Investing in open source software (OSS) has critical benefits; it maximizes innovation, prevents reinventing similar solutions, and supports digital autonomy. According to OpenForum Europe, the economic impact of OSS on the EU economy is estimated to be between EUR 65 and EUR 95 billion in 2018. However, independent open source maintainers struggle to generate revenue despite their crucial contribution and usually abandon their work in the long term. This outcome is an inefficient way of utilizing our resources and leads to OSS being underproduced. The EU can/should recognize OSS as a public good and address this problem by direct financial support to maintainers, similar to universal basic income. The union can set up a public fund that makes periodic payments to maintainers who pass specific criteria. The criteria to receive an income might be: - The maintainer should be an EU citizen - The software must be using an open source license - A certain number of organizations within the EU should be actively using the software The right amount of income and the method to determine the usage in companies need to be studied. The income, ideally, should be attractive enough for the maintainers to keep working on OSS full-time. By directly investing in OSS, we can ensure a more robust software supply chain and attract IT talent to the EU, next to the previously mentioned benefits.