Bonjour,
This mail was sent to a few Gitea contributors today.
Cheers
Subject: Gitea and Forge Federation
Hi [redacted],
A few month ago I sent you an invitation (subject “Interview request for developers working on forges”) which probably went directly to your spam box. Hopefully this one will have better luck 
The User Research is complete and if you’re interested the report was published[0].
I’m now working to implement the federation proxy[1] and Gitea plays an important part. Hopefully federation will become a first class communication channel in the (not too far) future[2]. But for that to happen there needs to be funding and I’d like to know if you would be interested in case there is an opportunity. I obtained funding from the EU a few month ago and I’m exploring paths to keep this going, to sustain the effort until it is fully implemented.
Please let me know if you’re interested to discuss this. My preference would be to do so publicly and transparently but I preferred to send you this email in private to not put you on the spot. Feel free however to publish it and share it as you see fit.
Cheers
[0] https://lab.fedeproxy.eu/fedeproxy/ux/-/wikis/2021-06-user-research-report
[1] https://lab.fedeproxy.eu/fedeproxy/fedeproxy/
[2] https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/issues/14186