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SLAPP Censorship - Part 167 Out of 200: The Court of Appeal Might be the Next Step

German Government Sponsors IBM Because of GNU/Linux

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Aug 31, 2026

At this very moment Cloudflare sees GNU/Linux measured at 13% Germany - a lot higher than the average. It should be noted that an 'offshoot' of the German Government called "Sovereign Tech Agency" is providing money to Flatpak - quite a lot of money! Sovereignty, to them, means Free Software and also open standards.

The strange thing about it is, Flatpak is sponsored by, run, and controlled by IBM. It's not some neutral piece of community software. Historically, IBM has had stories in Germany it would rather you forgot or never knew about.

Since the first moment I learned about this grant/endowment I've found it fascinating that the German Government is funding an IBM project.

The Flatpak funding shows it is seen as strategic to Germany. Flathub, however, would let the US exercise control. The backend of Flatpak - unlike Snap - is Free software, so Germany should be able to roll out its own hub. █

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