Bonjour,

It is vitally important that software forges communicate with each other and cease to be isolated silos. The momentum that started late 2020 in the Gitea community to natively implement federation based on ActivityPub will provide that kind of communication. The foundations are however technically challenging and NLnet funding will be instrumental to make it happen.

Gitea is a very popular software forge and their work will set an example that may inspire other software forge to follow their example. Being the first software forge to be federated feels like talking to yourself. But once a federation of many Gitea instances grows, it will create a strong incentive for others to join.

Matti and Andrew are excellent candidates to work on the implementation because they are actively involved in the development of Gitea and are respected community members.

I've been involved with software forges for the past twenty years and created the [Savannah](https://savannah.gnu.org/) software forge in 2001. Nowadays I'm a member (since January 2021) of the community working on https://fedeproxy.eu, a project to bring federation to forges in an incremental way [funded by DAPSI](https://dapsi.ngi.eu/hall-of-fame/fedeproxy/).

The ultimate goal of Fedeproxy is to become redundant, once all software forges natively implement federation. Gitea is going to take the first step in this direction. This is the primary reason why I strongly support this grant application.

Cheers