NLnet Foundation seeks projects to fund

A little-known organization—at least outside of its native home in the Netherlands—has quietly been funding various free software projects to the tune of roughly €2.5 million a year. Most of those projects have been in the Netherlands or Europe, but it is looking to expand its reach to the rest of the world. It is "actively encouraging" submissions of funding proposals for projects that involve network technology and will be released as open source, according to NLnet Foundation Director Valer Mischenko.

The Foundation grew out of the Netherlands' first internet provider, NLnet, which laid the original backbone along the rails in that country. In 1998, it was sold to UUNet and the proceeds were invested into the Foundation. The intent of the money was to fund technology, particularly internet technology. Because the internet depends on interoperability, it just makes sense to require projects that are funded to release their code, Mischenko says.

The Foundation prides itself on being quick to answer requests for funding as there are "not too many bureaucratic layers" to the organization. Projects that try to get government funding often fall behind because it takes so much time and effort to get a grant of some kind—the technology may well have moved on. Depending on the size of the project, and the amount of funding required, answers can come as quickly as just a few weeks.

Each year, two themes are chosen to focus on so that projects in those areas get priority for funding. For 2008, those themes are "Identity, Privacy, and Presence" and "Open Document Format" (ODF). While ODF is not directly connected to network technology, the internet will be a poorer place without open formats that can be freely shared.

Part of the ODF effort was helping governments understand the importance of open formats in general and ODF in particular. One of the outcomes of that work was that all agencies in the Netherlands must start using open formats or justify why they cannot.

The ODF theme is just one area where the Foundation has broadly interpreted its mission. It has helped fund the FSF Europe (FSFE) Freedom Task Force project for several years. In addition, it provided €200,000 to help pay for Eben Moglen's time to work on GPLv3 at the FSF. Mischenko notes that it is important for the foundation to fund things that will help "protect the network"; he and the board see these efforts as important in that regard.

The bulk of funding this year has gone into the Identity, Privacy, and Presence theme. A list of the currently funded projects has a number of interesting entries from support for Tor hidden services and an improved routing algorithm for GNUnet to hardware projects such as RFID Guardian and e-Passport.

The current structure of funding is made up of four "layers", each corresponding to how much the Foundation will provide as well as how long it will provide funding for. The first layer is for things like funding trips for developers and other community members to attend conferences and the like. The second layer is for commitments of up to €30,000. Currently around 15% of proposals for second layer funding are granted.

For larger projects, the third layer can provide 2-4 years of funding of up to €500-600,000 per year. The fourth layer projects are currently fixed for the next five years as the Foundation is funding DNSSEC work at NLnet Labs as well as work on intelligent agents at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Mischenko said that the board is "willing to hear about ideas that don't fit into the layers". He said that the Foundation will continue its current funding model "unless we hear a great world-changing idea that we put all our money in and then we are gone". It is not just projects that can be funded by the Foundation, any person, company, or organization can apply. "As long as it is a network technology and it will be put in open source", the Foundation will consider funding it.

[ Along those lines, the author would like to thank the NLnet Foundation for helping to fund his recent trip to the co-located NLUUG autumn Mobility conference and Embedded Linux Conference Europe in Ede, the Netherlands. ]