Mozilla ploughs $300k into four open-source projects

Four "unobtrusive but essential initiatives" bankrolled by Mozilla

Mozilla is to invest $306,000 in four projects under the Mozilla Open Source Support (MOSS) programme.

"In the third quarter, the MOSS programme has made awards to a number of 'plumbing' projects, unobtrusive but essential initiatives which are part of the foundation for building software, building businesses and improving accessibility," said Mozilla in a blog post.

The organisation described the four projects as "unobtrusive but essential initiatives" in a blog posting announcing the funding. Three of the projects develop technology that Mozilla uses in the plumbing of its software, while the fourth is used by partners and "aligned with our mission".

The investments include $100,000 for Redash, a tool for building data visualisations; $50,000 for Review Board, software that manages web-based source-code review; $100,000 to Kea, which handles allocation of IP addresses on a network, and represents a successor to ISC DHCP.

Finally, $56,000 was awarded to Speech Rule Engine, a code library that converts mathematical markup into a vocalised form, technology used in the Firefox web browser.

"In addition to all that," the blog posting continued, "we have completed another two MOSS Track 3 Secure Open Source audits, and have more in the pipeline.

"The first was for the dnsmasq project. Dnsmasq is another piece of internet plumbing - an embedded server for the DNS and DHCP protocols, used in all mainstream Linux distros, Android, OpenStack, open router projects like openWRT and DD-WRT, and many commercial routers.

"We're pleased to say only four issues were found, none of them severe. The second was for the venerable zlib project, a widely-used compression library, which also passed with flying colors."

The organisation is open to submissions from other open-source projects, which will be considered for funding in the next round.

"Please consider whether a project you know could benefit from a MOSS award, and encourage them to apply. You can also submit a suggestion for a project which might benefit from an SOS audit," it concluded.