This announcement was originally published in the website of the NLnet Foundation.
We are happy to announce that 44 Free and Open Source projects have been selected to become beneficiaries from the NGI Zero Commons Fund. We congratulate all the grantees and thank them for their contribution to the digital commons: shared digital infrastructure that is available to everyone. The selection covers the entire technology stack from trustworthy open hardware, to services & applications providing user autonomy.
Toward a digital commons
The NGI Zero Commons Fund provides grants to people who help build the digital commons. Because all projects are free and open source technologies, all outcomes can be freely used, studied, shared and moderated by anyone. Together they provide the building blocks for a information and communication infrastructure that promotes digital autonomy and serves the common good.
Stacking up building blocks to reclaim the digital commons
So far 314 projects have received funding in the eights rounds of the NGI Zero Commons Fund. A new call opens every two months, the current call closes April 1, 2026. NGI Zero, the coalition of 16 non-profits led by NLnet foundation, has been responsible for five other funds besides the Commons Fund. Over all, the coalition has supported over one thousand Free and Open Source projects. The NGI Zero Commons Fund is financed by the European Commission as part of the Next Generation Internet initiative.
Meet the new projects!
Trustworthy hardware and manufacturing
- Arkin — Optical Tweezers Microscope
- LibreCellular 5G — Open hardware SDR-based 5G cellular network
- Open Source Battery Management System (OpenBMS) — Complete FOSS solution for battery management
- openENOC — Scalable Ethernet-based Network-on-Chip
- OpenTough — Open-source rugged enclosure for modular laptop mainboards
- PyUVM SPI Verification Component — Add Serial Peripheral Interface support to PyUVM verification tool
- Space grade Instrumentation Amplifier ASIC — Validate open toolchains with Open Hardware with high quality ASIC
- VACASK — High-performance Analog Simulation
- VeriBench — Verilog-AMS Testbench Framework for Open EDA Verification
- Implement inline Verilog/VHDL through Yosys — Functional simulation in Haskell from existing Verilog/VHDL code
- Coreblocks RISC-V processor core — Out-of-order RISC-V processor in Amaranth
- SWD Debug support in VexRiscv — Functional SWD debugging support for VexRiscv/VexiiRiscv
Network infrastructure incl. routing, P2P and VPN
- Open source MILAN hardware and software stack — Reliable real-time media streaming over ethernet networks
- SelectCast: Anycast in Path Aware Networks — Anycast for SCION and other path-aware networks
Software engineering, protocols, interoperability, cryptography, algorithms, proofs
Operating Systems, firmware and virtualisation
- Expanding the Felix86 emulator — x86 and x86-64 userspace emulator for RISC-V Linux
- Filling the Gaps in Testing Open-Source Firmware — Improved infrastructure for Open-Source Firmware quality assurance
- Machine-check usability — Formal verification of software written in machine code
- Nix Store disk usage improvements — Reduce storage overhead for Nix deployments
- Open Virtual File System (VFS) for Linux — Create a standard API for files stored across the net
- JShelter UX — Upgrading JShelter to increase functionality and user adoption
- Dual SIM for Mobile Linux — Support multiple SIM cards in open mobile OS-es
Measurement, monitoring, analysis and abuse handling
Middleware and identity
- F-Droid Architecture for Reproducible Apps — Reusable stack for reproducible builds of FOSS apps
- Hassle-free Peppol bootstrapping and onboarding — Open, reproducible, certification-ready e-invoicing stack for Peppol
- TrailBase — Backend-as-a-Service for building networked applications
- Autogram 2.0 — Create and validate eIDAS-compliant digital signatures
Decentralised solutions, including blockchain/distributed ledger
- OpenCloud Federation — Implement Open Cloud Mesh Specification in OpenCloud
- IronCalc — Fast spreadsheet engine in Rust
Data and AI
- DataLab Experimental Web interface (DEW) — Scientific platform for processing and analysing signals and images
- Linked Data Objects (LDO) Upkeep and Upgrade — SHACL and other improvements for Linked Data Objects library
- ORION — INspire-aligned raster map tiles for gvSIG ONline
- Papis — HHighly extensible document and bibliography manager
- ShapeThing SHACL renderer — View, edit and filter semantic data
- Updating Solid test harnesses for Linked Web Storage — Add W3C Linked Web Storage Specification to Solid test suite
- Vector based similarity search index for QLever database — Improved search for scalable open-source graph database
- Verified Credentials with zero-knowledge SPARQL queries — Enabling derived W3C Verifiable Credentials with Zero Knowledge Proof (ZKP)
- Solid-ActivityPub Interop — Bridge W3C Solid and ActivityPub
Services + Applications (e.g. email, instant messaging, video chat, collaboration)
- CalDAV Notes — Standards-based approach to notetaking levering VJOURNAL
- Drupal ActivityPub module usability enhancements — Improved UX and Client-to-Server capabilities for Drupal ActivityPub
- Galene — Libre high quality videoconfering solution
- TeXlyre — Local-first typesetting editor for LaTeX and Typst with real-time collaboration
Vertical use cases, Search, Community
- Hassle-free Peppol bootstrapping and onboarding — Open, reproducible, certification-ready e-invoicing stack for Peppol
- Open source MILAN hardware and software stack — Reliable real-time media streaming over ethernet networks
- Adno — Annotate and share curated cultural and scientific content
- Flock XR: Keyboard + Mobile/Touchscreen UX — Creative coding platform for 3D virtual worlds and spatial apps
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 1 April 2026.
If you applied for a grant
This is the selection for the August 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.
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).