NLnet Funds 67 Open-Source Projects: From Flow Batteries to Causal AI
NLnet announced funding for 67 open-source projects under the Next Generation Internet initiative. The grants span three funds: NGI Zero Commons Fund, NGI TALER, and NGI Fediversity. The selection covers the entire technology stack, from open hardware to user-facing applications.
Privacy-Preserving Payments and Hosting
NGI TALER is building an electronic payment system that offers privacy for payers while enforcing transparency for sellers. Six projects were selected to contribute, including:
- Fleetbase × Taler: Low-cost, privacy-friendly payments for logistics software.
- Taler PoS: Point-of-Sale software integration.
- GNU Guix integration: Package management system for Taler.
- iOS app testing: Automated UI testing and type generation for Taler's iOS app.
NGI Fediversity focuses on easy-to-use, hosted internet services with portability. Two projects were granted:
- Nocloud: File-hosting platform.
- Magic Nix VFS: Transparent distribution of software on-demand from cache servers, creating a "virtual Nix store" available on demand.
Hardware and Low-Level Innovation
Hardware projects include:
- Hybrid Flow Battery: Open-source hardware for energy storage.
- Apicula GW5A: Open-source toolchain for Gowin FPGAs, supporting the GW5A line (60k and 138k variants). This is the second most mature toolchain after Lattice.
- Dot Product Unit (DPU): Open-source hardware IP block for vector dot-product computation across multiple numeric formats (INT8, FP8, BF16, FP16, FP32, FP64). It uses a pipelined SIMD datapath and focuses on low latency and efficient hardware reuse.
- Einszeit: Quantum-proof encryption device using One-Time Pad cryptography with hardware-generated true random keys.
- CflexHDL: C-based flexible hardware/software systems design.
- Ringdove EDA: New format importers for PCB design.
- Fazantix: All-in-one open hardware capture and streaming box, battle-tested at FOSDEM with 30 parallel tracks.
Browsers, Operating Systems, and Protocols
Browser innovation continues:
- Servo: Improving writing modes and multimedia support.
- Bisque: Built on top of Servo, aims to improve desktop integration.
OS and protocol work:
- Redox: Rust-based OS with virtualised microservices.
- Landlock: Kernel observability for the Linux sandboxing module.
- Island: New sandboxing solution.
- River: Non-monolithic Wayland compositor with a new window management protocol.
- Wayland e-reader support: Adding electrophoretic display support.
- MultiPath TCP and microTCP: Network protocol enhancements.
- DMRSEC: Security analysis of Digital Mobile Radio (used by emergency services).
Developer Tools and Libraries
- AtomVM: From-scratch Erlang VM implementation.
- Funk: Compiler for hard real-time, functionally safe systems.
- Ribbit: Compiler from Scheme to JavaScript, Assembly (x86), C, Python, Prolog, and twenty other languages.
- Haskell GADTs: Improving support for generalized algebraic data types in Haskell.
- pgmpy: Software for causal AI (cause-and-effect relationships).
- Nexus: Cross-platform GPU multi-physics simulation engine.
- QUATT: Tool for designing solid-state quantum circuits.
- Ovolesti: Volume computation and high-dimensional sampling integration in GNU Octave.
- Open Instrument Control: Open-source transport-level protocols for test and measurement instruments.
- AppBundler: Easier distribution of Julia software.
Applications and Data Commons
- Jitsi + Collabora Online: Follow-me-slideshow integration.
- Castopod: Podcast hosting tool.
- Posca: Communication client.
- Dolibarr: ERP tool gaining support for modern European e-invoicing standards.
- SCIM Python framework: Improvements for privacy-friendly login.
- Karrot: Social software for group coordination.
- SelfPrivacy + Tor: New self-hosting scenarios.
- MistServer and PeerTube: Video streaming platforms.
- OpenStreetMap: iD-tagging and iD-presets improvements, CoMaps mobile mapping tool.
- Open Food Facts: Data commons for food products.
Conclusion
These grants are part of the NGI Zero Commons Fund, which supports free and open-source technologies that build the digital commons. All outcomes can be freely used, studied, shared, and modified. The next steps for developers: check the list of projects, contribute if interested, or apply for future calls.