can’t see how this can possibly be a good thing, you know it will mean funding with conditions.
Well, the things they are funding will get funded? How is that a bad thing?!
The conditions range from very broad, like "fix bugs" (curl), over somewhat specific like "improve cross-platform compatibility and the Linux RNG" (Wireguard), to very specific like "create a test-suite and drive development on the Fediverse account migration functionality" (ActivityPub).
You can see more for yourself at https://www.sovereign.tech/tech
All of these seem to be rather tame conditions that are just there to ensure the funds get used in the way they were intended to be used. And I don't really see how that gives the STF any sort of direct control over these projects, while it gives those projects resources to achieve more than they might have otherwise. There are no long-term funding models that would enable implicit control over these projects.
To those who missed the small disclaimer in the post, 1.0 is not properly released yet. RC4 is out, actual 1.0 release should be "sometime [this] week" (barring new bugs and regressions). See: https://blog.freecad.org/2024/11/14/freecad-1-0-release-candidate-4-is-out/
Edit: Release is out now: https://blog.freecad.org/2024/11/19/freecad-version-1-0-released/