New wave of projects to create digital commons

NLnet Foundation announces 39 new projects for the NGI Zero Commons Fund. We congratulate the selected projects and look forward to the new capabilities these will bring to society. There were many more applications, which we unfortunately could not all grant. We take the opportunity to thank all applicants for their contributions towards digital public goods and an open, trustworthy and resilient internet.

NGI Zero harbours a broad set of research and development efforts, each of which empowering users in its own way. Democratic access to technology is not a given, and strenghtening openness across the board pushes innnovation and thwarts market dominance and lock-in. Free and open source technologies, open standards, open hardware and open data help to strenghten the open web and the open internet.

From secure hardware to customisable design

The projects selected by NLnet in this call round come from all layers of the technology stack, from open hardware design tools, new protocols to better secure networks to user-facing content creation and curation tools. Trustworthy hardware lies at the base of everything, hence the support for a variety of efforts in this domain — such as a new release of KiCad, the popular free and open source electronics design application. But also on tools lower in the stack, for instance to design FPGAs and ASICs in Python, on open hardware implementations of Universal Serial Bus (USB), an Ethernet Ethernet Media Access Controller and PCIexpress EndPoint, on universal libraries for I2C sensors and elelectrophoretic devices (aka "e-paper" or "e-ink") — as well as applying these to develop end-user devices such as an air-gapped open hardware encryption handheld.

In parallel there will be people working on e.g. a new protocol to safeguard the routing infrastructure of the internet, on making improvements to the Linux kernel implementation of Multipath TCP and server-side extensions for the BigBlueButton videoconferencing tool. Others will meanwhile work on advancing secure and collaborative content authoring (in a way that is decoupled from the application, so users can switch to any other standards-compliant application and storage system), a modern non-linear video editor, audio programming language compilation for creative coding and an open-source parametric design tool that allows people to share design knowledge online and create their own custom furniture.

And much more

This was just a small sample of the wide range of important contributions that will be worked on — from consumer facing applications such as webmail to metadata-free end-to-end encrypted messaging, to a FOSS wireless positioning database for privacy-friendly geolocation determination (also client-side) to low-level interoperability testing and mapping differences between POSIX operating systems and a modern compliant reimplementation of COBOL which can help transition legacy systems to a more transparent open stack, tools to improve our software supply chain and a cross-platform network monitoring application and traffic analyser (Sniffnet).

Read on to meet all 39 projects selected in this funding round, or check out the complete overview of projects currently funded by NLnet.

If you applied for a grant
This is the selection for the February call of the NGI Zero Commons Fund fund only. We always inform all applicants about the outcome of the review ahead of the public announcement, whether they are selected or not. If you have not heard anything, you probably applied to a later call or a different fund that is still under review.

How do I find out which call round I applied to?

You can see which call round you applied to by checking the application number assigned to the project when you submitted the proposal. The number starts with the year and month of the call, so 2025-02- in the case of the February 2025 call. You see that same number featured in the emails we send you (It should not happen, but if you did apply to another call and did not hear anything, do contact us)

Meet the new projects!

(you can click or tap on the project name to fold out additional information)

Trustworthy hardware and manufacturing

• Amaranth HDL — Design FPGAs and ASICs in Python

  Amaranth is a hardware definition langauge for synchronous digital logic embedded within Python. It aims to be easy to learn and use, reduce or eliminate common coding mistakes, and simplify the design of complex hardware with reusable components. While the language has been successfully used for many years for both FPGA projects and ASIC tapeouts, it is not yet at the "1.0" level of maturity. This grant will enable the project to ensure that all of the core abstractions are up to the same high bar of quality, as well as to bring documentation coverage to near 100%.

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/Amaranth-HDL

• KiCad-10 — Cross Platform Electronics Design Automation Suite

  The project summary for this project is not yet available. Please come back soon!

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/KiCad-10

• LUNA SuperSpeed USB Improvements — FPGA implementation of USB 3

  LUNA is an open source gateware library for creating USB devices with FPGAs. It includes mature support for USB 2.0 Low-, Full-, and High-speed devices. It also has experimental support for USB 3.x SuperSpeed devices with support for using built-in SerDes transceivers on some FPGAs, avoiding the need for an external PHY. This project will stabilise LUNA's SuperSpeed support by improving timing closure, implementing low-power link states, and running physical-layer electrical compliance testing using the Lattice ECP5's built-in transceivers.

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/LUNA-USB

• openCologne/PCIe — Create PCIe EndPoint for GateMate FPGA's

  The project summary for this project is not yet available. Please come back soon!

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/OpenCologne-PCIe

• Project Unnamed — Full-featured, libre FPGA compilation toolchain

  The project summary for this project is not yet available. Please come back soon!

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/prjunnamed

• Qryptr — Air-gapped open hardware encryption device

  As a a smartphone user you might be worried about spyware, advanced actors, backdoors, zero-days or side-channel attacks? These routinely bypass end-to-end encryption through keyloggers, screen capture and compromised keys. Smartphones are part of complex ecosystems with dozens of hardware and software components and remain vulnerable despite vendor and political efforts. Qryptr is a simple, offline, airgapped device to counter such threats. Plain text messages entered via its keyboard are ECC encrypted and displayed as QR codes. These QR codes can be photographed and shared using your smartphone. This method offers additional endpoint security as plaintext and cryptographic keys are kept physically separate from your smartphone.

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/Qryptr

• RIVET — Cointegration of RISC-V systems with Ethernet

  The goal of the RIVET project is to develop and incorporate an Ethernet Media Access Controller (MAC) into an already existing organized open-source framework for agile development of RISC-V Systems-on-Chip (SoC) such as Chipyard. This work enables development engineers and researchers to equip their custom compute ASIC and FPGA prototypes with a "plug-and-play" Internet access feature while providing a ready testbed for next-generation networking devices. By upstreaming the results to Chipyard, the project will deliver the first fully parameterizable Chisel-based Gigabit Ethernet MAC design generator solution in that ecosystem, dramatically lowering the barrier for the global open-hardware and VLSI communities to build network-capable RISC-V systems and subsequently integrate them on a chip.

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/RIVET

Network infrastructure incl. routing, P2P and VPN

• Erik Synchronization Protocol for RPKI — Protect BGP with Resource Public Key Infrastructure signatures

  The Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI) is a critical component of the global Internet routing system: it plays a key role in safeguarding both national and international routing infrastructure. Expedient and reliable distribution of up-to-date RPKI data helps Internet providers make better BGP routing decisions.

  The Erik Synchronization Protocol seeks to develop a novel HTTP-based data replication system for the RPKI using Merkle trees, content-addressable naming, and concurrency control using monotonically increasing sequence numbers. The protocol's design is intended to be efficient, fast, and easy to implement. The goal of the current project is to develop the Erik Synchronization Protocol specification as an open standard and produce open-source reference implementations based on rpki-client.

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/Erik-RPKI

• Multipath TCP on Linux — C Flag support and path-manager improvements for MPTCP

  Multipath TCP (MPTCP) is a standardised technology extending TCP and invented in Europe. TCP is one of the key protocols of the TCP/IP protocol stack, designed in the 1970s when hosts were attached to the network through a single cable. Today's hosts have several network interfaces, but TCP only uses one of them for a given connection. Multipath TCP solves this problem by enabling TCP connections to exchange packets over different network interfaces. With the current version of MPTCP in the Linux kernel, most of the features listed in the RFC8684 are implemented. Common use-cases are supported but still, it doesn't mean the solution is covering all needs. In short, MPTCP works well in controlled environments, but there is room for improvement in heterogeneous and more uncommon ones. Some work is then still needed to cover more use-cases -- like when MPTCP is deployed in Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) -- plus to improve the usability and performances in order to have Multipath TCP adopted by a broader audience.

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/MPTCP-C-Flag

• Native DTLS 1.3 implementation in Go — Add DTLS 1.3 to PION real-time media stack

  Pion is an open-source community aiming to create a cross-platform stack for real-time communication in Go. As part of the stack, Pion has implemented Datagram Transport Layer Security version 1.2. DTLS is a protocol that brings the security properties of TLS to UDP transports, preventing eavesdropping, tampering, and message forgery. This protocol is essential to secure real-time communication applications like WebRTC, IoT, and VPNs. The latest version, DTLS 1.3, offers major improvements in performance, security, and privacy. While Go’s standard library includes TLS support, it lacks any DTLS implementation. This project will add native DTLS 1.3 support to the Pion DTLS library, enabling developers in the commons to build secure and low-latency applications in Go.

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/PION-DTLS1.3

• Ricochet Refresh UX — Making privacy more user-friendly

  Ricochet-Refresh is a decentralised, open-source instant-messaging client that allows people to chat with each other anonymously and securely, via the Tor network. This project will strengthen Ricochet-Refresh’s privacy and anonymity guarantees by basing it on the Gosling library. The project will also improve user experience and implement various new features one expects from contemporary instant-messaging software, and prepare the way to bring Ricochet-Refresh to Android devices.

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/Rico-UX

• RIVET — Cointegration of RISC-V systems with Ethernet

  The goal of the RIVET project is to develop and incorporate an Ethernet Media Access Controller (MAC) into an already existing organized open-source framework for agile development of RISC-V Systems-on-Chip (SoC) such as Chipyard. This work enables development engineers and researchers to equip their custom compute ASIC and FPGA prototypes with a "plug-and-play" Internet access feature while providing a ready testbed for next-generation networking devices. By upstreaming the results to Chipyard, the project will deliver the first fully parameterizable Chisel-based Gigabit Ethernet MAC design generator solution in that ecosystem, dramatically lowering the barrier for the global open-hardware and VLSI communities to build network-capable RISC-V systems and subsequently integrate them on a chip.

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/RIVET

• Remote Sniffnet — Network monitoring tool + traffic analyser

  Sniffnet is a cross-platform, Rust-based, fully open-source network monitoring application to help everyone keep an eye on their Internet traffic. Sniffnet is a technical tool, but at the same time it strongly focuses on the overall user experience: most of the network analyzers out there are cumbersome to use, while one of Sniffnet's cornerstones is to be usable with ease by virtually anyone.

  Sniffnet plans to grow a lot in terms of functionalities in the coming period, implementing the most desired features raised directly users. This includes the ability to identify the process/application responsible for a given network connection in a cross-platform way, the development of a Sniffnet agent and server capable of sending/receiving traffic from devices that don't support running a UI (such as routers or headless machines). Other interesting additions include support for the Linux SLL link type that will allow monitoring the 'any' interface, configuration of complex network filters following the Berkeley Packet Filter syntax, the ability to send remote notifications via POST webhooks, support for custom IP blacklists to warn users about suspicious traffic. A whole new application page will display more insights about the saved favorites, which will be extended to also support services and processes in addition to network hosts.

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/Sniffnet-remote

• WireGuard as a MirageOS unikernel — Implement WireGuard in OCaml and run as unikernel

  The project summary for this project is not yet available. Please come back soon!

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/MirageOS-Wireguard

Software engineering, protocols, interoperability, cryptography, algorithms, proofs

• Blind crypto and OAuth2 for ARPA2 — Advancing HTTP-SASL and keyless identity

  The project summary for this project is not yet available. Please come back soon!

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/HTTP-SASL-OAuth2

• rust-query — Ergonomic API to write composable and nested relational queries

  The 'rust-query' library provides an API for the Rust programming language, to work with SQLite databases and build composable database queries with confidence. While the library already has many innovative features, it still lacks some of the essential features that are required for most applications. That is why this project adds support for booleans and datetimes in the schema (using check-constraints), more SQL operators, and custom non-unique indices. We will also improve developer experience with a guide, better error messages, and support for using rust-query with existing migration systems.

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/rust-query

• TramaBOL — Optimising COBOL compiler and memory-safe runtime

  The project summary for this project is not yet available. Please come back soon!

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/COBOL-compiler

Operating Systems, firmware and virtualisation

• Asynchronous ESP32 802.11 MAC — IEEE 802.11 MAC Stack for ESP32 family chips in Rust

  Ferris-on-Air is an IEEE 802.11 (WLAN) stack for ESP32 microcontrollers, designed as a free and open source replacement for the closed source Wi-Fi stack provided by the manufacturer. This allows for greater flexibility in the protocols we implement, as well as granting full security auditability for the entire stack. It is written in asynchronous Rust and aims to be useful for both research purposes and free and open source projects.

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/ESP32-async-MAC

• Bottles — Bridges the gap between Linux and Windows software

  Bottles enables users to run Windows applications on Linux through sandboxed and reproducible environments built on top of Wine and advanced transpilation technologies. The upcoming major release, Bottles Next, introduces atomic and isolated installation of individual applications within shared environments, ensuring reliability in critical scenarios. The project focuses on transparency, long-term reproducibility and user control, improving installation traceability and supply chain trust by making every step verifiable and repeatable.

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/Bottles

• Bring x86_64-gnu (the 64bit Hurd) to Guix — Port Guix to the GNU Hurd microkernel

  "The Hurd" is the GNU project's microkernel-based replacement for the Unix kernel. This system has long promised enhanced privacy and security for computer users. This promise has been noted by RISCV-64 researchers who are currently looking to standardize and add RPC hardware features to support microkernels. GNU Guix currently supports i586-gnu (the 32bit Hurd) and is the only supported GNU/Hurd distribution apart from Debian/Hurd that is used by the Hurd developers.

  Guix introduced running the Hurd as a system service under Linux (a Childhurd) which has made it very easy to try-out the Hurd which has significantly increased interest in it. As the current 32bit Hurd system can use only a fraction of the system's memory, and using only one processor it is not a very attractive proposition. This project will bring the 64bit intel port of the Hurd to Guix which aims to be another significant step in the adoption and development of the Hurd.

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/Guix-Hurd

• Sortix os-test — POSIX test suite

  os-test measures interoperability and differences between every POSIX operating system (Linux, BSD, macOS, and many more). This project expands os-test with full coverage for the POSIX standard library for the C programming language. This new test coverage will check that each C header properly provides all the mandated definitions, and that each function succeeds on basic inputs. Detailed new suites will be written for the areas where defects or deviation from the standard are likely, or where edge cases otherwise might not be correctly implemented or even standardized. os-test continuously publishes test results for every POSIX OS as open data. os-test improves interoperability, since application vendors are able to know what behaviors they can actually use to write portable applications for all operating systems, operating system vendors can identify and fix their conformance issues, and the POSIX standard authors can measure adoption/rejection of the new POSIX.1 2024 standard. os-test is developed as a side project to fully implement POSIX in the new Sortix operating system.

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/Sortix

• Spectrum: Virtualisation Platform — A secure OS with app isolation

  Spectrum is an implementation of a security through compartmentalization based operating system, built on top of the Linux kernel. Unlike other such implementations, user data and application state will be managed centrally, while remaining isolated, meaning that the system can be backed up and managed as a whole, rather than mixed up in several dozen virtual machines.

  This project will continue the implementation of important features in Spectrum. In most cases, this work will also include the implementation of new primitives in Spectrum's underlying technologies — in particular the rust-vmm ecosystem — to enable those features. In addition, we aim to grow the ecosystem further in response to clear demand from developers, by extracting more reusable components from the monolithic Spectrum system, and by providing comprehensive documentation to teach developers how to create their own virtualization solutions from the growing universe of available components. By investing in growth of the free virtualization ecosystem, we expect we will expand the pool of potential future contributors to Spectrum and its components, increasing the speed at which the project can move in the future.

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/Spectrum-virt

• Universal EInk Solutions — Consistent API for e-paper

  Electrophoretic displays (aka EPD, Eink, E-Paper) are reflective display devices which use colored granules suspended in clear oil to display text and graphics. Their unique property is that they can maintain their state without power. They've become ubiquitous as e-book readers, digital signage and as dynamic price displays in retail. Small, low cost displays are also desirable to use in personal and small maker projects. The challenge in using these displays compared to more traditional displays such as LCDs (liquid crystal displays) is that their unique properties require unique software, hardware and knowledge. Adding to this challenge are the lack of availability of all of the above. The manufacturers and resellers provide minimal software and documentation, so users are usually left frustrated. This project aims to greatly reduce these barriers to use through software, hardware and documentation. On the software side, are two new portable C/C++ (embedded + Linux) software libraries which can generate text and graphics on the vast majority of these displays, using a common API. For the hardware side, the goal is to make the hardware available at a reasonable cost to individual users through open source hardware definition files and the ability to buy finished PCBs through worldwide retail channels. The documentation will come in the form of detailed info about the physical displays, their controllers and ample example code to show their use. There are two main types of EPDs, one has a controller built into the glass of the display and needs a few external components for a DC-DC boost circuit. The other type requires an external CPU and multiple external power rails to control all aspects of the display updates. Both will be supported by this project.

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/Universal-EInk

• Universal Sensor Libraries — Shared libraries for different types of sensors

  The aim of this project is to provide a group of open source, portable (embedded + Linux) C/C++ libraries which interface with a wide selection of popular I2C sensors. The I2C de-facto standard of using numbered registers for configuring and taking readings from sensors allows for some user-friendly abilities. These include the ability to auto-detect most sensors based on their fixed I2C addresses and, if present, WHO_AM_I register. It also allows for a common set of functions to work with sensors from a wide variety of vendors. These two elements together gave me the inspiration to create this project - a set of sensor libraries not written for individual devices, but for a whole class of sensors. For example, IMUs (inertial measurement units) share many similarities across vendors and sensor types (e.g. accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer). These commonalities allow for a single API to use a long list of sensors while still supporting their unique features. This in turn will liberate users from being locked in to a specific vendor - at any point in their project development they can switch components without having to rewrite their code. The sensor categories included so far in this project are: temperature/humidity/pressure, realtime clocks, IMUs, capacitive touch screens and CO2 gas sensors. A secondary benefit of this system of auto-detecting sensors is that less experienced users can simply tell the library what GPIO pins connect the sensor to the MCU and the library will "just work" without having to be told what specific sensor is in use, nor the I2C address it uses.

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/I2C-sensors

• WireGuard as a MirageOS unikernel — Implement WireGuard in OCaml and run as unikernel

  The project summary for this project is not yet available. Please come back soon!

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/MirageOS-Wireguard

Measurement, monitoring, analysis and abuse handling

• 5C — Continuous Code Compliance Control Center

  Modern software products routinely include over 10,000 packages. Smaller teams often do not have the bandwidth to evaluate everything for cybersecurity and CRA compliance, and do not have the budget or resources for proprietary tools or complicated processes. Continuous Code Compliance Control Center (5C) is a new DejaCode and AboutCode app that will provide an accessible overview dashboard, necessary for teams to focus on critical cybersecurity and compliance issues, and track security and compliance at scale with less effort. 5C will continuously monitor and aggregate events, from AboutCode tools and other FOSS tools integrated in AboutCode, to provide a visual compliance observability.

  The goals are to provide key features such as: actionable insights, shareable across stakeholders, drill-down from summary to investigate issue details and on-demand workflows for teams to resolve issues. 5C will facilitate proactive risk management with aggregated data and "Key Compliance Indicators", using a set of predefined and customizable rules for policies and thresholds to trigger alerting and reporting noncompliance and cybersecurity issues as events when needed. 5C plans to deliver the top layer for a FOSS solution to simplify meeting complex regulatory requirements and cybersecurity technical data management for effective and efficient automated compliance operations, across engineering, security, legal, and business teams.

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/5C

• Code Genetics — Scanning tool for identifying code origins

  It is inherent to the nature of FOSS to be reused and remixed. But it is difficult to find which project is the actual correct, upstream original project where the code was created first. And this is critical for both security and license compliance. For example, there are several known cases of people forking a FOSS project and changing its main license to suit their needs.

  Reviewing a codebase for its origin cannot be fully automated (yet) and requires extensive human review to disambiguate and establish correct provenance of code detected through scanning, matching, package manifests and other clues.

  AboutCode's Code Genetics features will be integrated in DejaCode, ScanCode.io and PulrDB to aggregate scan results from complementary FOSS tools including ScanCode, MatchCode, and will also work to integrate other tools such as BANG, OWASP depscan or BIDS, and helps to automatically identify the true, correct code origin.

  The purpose of the Code Genetics project is to significantly reduce the amount of human scan result reviews required to only a small ambiguous subset of complex cases where we cannot automatically identify the correct code origin.

  The outcome for this project will be to aggregate origin scans in AboutCode, design a policies and rules system to automate scan reviews and integrate these features in PurlDB, ScanCode.io, MatchCode and DejaCode as needed to efficiently review and curate scan results, and finally shared curated data as open digital commons using FederatedCode .

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/CodeGenetics

• Sortix os-test — POSIX test suite

  os-test measures interoperability and differences between every POSIX operating system (Linux, BSD, macOS, and many more). This project expands os-test with full coverage for the POSIX standard library for the C programming language. This new test coverage will check that each C header properly provides all the mandated definitions, and that each function succeeds on basic inputs. Detailed new suites will be written for the areas where defects or deviation from the standard are likely, or where edge cases otherwise might not be correctly implemented or even standardized. os-test continuously publishes test results for every POSIX OS as open data. os-test improves interoperability, since application vendors are able to know what behaviors they can actually use to write portable applications for all operating systems, operating system vendors can identify and fix their conformance issues, and the POSIX standard authors can measure adoption/rejection of the new POSIX.1 2024 standard. os-test is developed as a side project to fully implement POSIX in the new Sortix operating system.

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/Sortix

Middleware and identity

• Project SERVFAIL — Tools for DNS hosting

  The project summary for this project is not yet available. Please come back soon!

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/Servfail

Data and AI

• BeaconDB — Libre wireless positioning database

  BeaconDB is an open-source wireless positioning database that aims to be a privacy-friendly, ethically sourced alternative to for-profit location services which are not privacy-friendly. It crowdsources approximate locations of WiFi networks and cell towers worldwide, which devices can use to estimate their geographic position. The project plans to release the database into the public domain, allowing third parties to self-host compatible APIs and enabling devices to determine their location entirely offline for greater privacy.

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/BeaconDB

• Dokieli Collaborative — Secure decentralised and collaborative content authoring

  Dokieli empowers users with full control and ownership of their content through self-publishing capabilities. As a decentralised authoring, annotation, and notification tool, dokieli enables users to create and share human-readable and machine-processable content. Users can author and annotate a wide range of creative works, including articles, reviews, technical specifications, research and academic works, resumes, journals, and slideshows. They can link significant units of information from various open sources, store their content using their preferred storage systems, and share it with their contacts. Dokieli is committed to leveraging open internet and web standards to ensure interoperability and universal access. Content produced by dokieli is decoupled from the application, allowing users the autonomy to switch to any other standards-compliant application and storage system. This project will modularize key components to improve maintainability and encourage reuse across applications; rewrite the browser extension using modern standards to enhance usability and security; integrate real-time collaborative editing; add internationalization support to make dokieli accessible through language and locale awareness; and end-to-end encryption to enable secure, private collaboration across documents, annotations, and messages.

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/Dokieli-Collaborative

• Formulas — Programmatic reuse of spreadsheet formula's

  Formulas is a high-performance open-source computation engine that brings complete Excel-compatible formula evaluation to the Python ecosystem, without relying on proprietary software. It enables .xlsx and .ods spreadsheets to be loaded, parsed, and executed as standalone, programmable units. The project transforms traditional spreadsheet logic into reusable, callable functions that can be embedded in data pipelines, automation workflows, and modern applications. Instead of mimicking spreadsheet UIs, it exposes the logic layer of Excel as a scriptable backend component — ideal for ETL pipelines, CI workflows, APIs, notebooks, and low-code/no-code platforms. By treating spreadsheets as function-as-a-node components, Formulas empowers developers, analysts, and low-code/no-code builders to automate reports, validate models, and scale spreadsheet logic across data science, finance, and enterprise infrastructure. Fully scriptable, portable, and extensible, Formulas bridges the gap between spreadsheet modelling and modern programmable environments.

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/Formulas

• Frictionless libraries — Make Frictionless libs compatible with latest version

  Data Package is a standard consisting of a set of simple yet extensible specifications to describe datasets, data files and tabular data. It is a data definition language (DDL) and data API that facilitates findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability (FAIR) of data. This project will be updating and refactoring core libraries in the popular programming languages Python, R, and JavaScript to fully support Data Package v2 - the new version of the standard which was published in 2024. This ensures these tools remain reliable and interoperable.

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/Frictionless-Libs

Services + Applications (e.g. email, instant messaging, video chat, collaboration)

• Alps Webmail — Minimalist open source webmail in Go

  Alps Webmail is a minimalist, stateless webmail client designed for modern IMAP infrastructure. Built with simplicity, speed, and extensibility in mind, it avoids central databases and heavy frameworks, making it ideal for scalable deployments and low-maintenance environments. Alps supports multi-tenancy, responsive theming, CalDAV/CardDAV integration, and a lightweight plugin system using Lua or Go. It is already used by thousands of users and aims to become the default webmail layer for self-hosted and provider-grade email platforms, emphasizing usability, transparency, and long-term sustainability.

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/Alps

• BigBlueButton — Server-side extensions for BBB videoconferencing tool

  The project summary for this project is not yet available. Please come back soon!

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/BigBlueButton

• Convo XMPP client — Federated E2EE messaging for KaiOS feature phones

  Convo is a messaging application designed for feature phones. It follows the XMPP messaging standard which enables decentralised, provider-independent communication, while allowing interaction with other apps and services on the XMPP network. Powered by ConverseJS and based on web technologies, Convo is currently released as an unofficial proof-of-concept app for KaiOS, but has the potential to (in future) be ported to other web-based platforms too. The primary goal of this project is to develop Convo into a fully functional app that forms a viable messaging solution for KaiOS users, and publish it on the official KaiOS Store. Specifically, the plan is to replace the current homegrown UI with a better designed one based on the solid-telekram project, ensure compliance with the basic XMPP Core and IM Compliance Suites (defined in XEP-0479), and expose end-to-end encryption (OMEMO v0.3) functionality currently implemented upstream in ConverseJS. While not a direct goal, the project will also explore the possiblity of running Convo on other platforms, including button-centric platforms like CloudMosa's Cloud Phone (used in some devices by Nokia/HMD) as well as more "traditonal" touchscreen platforms which support webapps like Phosh and Ubuntu Touch.

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/Convo

• Dokieli Collaborative — Secure decentralised and collaborative content authoring

  Dokieli empowers users with full control and ownership of their content through self-publishing capabilities. As a decentralised authoring, annotation, and notification tool, dokieli enables users to create and share human-readable and machine-processable content. Users can author and annotate a wide range of creative works, including articles, reviews, technical specifications, research and academic works, resumes, journals, and slideshows. They can link significant units of information from various open sources, store their content using their preferred storage systems, and share it with their contacts. Dokieli is committed to leveraging open internet and web standards to ensure interoperability and universal access. Content produced by dokieli is decoupled from the application, allowing users the autonomy to switch to any other standards-compliant application and storage system. This project will modularize key components to improve maintainability and encourage reuse across applications; rewrite the browser extension using modern standards to enhance usability and security; integrate real-time collaborative editing; add internationalization support to make dokieli accessible through language and locale awareness; and end-to-end encryption to enable secure, private collaboration across documents, annotations, and messages.

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/Dokieli-Collaborative

• Ejabberd Great Invitations — More pleasant user registration for ejabberd XMPP server

  One of the biggest hurdles for XMPP in terms of widespread adoption compared to single vendor solutions is a somewhat more complicated onboarding process. To not open their service to unsolicited messages and abuse administrators often opt to not allow open registration, which complicates things even more. To counter these obstacles, recently the concept of „Great Invitations“ was introduced by one of the XMPP servers, aiming to make the onboarding process as seamless as possible - a single link is enough to guide a potential future participant. The goal of this project is to follow this pleasant way of onboarding, and implement it for ejabberd.

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/ejabberd-invites

• Formulas — Programmatic reuse of spreadsheet formula's

  Formulas is a high-performance open-source computation engine that brings complete Excel-compatible formula evaluation to the Python ecosystem, without relying on proprietary software. It enables .xlsx and .ods spreadsheets to be loaded, parsed, and executed as standalone, programmable units. The project transforms traditional spreadsheet logic into reusable, callable functions that can be embedded in data pipelines, automation workflows, and modern applications. Instead of mimicking spreadsheet UIs, it exposes the logic layer of Excel as a scriptable backend component — ideal for ETL pipelines, CI workflows, APIs, notebooks, and low-code/no-code platforms. By treating spreadsheets as function-as-a-node components, Formulas empowers developers, analysts, and low-code/no-code builders to automate reports, validate models, and scale spreadsheet logic across data science, finance, and enterprise infrastructure. Fully scriptable, portable, and extensible, Formulas bridges the gap between spreadsheet modelling and modern programmable environments.

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/Formulas

• Kdenlive — Parametrised keyframes for modern non-linear video editor

  Kdenlive is an open source video editing application with advanced features. Besides the usual editing tools, effects and color scopes, we also have advanced features like proxy editing, speech to text and automatic background removal. This project improves the editing experience by bringing a dope sheet to adjust the effects. Users will be able to decide which parameters to animate and how in a central place, within a single timeline.

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/Kdenlive

• Ricochet Refresh UX — Making privacy more user-friendly

  Ricochet-Refresh is a decentralised, open-source instant-messaging client that allows people to chat with each other anonymously and securely, via the Tor network. This project will strengthen Ricochet-Refresh’s privacy and anonymity guarantees by basing it on the Gosling library. The project will also improve user experience and implement various new features one expects from contemporary instant-messaging software, and prepare the way to bring Ricochet-Refresh to Android devices.

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/Rico-UX

Vertical use cases, Search, Community

• Archiyou — Parametric design and building

  The project summary for this project is not yet available. Please come back soon!

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/Archiyou

• Geoloquent — Location service for desktop and mobile Linux

  Geoloquent is a memory safe re-implementation of the Geoclue2 D-Bus location service API from freedesktop.org. Location services are used by location-aware apps within projects like Gnome and KDE and they range from utilities with low location accuracy requirements (automatic timezone and night-mode setting) to GPS navigation apps and sports tracking apps. Geoloquent is implemented in Rust with the Tokio async framework. The requirements for an improved, but backwards compatible location service API will be explored during the project in collaboration with the user community.

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/Geoloquent

• Heavy Compiler Collection — Unified DSP and Interface Design for Audio Plugins

  HVCC is a python-based dataflow audio programming language compiler that generates C/C++ code and a variety of specific framework wrappers. It leverages creative coding and the Pure Data visual programming language as a design interface for optimized and embeddable DSP code. It has found uses in different fields like procedural game audio, desktop production plugins and embedded hardware systems.

  This project aims to use the Pure Data visual language to allow for the immediate design of the user interface of these applications. The user will then be able to creatively put together both the underlying audio processing and at the same time the visual control interface of their project.

  — For more details see: https://nlnet.nl/project/HVCC

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Still hungry for more projects? Check out the overview of all our current and recent projects...

Inspired? If you are working on a project that contributes to the Next Generation Internet you can submit a proposal. The next deadline is August 1^st 2025.

Acknowledgements

The NGI0 Commons fund is made possible with financial support from the European Commission's Next Generation Internet programme, under the aegis of DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology (grant agreement No. 101135429). Additional funding is made available by the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI).