with 
detailed stats by groups and wikis, charts, and export options.
  	* Hierarchical page organization: Tree-like structures for grouping 
and moving pages and subpages within a WikiGroup.
  	* Visual editor: User-friendly WYSIWYG features, galleries, videos, 
maps, and LaTeX formula editing with live preview.
  	* Integrated tools: JavaScript calculators, PDF export as posters and 
QR codes, permalinks, and more.
  	* Specialized extensions: Semantic search, AI-powered chatbot, search 
clouds, 360-degree virtual tours, RSS feeds, and document tables with 
categories, expiry dates, and maintainers.
  	* Scalable infrastructure: Support for large file uploads, admin 
panels.

Each of these features requires substantial time to refactor to detach 
from their dependencies, convert to the new PmWiki extension format, 
test, publish, and document. And then they need to be supported as 
people use them. On top of this, ongoing core maintenance is essential 
to ensure compatibility with newer PHP versions, evolving security 
threats, and best security practices.

If there is a viable way to fund this work and release it as free and 
open-source software, it would benefit the entire community. I'll review 
the documentation on how to apply for funding, and if you have any 
advice or questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to me off-list.

Best wishes,
Petko

-- 
If you upgrade :  https://www.pmwiki.org/Upgrades

On 07/01/2025 21:27, Andrius Kulikauskas wrote:

> Dear Petko, Patrick and all,
> 
> I want to alert you to the NGI Zero Commons Fund set up by the European 
> Union
> https://nlnet.nl/commonsfund/guideforapplicants/
> They are funding small projects ranging from 5,000 euros to 50,000 
> euros.  The next deadline is February 1, 2025 and then every two 
> months.  The application process is relatively simple.  It is designed 
> for individuals to be able to apply, but institutions and businesses 
> are also welcome.  This is to fund scientific research, design and 
> development of free and open source software and open hardware, and 
> lots of related activities
> https://nlnet.nl/commonsfund/eligibility/
> 
> "The key objective is to deliver potential break-through contributions 
> to the open internet. All scientific outcomes must be published as open 
> access, and any software and hardware must be published under a 
> recognised open source license in its entirety."
> 
> "Given equal proposals, inhabitants of the EU and countries associated 
> to Horizon Europe are given priority. However if the project is of 
> exceptional quality and the proposer holds unique technical expertise 
> proposals from outside of those geographic areas can be eligible as 
> well -- under the condition that there is a clear European dimension."
> 
> "A human centric Next Generation Internet shall reflect the openness, 
> diversity and the inclusion that are at the core of European values. 
> The overall mission of the Next Generation Internet initiative is to 
> re-imagine and re-engineer the internet for the third millennium and 
> beyond to shape a value-centric, human and inclusive society for all. 
> How we share and retrieve information is an essential part of that 
> equation."
> 
> Patrick, this may all relate to your core values
> https://pmichaud.com/wiki/Pm/PmCoreValues
> which relate to my own interests.
> 
> I myself, as a thinker and organizer, have used PmWiki for at least 12 
> years.
> 
> I am leading a small investigatory community for absolute truth, 
> developing a language of wisdom, Wondrous Wisdom, and a culture of 
> investigation. I am doing that at several wikis that run PmWiki.
> 
> https://www.e-c-o.net is where we are developing the Econet culture.  I 
> have customized the wiki to have a simple Chat box
> https://www.e-c-o.net/wiki/Econet/Chat
> which updates the page and then reads its sixth line to insert it in 
> the header of every page.  That's a primitive way for us to socialize 
> as we work alongside each other.  I also have a page
> https://www.e-c-o.net/wiki/Econet/PersonalVisions
> that draws values from metadata stored on pages for individuals.
> 
> I may at some point applly for funding to research how to customize 
> PmWiki to support a culture of thinkers and activists, or more broadly, 
> an independent social network.  This could include organizing and 
> funding coders to help with small projects such as creating or adapting 
> cookbook files or skins as relevant. I envisage a federated network of 
> platforms that share data about our values, our relationships with 
> truth, our investigatory questions, our commitments to the culture, and 
> so on.  My colleague Daniel Friedman uses Coda.  So we would be 
> interested to combine records from Coda and from PmWiki, for example, 
> at least for reading.
> 
> I use PmWiki for Theory Translator https://www.theorytranslator.com 
> where we collect examples of conceptual structures, such as the three 
> minds.  The top of the page is a PHP/MySQL page that I coded and the 
> bottom of the page is a PmWiki for the expositions.
> 
> I use PmWiki for my websites https://www.math4wisdom.com and 
> https://www.ms.lt  (in Lithuanian).
> 
> I live in Lithuania and my colleague Marcus Petz lives in Finland.  
> Both countries are in the European Union.  Daniel is the President of 
> the Active Inference Institute https://www.activeinference.institute  
> and that opens up all kinds of possibilities.  They are based in 
> California and are a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization in the US.  
> Among us, Marcus is the one who needs a job or funding.  He recently 
> got his PhD in Social and Public Policy.  His thesis was on community 
> currency in rural development.  He leads our Community Economics study 
> group. So mutual aid or simply helping each other is an element of our 
> social network.  A related element is registering the time that we are 
> committing to our culture.
> https://www.e-c-o.net/wiki/Econet/Commitments
> We have participants in Kenya and in rural America so that also adds 
> the meaningful challenge of including in our culture those who may have 
> limited online access or perhaps none at all.
> 
> I have funding for myself for all of the coming year so I am avoiding 
> further obligations.  But we are keeping in mind this funding 
> opportunity and certainly taking up the knowledge engineering 
> challenges.
> 
> If anybody is interested in customizing PmWiki to support our culture, 
> or simply participating in our culture, please do let me know about 
> your interests!
> 
> Andrius
> 
> Andrius Kulikauskas
> math4wisdom at gmail.com
> https://www.math4wisdom.com
> Vilnius, Lithuania
> _______________________________________________
> pmwiki-users mailing list
> pmwiki-users at pmichaud.com
> http://www.pmichaud.com/mailman/listinfo/pmwiki-users

Links:
------
[1] https://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/PmWiki/PayForPmWiki
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